You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Taking the train.
It’s romantic. It’s Nostalgic. It’s how America was forged from Atlantic to Pacific.
When I think of the train, I think of immigrants toiling in the blistering sun of the new American West laying down tracks, dying where they work so that some fat industrialists can butter his bread with fish eggs.
I think of women in petticoats and men in top hats and wood burning engines tooting a whistle and blowing billowing smoke out of a stack on a prairie surrounded by a sea of buffalo and angry Indians.
Why all the choo choo talk?
Because I’m on Amtrak 777 headed from San Juan Capistrano to Camarillo, California, just north of L.A.
My train experience is limited.
I’m not sure what to expect. It could be the love scene out of Risky Business with Tom Cruise. Perhaps it will be a knife fight on the platform with transportation pirates.
I am excited by the endless possibilities of this locomotive crap game.
I’ve been on trains before. I have ridden many a subway in Manhattan. I’m not sure a guy peeing in the corner is considered a romantic mode of transportation outside of Bangkok. I’ve taken the Music City Star in Nashville and rode up front with the engineer. While that is cool as hell, it’s work. And of course I’ve been on the Dumbo Express in Disney World. If your idea of transportation is holding on to a big set of ears while you travel, then this is for you
But as a form of transportation, this is a unique experience.
San Juan Capistrano is where the swallows return so they say.
The day is bright and beautiful. The sky is filled with blue and the sun at noon is all ready blistering the Earth.
I am carrying my bags through the station, which is a series of wooden and stucco buildings next to the tracks. The buildings consist of windowed restaurants and business offices, many of which are empty.
Suddenly I hear bells and the gate goes down. People scurry off the tracks.
The platform is long. It’s cement and narrow, barely ten feet wide. It’s not very romantic.
I walk along the building looking for the ticket office. I want to find out how this works.
Suddenly a bright silver train races into the station. It is 30 feet high and so loud, it sucks all the air of the tracks. The brakes squeal, engines roar as the massive locomotive churns to a stop.
Doors open and people get off. People get on. Conductors in blue uniforms with old-fashioned conductor hats step onto the platform.
They appear to take a last look and then lean back into the train.
I expect them to scream all aboard.
They don’t.
Quietly they pull their heads back inside their big metallic office like Amtrak turtles. The doors close and the train engages.
I expect the big silver wheels of the wild west train of my dreams to slip on the metallic track, struggling to get grip. I expect a toot of the whistle and a burst of smoke from a smoke stack. I expect to hear a slow, melodic choo choo of the locomotive struggling to pull thousands of pounds of dead weight.
It is none of that.
Today’s Amtrak is powerful and efficient. There is no extraneous screeching or slippage. The train, like a massive truck, simply throttles up, and accelerates away.
It turns the corner like a moving thunder-storm and disappears from sight and sound.
After a moment, the crossing arms rise and people begin to walk across the tracks from the Restaurant on the proverbial other side of the tracks.
I look at the diners who are seated outside, just 10 feet from where trains are coming and going.
There is a glass barrier between the diners and the tracks, but it literally 10 feet away. When a train arrives every few minutes, it’s loud as a football stadium and smells like a tractor pull. How good is a steak when consumed behind the tail pipe of a diesel engine?
As I move forward past the odd birds lining the station, I can’t help but notice that this is a diverse crowd. It’s like pulling clothes off a rack at a swap meet. You could get a Pierre Cardin. You might get a Fruit of the Loom.
I get to the Amtrak office. It is dingy, no bigger than a double wide. The people waiting inside are a step above Grey Hound, a step below South West Airlines. Like I said, a swap meet of humanity.
I’m waiting for the 1:24 pm North Bound.
A man with a French accent is in line ahead of me. He is covered with tattoos. He is asking the manager about trains to L.A. to Santa Barbara. He seems confused. It takes a long time. He mixes English with French. The mutton chops in the office stare at him like he is damaged goods.
The man completes his business telling everyone he is going to get something to eat before his train.
I snicker. Great, you do that.
I move to the window.
The man looks at me with questioning eyes.
“I have my ticket,” I say holding up my document. “How do I know which train is my train. None of them have numbers.”
