Trains were of a central interest and fascination to my family as I grew up. Perhaps it was because of my grandfather George Harrison Woodward’s job as an engineer on what was called the Northwestern Railroad. He grew up in Seward and Fremont Nebraska along the Northwestern tracks, and later in Omaha.
Every year, we would get a large Union Pacific calendar sent to our home from one of my folks’ friends who worked for UP in Omaha. It had beautiful large photos of passenger trains in various scenic areas…with a few freight photos mixed in. It graced our kitchen every year through all my growing up years. Of course with my parents from Omaha originally, Union Pacific was a big part of their life, as Omaha grew up with the railroad. That is where the transcontinental railroad started its westward construction.
We had an old Lionel train as children and my dad, Max V. Woodward started an HO gauge train set in our basement in Missouri, complete with tunnels, a town with street lights, houses, businesses, cars etc. He even used a projector to project a mountain scene on the wall and had me paint the colors with water paints.
I recall my Dad taking the train from Chicago to Denver in September of 1952 to attend my aunt’s wedding in Denver. Only he could go, but we did go north of our town (Villa Park) to see the train go by. He was standing between cars and waved to us as we stood in front of our car. I was only 6, but remember this as if it were yesterday. The route we are taking today does not go straight west, but rather to the southwest, so the route isn’t the same to Denver, at least the first half.….
I rode the Union Pacific’s Portland Rose most summers back and forth from Kansas City to Denver to spend a few weeks with my grandmother Woodward and my aunt. I loved that day long, 600 mile trek. We would reach speeds of over 90 mph out in western Kansas and eastern Colorado. The telephone/telegraph poles along the rail line had mile markers on each of them, so I pretty much knew how far we’d gotten. Each quarter mile was marked with a horizontal stripe…one for a quarter mile, two for half, three for three quarters, then the mile number. My dad showed me how to watch my wrist watch and time it with the markers. Easy math said if it took one minute to go a mile, we were going 60 mph. Forty five seconds for a mile would be 90 mph. Sometimes it was less than that. I would sometimes stand between the cars as my dad had several years ago. There were half doors open, so the heat of the western plains would be prominent and some breeze. I loved every minute of it.
One year my brother Dale (who was 6 ½ years older than me) and I went to my grandmother’s together. She did state later “that’s the last time I’m taking you both together!) But as he went on to college, I would go every year on my own. Of course I loved the stay in Colorado, but the train trip was equally exciting and fun.
Dale began his treks to Colorado as a youngster, leaving from Chicago right after school was out and sometimes not coming home until just before Labor Day, time enough to get ready for school. I believe he was only eight when he made his first venture alone (my how things change). But the conductors/attendants were responsible for children travelling alone those days. My grandmother often told me of Dale’s first trip when there had been major flooding in central Nebraska that June and the train was delayed for more than a day. I guess he was quite the trooper, but my grandmother was worried of course. So, I will be following some of the same tracks he did more than a half century ago.
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This Amtrak adventure beginning on Sept. 20, 2011 is a fulfillment of something I have wanted to do for many years. Although I have ridden Amtrak overnight from Rochester NY to South Bend, I have never taken a long journey in a sleeper “roomette.
Since I retired recently, I am now able to do a few things I have wanted to do…this being one. I am on my own as my wife is still fully employed and could not be away for this long. I have her blessing (I think), as being cooped up on a train in tight quarters probably wouldn’t be her thing!
I go to Sacramento (change trains there) on the California Zephyr. It was a passenger train operated jointly by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW) and Western Pacific (WP). The CB&Q, D&RGW and WP christened "The most talked about train in America" on March 19,1949 with the first departure to happen the following day. It was purposefully scheduled so that the train passed through the most spectacular scenery in the daylight. The original CZ ceased operations in 1970. Since 1983, the California Zephyr name has been applied to a Chicago-San Francisco Amtrak service, which operates daily and is a hybrid route between the route of the original CZ and the route of its former rival, the City of San Francisco. Another former rival was the San Francisco Chief. During 2010, the California Zephyr carried a total of 377,876 passengers. My grandmother Woodward often took it from Denver to the West Coast to see her sister and friends.
Roomettes are, well, small and efficient at best. Although the information on the website suggests it can be for two (the two seats make up one bed, the other pulls down from the side and ceiling) you’d have to be sort of small and not have much with you. There is room for bags in the hall, so you can put one there…they are in the open, so don’t put anything of high value there. Having an assortment of Zip-lock bags was useful, as there was no place to put my change, wallet, etc. at night. Larger towels are in the shower room.
The shower provided good hot water with good pressure. The individual toilet rooms are in the same area, so you have to plan a little bit how to manage from the shower room to the sink area, what to brink from your roomette etc. Much of the Amtrak experience is about planning your next step and efficiency!
