Day Six
Amtrak Chicago to Los Angeles 300p – 815a Southwest Chief First Class Car 5 Room 11

The predecessor to Amtrak’s Southwest Chief was the Santa Fe’s Super Chief. Its gleaming silver cars were a standard bearer for the all-Pullman trains of its era. Memorable were the Southwest themed lounge cars, the Fred Harvey run dining cars and the luxurious Pleasure Domes with their large, overstuffed loungers upstairs under the glass. The Chief was synonymous with luxury on rails and was known as “The Train of The Stars” due to its popularity with the Hollywood glitterati.




Santa Fe’s Super Chief



Santa Fe’s Super Chief Postcard


I used to live in Durango, Colorado where I went to school at Fort Lewis College. Back in the mid-1970s I’d occasionally hitch-hike down to Gallup, New Mexico and catch the train over to Flagstaff, Arizona – about three hours and 180 miles down the line. Alas, I was a few years too late to have ridden The Super Chief for by then Amtrak had taken over the nation’s passenger rail service and the train was now known as the Southwest Limited. The story behind the name change to Southwest Limited and thence to the Southwest Chief is interesting and reflective of Amtrak’s history as a whole.

When Amtrak assumed operation of the nation’s passenger rail service back in May of 1971, train travel in America was in serious decline. The increasing popularity of travel by car and the interstate highway system combined with ever more affordable (and faster) air travel made rail travel increasingly passé. Worse yet, the government provided assistance to the competition in the form of federal subsidies for highways as well as to the airlines via the Essential Air Service program.

Over time, rail passenger traffic declined to the point where it was no longer profitable to operate long distance passenger trains. By 1970 many once esteemed streamliners that rolled across America with the pride and dignity that came with a tradition of world class service and accommodations were eventually reduced to just three or four lonely cars carrying a smattering of passengers and a demoralized crew. Like Arlo Guthrie sang, America had a bad case of the “disappearing railroad blues”.

Amtrak inherited a fleet of aging equipment and unhappy employees, many of whom faced an uncertain future. Indeed, about 70% of trains (and jobs) that had operated in the months before Amtrak took over immediately ceased to exist the day after. Most of the trains that Amtrak did choose to continue operating kept their original names.

Throughout the “Good Old Days” of post-World War II railroading, many people developed relationships with trains based upon the expectation of the quality services that had once been consistently provided. You could always count on your shoes being shined overnight and ready for you in the morning aboard the Broadway Limited. Some folks said the consistently excellent food aboard the Fred Harvey run dining cars of the Santa Fe was worth the extra cost of riding it. The pecan pie on the Kansas City Southern’s New Orleans bound “Southern Belle” was justifiably famous and what better way to end a successful business presentation in Chicago than with a perfectly made “Highball” in the stylish tavern/lounge car that brought up the rear of the “Pere Marquette”. There were years of pride and tradition associated with these named trains and it really was sad to see them slide into decline - much like witnessing a cherished relative slowly wasting away from a chronic disease.

Throughout the decline of the sixties and early seventies, a few railroads such as the Santa Fe and the New York Central still strived to provide a high level of service on their premier trains. When Amtrak took over, the subsequent standardization of services nationwide resulted in a considerable drop in quality for trains like the Super Chief and the Twentieth Century Limited.

After witnessing three years of substandard service under Amtrak administration, the Santa Fe went to court in 1974 and won an injunction forcing Amtrak to stop using the name Super Chief because the level of service was so far beneath the standard traditionally associated with the train – and by extension - the railroad. For the next ten years the ex-Santa Fe Chicago to Los Angeles train was called the Southwest Limited. It wasn’t until the arrival of Amtrak’s new bi-level Superliner equipment in the early 1980s along with a system wide enhancement of passenger services that the Santa Fe relented and allowed Amtrak to change the name of the train to the Southwest Chief.

Fast forward to the present and today’s Southwest Chief is one of the most popular and well patronized trains in the Amtrak system. Although its First Class service bears little resemblance to the standard set by the Santa Fe’s all-Pullman Chiefs of the 1950s, a ride aboard this train still provides a comfortable and scenic adventure for those willing to slow down and spend a couple of days traveling across America at “See Level”.




Route of the Southwest Chief


The 2265 mile route will take us through Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California before pulling into Los Angeles two days from now at 8:15am. Anticipating the pleasant journey to come, I strolled down the platform to car 331 where car attendant Maria stood with bright eyes and a pretty smile, ready to greet and assist her passengers.




Train time at Union Station


As always, I’ve booked Roomette 11, located downstairs on the lower level. Maria helped me stow my bag and promised to stop by with more information about the trip ahead once we were underway. Grabbing my camera, I headed upstairs to take a few pictures of Amtrak’s spacious bedroom accommodations – hopefully before any of their occupants arrived.

When it comes to taking pictures onboard a train, the best time to do so is while sitting in the station. Since the train is not moving, you can get much better photos than you would while it’s rocking and rolling its way down the tracks. As for those wonderful bedroom accommodations, I would love to enjoy such spaciousness but of course, they come at a considerably higher price – to wit twice the amount of points that I’ve cashed in for my humble roomette. Still, one can always dream. Let’s go upstairs and check ‘em out!




Amtrak’s Superliner Bedroom Seating



Amtrak’s Superliner Bedroom Seating



Amtrak’s Superliner Bedroom Toilet and Shower


When I heard the “All Aboard” call ring out, a glance at my watch indicated it was 2:58pm. Last minute photographers and laggardly passengers scampered onboard, the doors were closed and at 3 o’clock on the dot the twin P42DC locomotives powered up and slowly eased us out of the station.

