MURPHY'S LAW

First, a correction to the last blog post. It was 1962, not 1964, that my Grandmother Alice took this 15 year old on his first long distance train trip to the Worlds Fair in Seattle, WA. During the last 2 days, I retraced some of that trip through most of Oregon, and all of Washington, riding on the AMTRAK Coast Starlight, that runs between Los Angeles and Seattle. I caught the N/B train at Chemult, OR, after a 1 hour bus ride from Sunriver, OR. The train was only 1 hour late, so I grabbed a Subway sandwich for later in the trip, and waited impatiently for the train to arrive. AMTRAK (the taxpayers) is building a new platform in Chemult, and the one pictured above, with the train arriving, is only temporary.
About an hour and a half into the trip, the train came to a stop, after cresting the summit of the Cascades, southeast of Eugene, OR. Shortly thereafter, the announcement over the PA system stated that there was a "stalled freight train in front of us, and it was sitting on a single track". (Translation - no way to pass) We were stopped on a section of double track, just up the hill from where the freight was stalled. Apparently, one of the freight's engines quit, and the remaining engines didn't have enough power to pull the heavy load up, and over the hill. So, as you can see in the pictures, we were allowed off the train, while we waited for the freight to pull half of it's train to the top, then go back down and get the other half.

Two and one half hours later, the freight train was out of our way, and we continued toward Seattle, now running over 3 hours late. This really didn't make any difference to me, but it caused all kinds of problems for many of the other passengers, who were going to miss their connection with the E/B Seattle to Chicago train. Those folks, and there were dozens, had to get off the train in Eugene, and take a bus to Spokane, WA, where they were hopefully going to reconnect with their Chicago train.

Instead of arriving in Seattle at 9pm, we pulled into the King Street Station at midnight. I quickly grabbed a cab, and was at the Executive Pacific Hotel, and in bed by 1am. The next morning, (yesterday), the train's scheduled departure was at 9:45, so I was up with the chickens, had breakfast, and was at the train depot at 8:30. At 9:45 the lady on the PA system announces that the train is going to be about an hour late, because the train crew discovered a malfunction with one of the lounge cars, and they had to pull it out of the train, and replace it with another.
One hour turns to two, and two turns to almost three. At about 12:30, the S/B Coast Starlight finally pulls out of the station, almost 3 hours late, before it even started. Again, this didn't really bother me except for the 4 hour wait at the King Street Station.

The return trip got me back to Chemult at 11pm, instead of the normal arrival time of 8pm. Fortunately, the bus connection was sitting there waiting, and got me back to Sunriver at about midnight. Despite the delays, and other operational problems, AMTRAK is still in my opinion, a great way to travel, particularly if you spend the extra bucks for a sleeping room, which includes all of your meals in the dining car. During one meal, I sat with a lady who worked for 4 years in Africa with Jane Goodall, the lady who became well known for her study of Chimpanzes. At last nights dinner (a pretty good New York Steak), I sat with a Grandmother, Daughter and Grandaughter who were returning to their hometown of Fresno, CA. When I mentioned that I was born in Fresno, that opened up the conversation to several interesting subjects. The picture below, is of the King Street Train Station in Seattle, that is undergoing a multimillion dollar renovation, in an attempt to restore it to it's former status, as one of the great train stations in America.

All in all, it was a fun trip, that returned me to a time and place, almost 50 years ago, when my Grandmother Alice took me on a train adventure, that I'm quite sure increased my life long fascination with trains. But, as the saying goes, "what might go wrong, will go wrong", and for my 2 days with AMTRAK, unfortunately, Murphy's Law was the prevailing factor.