This particular car has only one electrical outlet. Remember, Amtrak started in 1971 before laptops, cell phones etc. The newer cars apparently have two outlets, but there aren’t many newer cars! Amtrak is trying to buy 45 new cars, but funding has been held up. Many people are against subsidies for Amtrak. There are many reasons passenger service went away in this country, one of which was strict union rules requiring jobs kept on trains that weren’t needed, taking away any efficiency that private industry could find. Although I’m not big on government funding of things, I believe helping to underwrite passenger rail service is money well spent, providing transportation opportunities for America that is “green,” but also has a cost to it. Perhaps it could be government owned and privately managed to help assure better efficiencies. Let’s hope it gets bigger and better and not go away.
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I call this Amtraking Through My Life because I started my life in Chicago (first eight years). This train starts in Chicago. It goes through western Illinois. My maternal grandmother was born there (Astoria, Ill.) and her relatives with history to Germany (Bader) settled there and started a small town called Bader, which is just a crossroads with several houses and the Bader cemetery which holds a few relatives. I, of course, lived in western Illinois as well (Moline) for 21 years before moving to Indiana.
The train goes through western Iowa, where my maternal grandfather Orlando Ewall and his brother Nils grew up. His parents and brother were born in Sweden; there are variations of where “Orley” was born; my mother says it was on the ship coming from Sweden; a death certificate says he was born in Denison, Iowa (1868). My mother was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where her father owned a grocery store. Her brother Herb lived in Avoca, Iowa, for a number of years. (I drove through there earlier this summer, as I recalled that someone lived there…and checked some family history to verify it was him.)
The train stops in Omaha, Nebraska. I’m basically the only immediate family member not from the Omaha area, although no relations live there anymore. My folks moved from Omaha to Chicago in 1943 as my father left the Omaha Police Department to take a job as a safety investigator for Employers Mutual Insurance of Wausau. We would visit there periodically…it was a long day’s drive (500+ miles) from Chicago on two lane roads back in those days.
We travel through Denver where I spent summers with my grandmother Woodward and aunt. My grandmother had a getaway cabin built 35 miles west of Denver. The Amtrak passes by it. More on Day 2.
And then on to California where I spent many Christmases and other times with my brother and his family. I did a lot of business in California as well with both my days at John Deere and AM General.
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The train left Chicago exactly on time from Union Station. The room car attendant gave his explanation of things as we were under way.
It didn’t take long to get out of town and into the close Chicago suburbs of Berwyn and Riverside, still neat clean communities. Then to the southwest through La Grange, Western Springs, Hinsdale, Naperville (first stop), Aurora etc. The town centers look similar…all with neatly lined shops and businesses and “cute” little train stations, some active, some not. I believe the local commuter trains (Metra as well as freight trains) use these tracks as well. Beware…trains often don’t go through the center of cities, but the low rent districts or behind factories and other places where junk is stored.
Amtrak across most of America uses tracks that are owned by the freight lines, so there are occasional stops to let freight trains pass, although we’re on double tracks right now, so, not sure why we have had to stop twice for them.
Southwest of Chicago we hit the “real” central and western Illinois…flatlands with occasional rolling hills filled with corn stalks as far as the eye can see, interspersed with occasional soybean fields.
As far as I can tell, I have had no relatives on either side involved in agriculture of any sorts. Even some of the histories I can find mostly on my mother’s side point to carpenters, teachers or other professions, although there is the Bader farm, but I believe that farming was more for their own sustenance.
More digging into family history will be required to find what the Ewall Swedes did in western Iowa, but I don’t recall farming ever mentioned. My grandfather owned a grocery store, and then later worked as a salesman for a paper company.
The train made a quick stop at Princeton, Illinois, known for its antique stores. The conductor just announced that the next stop at Galesburg, Illinois, would be a smoke break stop. Times have changed from when I rode Portland Rose. Then they had smoking and non-smoking cars. I recall walking through the smoking cars to the dining car and seeing the clouds of smoke down the aisle. An old caboose sat in the small park by the train station with “Burlington Northern” written on it. The Burlington was another great railroad that catered to passenger traffic when it was popular, but now of course is relegated to freight only.
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As a sign of the times, power-generating wind turbines can be seen in the distance. One thing the prairies of Illinois can offer is wind. Some consider it visual pollution, but there is something intriguing about them. Hopefully one day they will be able to pay for themselves.
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Galesburg, Illinois, is about 45 miles south of the Quad Cities, which has no Amtrak service. Moline, part of the Quad Cities is where I settled in 1974, taking a job at the international headquarters of Deere & Co (John Deere). It is where I met my wife, and started our family. We lived there until 1995 when we moved to near South Bend, Indiana (Granger).
My brother and his wife Jean came to visit us once at Thanksgiving, taking the Amtrak train from California. We picked them up in Galesburg and returned them there several days later. It was the warmest Thanksgiving in western Illinois that I remember. We took a great hike through Blackhawk State Park in Rock Island. They must have brought the warm weather with them.
As we pull out of Galesburg station, where I was able to step outside for a few minutes and enjoy the warm fall temperatures, I can see the tracks going to the southwest, where the Super Chief that I will be on comes from Los Angeles through Kansas City and on up. The tracks we are now on will take us straight west across southern Iowa and on to Sacramento where I change trains to Bakersfield.
