Leaving the California desert
behind, the Sunset Limited crossed the Colorado River and made its way into the
Amtrak station in Yuma, Arizona. It was about 11 p.m. With the lights in our
coach car dimmed for sleeping, most of the passengers were doing just
that–sleeping. In the seat next to me, my son was sleeping soundly, as well as
my husband and daughter in their seats across the aisle.
Behind me, the Fresno Family and
the Air Force Family
had all been asleep for an hour or more. In front of me,
the little Buddhist monk had stretched out across his seat and the adjoining
empty seat. All around me seats were reclined for sleeping or passengers were
taking advantage of an empty seat and stretched out across two seats. |
| Located between Lordsburg and Deming, New Mexico, this is the lowest elevation for a rail crossing of the Continental Divide in the country. |
Just as I was thinking I was the
only passenger still awake, I saw a young man return to his seat directly in
front of my husband and daughter. He was a slim young man with short neatly
trimmed red hair, parted to one side. He appeared to be in his early thirties.
He was carrying a clear plastic cup containing beer, which he had purchased at
the snack bar. He put his cup inside a cup holder at his seat and picked up a
laptop. From my seat, I could see his laptop screen and found myself looking at
it with amazement. He appeared to be working with photos and videos and was
applying text to them. But it was what he was doing with the text that caught
my attention. He seemed to be experimenting with different formats, and at one
point, he had flames of fire shooting out from the letters.
A few minutes later, a woman
from the adjoining car came through on her way to the dressing room, and I
followed her and removed my contacts. When I returned to the car, the conductor
and car attendant were both at the seat of the creepy guy looking at his ID.
Then they searched his luggage. Apparently, nothing threatening was found, and
he sat down. But a few minutes later, he was up again and walked into the
adjoining car. He wasn’t gone long, and when he came back to his seat, he
turned slightly to look back at the red-haired guy and me. He had just sat down when the conductor
returned and had another conversation with him. This continued until I fell
asleep. The conductor and car attendant or both were at his seat, constantly
talking to him. I never felt afraid, because I knew the conductor was keeping
close tabs on this guy.
When I awoke about 5 a.m., the
creepy guy’s seat was empty, and I assumed he had gotten off the train
somewhere during the night. The sun was coming up as we rolled into Tucson. It
was tricky keeping up with the time in Arizona, because the state does not
observe daylight saving time. But when I went to the snack bar, it was open and
I returned with two cups of coffee. I woke my husband up, handed him a cup of
coffee and pointed out a large cactus in the desert. This was the first time we
had seen large cacti on the trip. The train was still running about five hours
late, otherwise; we would have sped by all this scenery in darkness.
As we passed Davis Monthan Air
Force Base, we saw some of the thousands of planes which stand “mothballed” in
the aircraft “boneyard,” where they are preserved by the dry desert air. This
was a very interesting sight, and I was very glad the train was late, so we
could see it.
A few minutes later, we reached
Vail. This was the part of the trip I had dreaded on the way out, although we
went through it then in darkness. It is here that two rail bridges overlap.
Westbound trains take the higher bridge and eastbound trains the lower. For
some reason, reading about these bridges made me fearful of them. Westbound
trains begin a descent crossing the bridge, and eastbound trains begin
climbing. Actually at the overlap, there was a third bridge. I don’t know why
or when it is used, but none of the bridges were scary. As we crossed the
bridge and started into the canyons, I
could feel the train pulling–briefly. But this was the only time during the
trip, I felt the train pull while it was climbing.
The train was clicking along
without any stops for freights. It wasn’t long before we were back in New
Mexico. As soon as we left Lordsburg, New Mexico, we began seeing billboards
advertising the Continental Divide, which is crossed between Lordsburg and
Deming. This is the lowest elevation for a rail crossing of the Continental
Divide in the country. My husband and I began looking for the crossing. After
the billboards disappeared, we figured we had somehow missed it. Then we
spotted it...and laughed. There in the desert was a sign that stated
“Continental Divide Elev. 4,585 Ft. And that’s all there was...just a sign.
Now that I had seen the “sign,”
I returned to the snack bar for more coffee and breakfast. Most of the
passengers in our car had gone to the dining room for breakfast. But our kids
still preferred the snack bar, so we brought food back to our seats.
