WORKAMPING & TRAINS

After writing about the special AMTRAK charter train the other day, I started thinking about the last 10 years, and our workamping experiences. It suddenly dawned on me, that out of the 9 years that we have taken mostly summer jobs, 7 of those were in locations where there was a train. When accepting those seasonal work experiences, did my deep rooted fascination with railroads have anything to do with the acceptance of those jobs? Perhaps, but until just a few days ago, it was never something that dominated the thought process.

After we retired from co-ownership of our Harley-Davidson Dealership in 2001, that first summer was a non-working, 3 month long motor home trip to Alaska. The next two summers, we traveled around the country with the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), pulling the Harley-Davidson Pro Stock Drag Bike Team merchandise trailer. No trains so far.

In the summer of 2004, the call of Alaska took us back to Skagway, a little town at the north tip of the inside passage. We fell in love with everything about Skagway, and for me, the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad was icing on the cake. I rode on every excursion they had to offer, and instead of one or two years, we kept returning to Skagway for the summers of 2004, 5, 6, & 7.

In 2008, even though we hadn't run out of enthusiasm for Skagway, we decided that there were other parts of the country that we wanted to explore. During the summer of 2008, I took a 3 month job as a supervisor for the Glacier National Park shuttle bus system. The passenger train that stopped just outside the west gate of the Park was the AMTRAK Empire Builder. I watched it come and go on almost a daily basis, and vowed that someday, I would ride that train from Seattle to Chicago.

In the summers of 2009, and 2010, we decided not to work, and spent those summers traveling around the country and Canada. Last year, I accepted the job I have now, a bus driver for the Grand Canyon National Park transit system. The train that arrives every day here at the South Rim, is the Grand Canyon Railroad, and an occasional special charter train like the other day.

So, has there been some sort of subconscious, subliminal train thing going on, that has something to do with where we end up spending the summer? Could be, but as long as I get my train fix, I'm not going to try and analyze the reasons we end up where we do. Next summer, it's back to Alaska, where the White Pass & Yukon Route RR, and the Alaska Railroad have reservations with my name on it, and the workamping part of the equation will disappear.