Amtrak promotes crossing the Mississippi River as a scenic interest. I guess if you didn’t live a mile from it for nearly a quarter century, you would probably think it spectacular. The Zephyr crosses the Mississippi and enters Burlington, Iowa, a river town of 25,000+. The river is exceptional with its great width at this point…and of course it gets wider further south. The Burlington station had an old steam engine and coal car in their railroad park, with a “Burlington Route” decal on it. Burlington is the home of the original Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, which became Burlington Northern and is now BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) Railroad. Amtrak runs along their routes in this part of the country, one of their main ones being the bridge we just crossed the Mississippi on. (They are building a new one next to it.)
Mississippi River at Burlington, Iowa
Construction on a new railroad bridge across the Mississippi
A BNSF engine ready to haul a load of freight.
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Dining Car Experience: With a Roomette you do get three meals per day paid for. The dining car manager comes around and takes the time you desire to eat for dinner…so not everyone goes at once. They seat you with other passengers. I was delighted to be with three British ladies who were travelling with a large group of other Brits all over the U.S. They were lots of fun to talk to. Since I lived in England two years and have been back twice, I always like it when I meet British who are tourists over here. In the observation car I also met a British couple not with the larger group plus men from Switzerland and Holland. Taking the California Zephyr across half the country apparently is popular with many Europeans.
At the first breakfast I met a nice couple from San Francisco who were originally from Atlanta. Lunch brought a couple from southern Colorado and a gentleman from Denver, all with interesting conversation to share.
Meeting and talking to others is definitely part of the Amtrak cross country experience, unless you work hard to be a hermit.
The food on Amtrak is very good, with several tasty choices. I had trout, mashed potatoes and a vegetable medley plus a salad. They offer “Newman’s Own” salad dressings. There are several deserts to choose from as well, none of them oversized, but just right, including a few choices of Hagan Daz ice cream. Breakfast and lunch have several varied items as well; I had French toast and bacon for breakfast and a nice chicken and macaroni dish for lunch. Service is efficient and polite.
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As mentioned, Amtrak shares track with freight lines. Unfortunately the freight trains have priority. This train stopped several times out in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason. Although we were on double tracks much of the way and didn't have to pull off on sidings to let oncoming trains by, apparently we would get behind slow freights that may have been to turn off to spurs to pick up more cars or let them off. I was told by one traveler that the Super Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago doesn’t have nearly the delays as there are not near as many coal cars on that route. Much of the US coal is mined in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado and winds up coming across this central artery.
Because of the delays, I did not make stay up long enough to see Omaha (in the dark). However, after the sleeper car attendant set up the bed, I did periodically look out the window and did see that we were at the Omaha station.
Omaha, as mentioned was the center of the universe for our family for many years, although I was not from there. Most all my relatives on both sides were. Many of the family photos I spent hours sorting prior to this trip for my nephews to review were Omaha based.
I was aware of our stop in Lincoln, Nebraska’s state capitol. It holds somewhat of a place in my life as well, as my dad attended the University of Nebraska for one year. I never heard why he did not continue, but my assumption is lack of funds in the late 1920s. Another fond memory of Lincoln was attending a Nebraska-Missouri game with my folks while I was still in high school. Tailgating was not a fad at that time; however some businesses hosted after game parties, opening their doors to fans for food, drink and merriment (if Nebraska won).
A close family friend, Norm Prucka (wife Imogene) ran a business called Carpenter Paper Company, with offices in Lincoln and Omaha. They were a major paper supplier to the region. I am not of the friendship closeness, but it was there. Norm knew I like to draw houses and cars as a youngster and took me into a large room with all kinds of paper and said “you can any and as much as you want. Your dad and I didn’t have much growing up, so you can have as much as you want.” Well, I knew this was not my dad’s or mom’s philosophy and was somewhat taken back by the remark. I knew if I took an excessive amount of drawing paper, I’d hear about it later. So I selected a few things I thought I might use and left it at that. I’ve often thought about that…poorer folks from one generation lavishing children of another. It may be the reason many people talk about the excesses of the Baby Boom Generation. So much for memories of Lincoln while laying inside an Amtrak roomette.
I really don’t know why I thought I would sleep comfortably on the train. The bedding was long enough for a six-foot-one male and was adequately comfortable, but I’m not used to my bed rolling and shaking while I’m trying to sleep. I believe if the train maintained one speed for longer periods of time and not slowed up, stopped and started, I might have had a more restful night. I did catch about one solid hour near daybreak and decided to be grateful that I could stretch out comfortably and at least rest, if not sleep.
About that train whistle/horn! I love to hear the train warning horns in the distance at night, three miles from our home. Often when I hear a train horn sound, I think of my dad and brother who showed such fondness for trains and passed it along to me. However, we hear them only a few times during the night, not at every road crossing. It isn’t loud from inside the train and my car is relatively near the rear of the train. I can’t say that it is bothersome…the rocking and shaking over track that needs repair was the main issue.
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