Erwin, on the tracks.

I had planned to visit my GF in Eugene over the Memorial Weekend but my truck with its 396,000 miles on the odometer decided that it was not going any further.

I debated a flight, very expensive and nearly impossible at this point, the bus…a trip from hell, or something I have never done for pure transportation, the train.  I decided to hit the rails.

Booking the trip was easily done online at a surprising $95.00 dollars each direction for an assigned coach seat.  The train was scheduled to leave Davis at 11:33 pm and arrive in Eugene at 12:44pm for a whopping thirteen plus hour trip.  I arrived at Davis an hour prior to departure to sign in and present my drivers license for authentication.  After waiting a bit we were told that the train was going to arrive late due to a delay in the Bay Area.

The Starlight Express engines were heard rumbling off in the distance the headlight came into sight as she rounded a gentle curve in the track and then glided to a screeching stop at the Davis station.

Boarding was simple, finding my seat was quick and only a slight challenge in the dim light of the coach.  Having ample space to stow my bags I sat down and waited for the mighty beast to lurch forward and take me on a new adventure.

In my past I’d taken steam trains in Felton California and the White Pass Railroad in Alaska more for entertainment than needed transportation.

The train came to life and started down the tracks propelling itself forward as I began to nod in the early morning hours… waking briefly at the Chico stop, adjusting my position so as to move the blood around my posterior.

The next morning I woke to the sounds of Boy Scouts preparing to go to the dining car for breakfast.  Ahh the stirrings of youth…at an early hour…having nothing to toss at them in hopes of quieting them I resign and nod off again.

The Dunsmuir stop is announced in the public address system and I am now unavoidably awake.  Out the window the skies are light but the sun has not yet cracked over the horizon it is five o’clock in the flagging morning and I am tired but happy to see new scenery, nature not often seen especially by the pavement patrons miles away traveling to fast to really observe and ponder the beauty around them. 

Weary from lack of shut eye and sore from not having the sense to bring a pillow I traversed the train cars in hopes of finding the dining car for breakfast.  Coach car after coach car I walk through interrupted only by the loud and wobbly transitions between the cars.  At last I come to the “Sky Car” where people sit under a glass canopy looking at the scenery whilst listening to their iPods and reading their iPads and the like.

I open the door to the dining car and am immersed in the familiar smells of breakfast.  An attendant approaches me and asks how many in my party, I turn as if to look and count turn and reply one.  The blue vested, white shirted 60-year-old woman attendant took me to a table and sat me face to face with a 20-something couple traveling from Los Angeles to Seattle.  All exchange a reserved “good morning” as I sit down and start to read the menu.  The offerings are few but look tasty especially after a 12-hour unintentional fast.  The waitress comes back and I order the eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast with coffee in hopes of starting my day off energized and on sound footing.

Now left face to face with the cupid-eyed, cooing couple I begin to trade pleasantries about the trip.  Were did they get on? Where are they getting off?  How they liked their cabin?  Pointing out an antelope and the start of snowfall we dine together as the miles tick away marked only by an occasional clickity clack and wobble as we hit a switch or uneven track.

To be continued.