He looks at my paperwork from his side of the thick glass.
“You are 777 to Camarillo. That’s north bound.”
He points to one side of his office.
“That’s North Bound. If the train is heading that way at 1:24 pm, get on it.”
“That’s it? No stand in line with your boarding pass? No reminder of what flight this is or where I’m heading?”
“No sir. This is Amtrak. This is a train”
He points to his left again.
“That’s north. At 1:24 the train going that way. Get on it.”
“not very romantic?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
I stare at him. He’s pointing at a blank wall in an office with no windows. North looks like West which looks like South. It all looks confusing. I wave and head back out to the tracks.
I put my bag and lap top down. I sit on a bench. The sun is scorching. I immediately feel the powerful rays on my head. I look up to see if there is any shelter.
There is no roof. There is not even an over hang or a gutter. There is no protection from the elements. The bench is on a platform next to the tracks. The platform is 10 feet wide and ends at the wooden building. The sun is over head in the sky at such an angle that there is no shade.
Who designed this train station? Genghis Khan?
There is no shade.
“how can a major company like Am trak, build a train station with no roof, no protection. Sure it’s 80 degrees today, but what about when it rains or the wind blows. Do customers have to sit in the elements like this is 1880?
Perhaps that’s the romance of the train, I think to myself. Perhaps like the Wild West, you have to sleep under the stars and eat baked beans by the camp fire. You sleep with your horse and keep your six-shooter under your poncho in case you are attacked by Mexican robbers. Perhaps this is the train experience Am Track is going for.
I stand from the bench and move to a circular shadow on the ground. It is an oasis of shade created by a light post near by. The shadow is about 2-and-a-half feet in diameter. I center myself in the circle, trying to keep from the scorching sun. I look up and the lamp is eclipsing the sun.
How crazy is this? I’m standing in a train station in a shade circle.
I look to a man seated near me on the platform. He is wearing jean shorts, a white under shirt and leather army boots. His hair is disheveled and he has a scruffy unkempt beard. There is a bit of a visual slowness about him.
He reminds me of Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man, the movie with Tom Cruise.
I almost expect him to start yelling “One Minute to Wapner. One minute to Wapner.”
The sun is relentless.
I watch as a random woman walks down the platform. I am not sure where she is going. She is shielding her head with a magazine.
Suddenly the bells and whistles sound.
The gates go down.
It’s 12:45 pm.
Is this my train I wonder? is it early? There’s nobody to tell you anything. Which way is North?
I look to Judge Wapner.
Which way is North dude?
He looks at me oddly.
He has a blue eye and a green eye.
For a moment, I believe he is sizing me up deciding where to hide my carcass.
He points down the tracks.
Like a spatial relationship question on an SAT exam, I try and imagine if the direction he is pointing is the same as the manager in the office.
My mental acuity is disturbed by the fast approaching train. This engine is coming from the other direction. I scan the front of the train for a sign. There is nothing. No numbers. No signs like a bus telling you which city is next.
One set of tracks and a train. It’s confusing. There are no numbers on the trains. There are no signs that say this train is arriving or that train is leaving. It is not the airport. I wonder if the Wild West had better signage.
FRONTIER – THIS WAY!
“How do you know which train is your train?” I ask a man with an Amtrak uniform.
“Northbound is that way,” he points. “Southbound is that way. When a Northbound train arrives at 1:24pm, that’s your train. Get on.”
It sounds easy, but it’s also a little nerve wracking when trains come and go on the same track at the same station north and south. You really gotta be minding the time.
I stand in my shade Oasis for the next 30 minutes. As the sun sails across the sky, the shadow moves on the platform. I follow it.
I am now standing in the middle of the platform like a man lost in space.
Then, like clockwork, at 1:24pm, a bell chimes, the gates flop down over the road and a North Bound train arrives.
I grab my bags excitedly, nervously. Could this be the 777?
I walk up to a female conductor.
“Is this me?” I show her my ticket.
“Camarillo. Yep, that’s you.”
“What do I do?”
“Get on and walk upstairs.
“You want my ticket?”
“Oh we’ll get your ticket.”
I look at her oddly as I walk in the train wondering if the romance of the train is about to begin.
Life’s Crazy™