When we reached El Paso, the
train had made up two hours of our schedule, so we were now just three hours
behind. As the train sat in the station at El Paso, I looked out the window and
saw a police car parked next to the platform. And standing on the platform,
next to a young woman with long dark hair, was the creepy guy who had boarded
in Yuma. Surprised that he was still on the trip, I wondered why the police
were talking to him. And why was that young woman with him?
Just then the Fresno Family
returned from the dining room. “Do you know why the police are talking to those
two?” I asked them. “Yes!” squealed one of the little girls. “She has a snake
in her bag.”
“Are you sure?” I asked in
disbelief.
The Fresno mom nodded her head
and said, “Yes, we saw it on our way to the dining room. She was riding in the
next car and had it out, wrapped around her neck. The other passengers reported
her to the conductor, and he told her to choose between the snake and her seat.
She told him, ‘I choose my snake.’ So he told her she had to get off the train.
Then that guy tried to defend her and they put him off, too.”
As I kept my eyes on the scene
on the platform, I saw the woman take a burlap bag from her backpack and hand
it to the policeman. As the the police lead the woman and the creepy guy away
from the platform, I realized I had walked right by her seat on my way to the
snack bar. Apparently, the creepy guy had moved into the next car during the
night.
After the train wound its way
out of El Paso, we were back in the West Texas desert, where we would travel
the rest of the day. As we rolled through tiny towns and communities and passed
by schools in the late afternoon, we could see residents walking laps around
the school grounds.
Around 9:30 p.m., the car
attendant came back and told the Air Force couple that the train would soon be
arriving in Del Rio. As they gathered up their things, we all wished them well
with their new baby and said “good bye.” Their little boy was still awake and
still smiling.
As the train left Del Rio, all
the passengers in our car prepared seats for sleeping, including the red-haired
computer guy and me.
Jerking motions from the train,
as the Texas Eagle cars were taken off at San Antonio, woke me briefly, but I
was soon fast asleep, again.
Upon waking the next morning, I
wasn’t sure where we were, but the scenery was green and pastoral. After I
returned from the snack bar with coffee, I saw signs for Sugarland and knew we
were getting close to Houston, I was pleased that we were still just running
three hours behind.
At Houston, most of the
passengers in our car got off the train, including the Buddhist monk. An older
couple came on board with a teenage girl and helped her find a seat. It was
about 8 a.m., and the girl looked very sleepy. She was carrying a bed pillow
and blanket. She took a seat a few rows up from my husband and daughter and
then stretched out across both seats. She pulled the blanket up around her
head, partially covering her blonde hair and seemed to fall asleep,
immediately. The older couple, her grandparents, told the conductor she was 15
and going to Lafayette. The conductor assured her grandparents that she would
be watched closely. And she was. The conductor and car attendant checked on her
frequently, while she slept.
As the train traveled slightly
north from the station, we approached Houston Lake. The tracks were just above
the water, and it was more than a little scary crossing the lake, with the
train swaying slightly.
.
By now the only passengers left
in our car, in addition to the teen girl, were the Fresno Family, the
red-haired computer guy and my family. My husband and I talked to the Fresno
couple about their life in California. The husband was originally from
Michigan, but his wife had never traveled outside California.
Still just three hours behind
schedule, I had no worries about arriving late at night at the Lafayette station.
We hadn’t stopped for any freight trains all morning, and the miles were just
zipping by. Pretty soon, our trip would be over. Once we were back in
Louisiana, it seemed like we were just flying by all the little towns. And then
it was time for me to call the owner of the shuttle service. Now I wanted to
slow the train down.
Standing next to the door, as we
neared Lafayette, I told the conductor, “I don’t want to get off. I don’t know
when I’ll get to ride a train, again.”
“That’s the way I felt the first
15 years I worked on this train,” he said, wryly. “For the last 15, I haven’t
felt that way as much.”
As the train pulled into the
station, it looked much different from the day we had boarded. It was 2:30 on a
Friday afternoon, and the platform was crowded with people waving and welcoming
the train. I don’t know if most of those people were there to board the train
for New Orleans or if some passengers were getting a huge welcoming party.
The shuttle owner was waiting
among the crowd and showed us to the executive car he had brought to drive us
to the airport to pick up our car.
What a wonderful trip! And now
we had our first 5,000 rail miles under our belt.
B
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