National Train Day

Today (Saturday, May 10, 2008) is National Train Day — we’ll see if the national news organizations pick up on it.
It’s a nice idea; celebrate the joy of train travel and perhaps railroads in general.
But it looks like National Train Day was instigated by Amtrak — like where are the freight railroads; what railroading does best, which is move gobs of freight with little impact?
Sadly, travel by passenger-train is long-gone, replaced by the next advances, the automobile and the airplane.
Neither is anywhere near as fuel-efficient, but auto is door-to-door, and airplane is much faster.
It’s just that neither is anywhere as efficient as the steel wheel on the steel rail.
Which is why railroading is so excellent at moving freight.
Freight railroading replaced the packhorse and the canal, which froze in winter.
Even now, you see 200 or more trailer-containers in a single double-stack train. Imagine all those trailers on the highway.
I’ve ridden three Amtrak passenger-trains, and each was more-or-less an adventure.
—1) Was a trip to north Floridy in the late ‘70s on the Silver Meteor, from Wilmington, Del. probably to De Land, Fla.
We had reserved a compartment, the beds were 90° from the tracks, and a tiny toilet-and-sink was crammed into a corner.
The trip was terrible. You could hardly stand up.
And sleep was out of the question. That old Heritage car, probably built in the ‘50s, rode like a buckboard, and tossed you into the wall over every switch and road-crossing.
All I could think about all night long was the thing derailing.
And the power went shortly after leaving Wilmington — probably the cable between the engine and the train had unplugged.
It was reconnected at our stop in Baltimore, but promptly disconnected again. Here we are in the diner trying to eat supper in utter darkness. —Never again Amtrak without a flashlight.
Linda’s parents lived near De Land — her father was still alive at that time.
I also resolved to never again ride at 90° to the tracks.
—2) Was to my brother Jack in the Boston-area in the early ‘80s; I think before he moved to West Bridgewater.
We rode the Lake Shore Limited, which split at Albany-Rensselaer; half to New York City, and half to Boston.
Got it in Rochester around 6 a.m. — amazingly it was on-time; and that’s from Chicago, and waiting for Chicago connections.
My strongest memory is riding across the vast Montezuma Swamps — the railroad here is more-or-less on long wooden trestles.
And of course, two of the previous four tracks were long removed. What trestles those tracks were previously on were rotting and crumbling.
East of Albany-Rensselaer, the train travels the old Boston & Albany route across Massachusetts, including over the Berkshire mountains in the western part of the state.
Approaching Boston the power went as we dove into tunnels, plunging us into darkness. Not too bad though, as it was still daylight outside the tunnels.
Returning we rode the train down to New York City, a bus to Grand Central Station, and then the Niagara Rainbow back to Rochester.
This was back before the West-Side connector, whereby Amtrak could service New York state out of Penn Station.
New York state service had to be out of Grand Central, and I could have walked there faster than the bus.
The Rainbow, which went to Niagara Falls and Toronto, was the Turbo; but the plastic windows were so bad you couldn’t see. Our trip up the Hudson was lost.
But most of west of Albany was track-speed: 79 mph. —The image I remember is flashing red crossing signals at road-crossings. And all the horn-blowing that proceeded.
—3) Was Auto-Train, from Lorton, Va. to Sanford, Fla. For those not knowing, you also take your car along in a car-carrier on the train.
We had reserved a tiny Slumbercoach section, which is a small compartment for two beside a center-aisle.
Slumbercoach compartments are on each side of a center-aisle. You can’t stand up, but they have retractable beds parallel to the tracks. Your bathroom is down-the-hall.
The train was also new equipment; the new Amtrak double-deck cars; too big for the Hudson Tubes. So Auto-Train can have that equipment since it isn’t going to New York City.
Perhaps being newer equipment, it didn’t ride like a buckboard. It was possible to sleep most of the time, although a bit cramped.
Auto-Train meant driving all the way from the Rochester area to Lorton, which is near Washington, D.C.
That’s an all-day trip, except it was only 4 p.m. when we got to Baltimore, so we kept going.
We drove all the way to Lorton, scoped out the Auto-Train terminal, and then camped out in a motel.
Auto-Train was next day, and left in the afternoon.
Our accommodations were cramped, but the power never went. Dinner was about dusk. Dinner was okay in the diner, but there were only four menu-selections, plus we had to share a table with complete strangers.
Which was okay, except for my choking on a bump and blowing coffee all over the stranger across from me.
We followed the same route as the Meteor, including the torturous trackage around Jacksonville — torturous due to mergers and rationalization. —There is a very tight curve north of Jacksonville, which has to be negotiated very slowly. (Auto-Train also negotiates almost the equivalent of street-trackage through in Ashland, Va., hard by the Randolph-Macon College campus.)
Sanford wasn’t far from where Linda’s mother lived, so she was there when our van was unloaded. Her father was dead by then, but Linda’s mother was still living in their house — she was probably in her 80s.
We also took Auto-Train back, and were offered a free upgrade to a compartment, since the train was half-empty.
But we didn’t do it. I didn’t wanna take a chance violating the 90° rule.
Unlike previously, it was a pleasant ride; avoid driving all the way to Floridy, or flying (in a flying cattle-car, which saves time, but is a drag. Flying is no longer an adventure — it’s endured).
And riding Auto-Train you end up with your own car in Floridy, instead of some strange rental maintained by neanderthals. (“Just pump that tire up. All it has to do is hold air until we rent it. Who cares if it leaks down over a day?”)

A “double-stack train” is a long train of well-shaped flatcars, in which two trailer-van (without wheels) containers are stacked two high in each car. Stacked that high requires added clearance — tunnels had to be raised, and/or tracks lowered in tunnels or under bridges. The tunnel at the top of the hill on the Pennsylvania Railroad line over the Allegheny mountains had to be enlarged to clear “double-stacks;” although by then the line was Conrail. Stacking containers two-high is more efficient than one-high on a trailer flatcar train, although no highways wheels can be included.

My younger brother Bill lives in Wilmington, Del. My wife’s mother currently lives in De Land, although at that time she lived in nearby Debary.

My younger brother Jack currently owns a home in West Bridgewater. At that time he lived in another more urban town near Boston. West Bridgewater is also near Boston.

“Penn Station” is now the main Amtrak station in New York City. It’s under Madison Square Garden, and once was the Pennsylvania Railroad station, since torn down. Grand Central Station is the old New York Central passenger station for New York City, but is now Metro-North commuter line. Penn Station and Grand Central were apart, but the old NYC “West-Side Freight Line,” which had become moribund, was used with a new tunnel to connect New York state railroad service directly to Penn Station. It had previously stubbed at Grand Central.

“The Turbo” was/is a special passenger-train powered by gas turbines. It’s a French design, although restyled for America, and only saw service in New York and to Milwaukee.

The old New York Central line on the east bank of the Hudson River from Spuyten Duyvil (in the Bronx near the northern tip of Manhattan Island) to Albany is extremely scenic. It’s now Metro-North to Poughkeepsie.

The “Hudson Tubes” are the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tunnels under the Hudson River from north Jersey to New York City. They were built in 1903 as “tubes.”

RE: “Just pump that tire up. All it has to do is hold air until we rent it. Who cares if it leaks down over a day?” —We had a tire go flat once in a north Floridy rental. The wheel-rim was bent, but the tire held air when inflated, yet leaked slowly all day, so that it was flat next morning.