Like many big city terminals, the boarding platforms at Chicago’s Union Station are underground so the first five minutes of this trip were spent rolling through a subterranean world of support beams, bare dirty light bulbs, dark railroad cars and the occasional human being. In the darkness it was difficult to discern whether the people I saw were railroad employees or homeless denizens of the station’s underworld.

As we emerged into bright afternoon sunlight, I reached down into the makeshift cooler I’d created from my garbage can and extracted a nicely chilled can of beer. Reclining my seat, I opened a sleeve of mixed nuts and took that first long pull off the beer. Ah… I love this part of the trip! It’s like Friday night with the whole weekend ahead of you. Here we are rolling along through the Chicago suburbs with the promise of forty-three more hours of pretty scenery, good company, tasty meals and comfortable accommodations. Play that out from the comfort of a big wide seat accompanied by the rhythmic clickety-clack of the rails and you’ve got a wonderful recipe for travel contentment. I had another pull on my beer and considered my lot in life. It’s good. It’s all good…

The Southwest Chief follows one of the most historic and scenic routes in the nation. First blazed by native Americans, then Spanish conquistadors, pioneers and gold miners, the route eventually became known as the Santa Fe Trail. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway traces its beginnings back to 1859 when work began to lay rail connecting Atchison and Topeka, Kansas with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Why stop there though? Albuquerque was reached in 1880 and the next year the ATS&F tracks reached Deming, New Mexico where they connected with the Southern Pacific’s line to the West Coast. The combination of these two lines resulted in the nation’s second transcontinental rail route, the first being the Union and Central Pacific Railroads’ more northerly mainline through Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. Through a combination of construction and trades with the Southern Pacific, the Santa Fe reached Los Angeles in 1897, thus making the ATS&F the first railroad to have its own tracks from Chicago all the way to the Pacific coast.

But enough of the history lesson. Let’s check out the view!

The maximum speed for Amtrak’s Superliners is 79mph. The one exception is out in western New Mexico and through most of Arizona where speeds of up to 90mph are attained. While this would be considered slow by European and Asian rail standards, here in America’s heartland it looks and feels pretty fast. I think it’s a good speed to appreciate the landscape zipping past my window which at present is comprised of low rolling farmland offset by attractive old farmhouses, barns, silos and the occasional copse of cottonwood trees. This is what airline passengers refer to as “fly over” country. While not the dramatic scenery of the mountain west, it still holds a rustic appeal that could never be appreciated from the air. I particularly like the colorful old barns I see out here. Some of the communities we passed through were little more than a collection of houses set amidst a nicely treed meadow. As we flashed through the occasional small town I was impressed by the old brick buildings and quaint storefronts, most of them housing businesses owned by real people rather than large corporations. There are no Burger Kings or CVS Pharmacies on these streets. This is the small town America that many people only get to read about. Most tourists, especially those from overseas, rarely ever venture out to towns like these but I’d like to think that if they did they’d leave with a very favorable impression of their visit, and indeed America as a whole.




Main Street USA
As seen in Saguache, Colorado


So, it’s been said that a train is a place that’s going somewhere. On this train that place includes a full service dining car and the Sightseer Lounge Car. A trip of this length can be very long and uneventful if you confine yourself to your seat or bedroom. Let’s go out and mingle!

Unlike an airplane where everyone is going to the same place, the train is constantly dropping off and picking up new passengers along the way. As such, spending some time in the lounge or diner provides a unique opportunity to meet a constantly changing collection of travelers as well as the train crew who are there to serve you. The lounge car in particular invites conviviality.

Unless you’re a hardened road warrior, for most of us the act of traveling somewhere is still pretty exciting. Sitting in the lounge car with your favorite libation while enjoying a close up view of the land you’re traveling through invokes a sense of shared experience in a way that the comparatively sterile confines of a modern day airliner never will. Honestly – the midflight experience aboard most airplanes these days is pretty darned boring since you’re sitting in a darkened tube where most people have their window shades drawn, their Bose headsets on and they’re hooked into their laptops, IFEs or mp3s. The social environment screams “Leave me alone!” and invites isolation.

By comparison, on a train you’re surrounded by light and scenery. The single window in my roomette is huge, measuring approximately 2 feet high by 5 feet long. In the Sightseer Lounge the multiple windows are even larger, starting at knee height and measuring approximately 3 ½ feet high by 6 feet long. Where the wall curves into the ceiling are even more windows allowing for better viewing when traveling through canyons or past high mountains. As one who’s always related to the earth’s natural wonders more so than its manmade ones, I really appreciate the light and view afforded by all those windows.

The lounge car on a train is a social place where the shared excitement of the trip fosters interaction. People like to talk about their upcoming adventures – be it a quick trip to their cousin’s wedding 300 miles down the line in Kansas City or a month long excursion through the American West on an Amtrak Railpass. I’ve often found that once I’ve located an open seat in the lounge car, a simple “Hey there – how’s it going? Where you headed?” can often result in some great conversation and occasionally even friendships. Other times it’s a pleasant place to take in the scenery through the huge windows. Electrical outlets are available throughout the car for those wanting to plug in a laptop or DVD player.




Amtrak’s Superliner Sightseer Lounge
One half of the lounge car is booth and table seating



Amtrak’s Superliner Sightseer Lounge
The other half is individual seats and couchettes. These swivel to face either side of the train.
A group of four could conceivably turn two from each side to face eachother



Santa Fe Chief Lounge


Today I met Joe and Wendy who were on their way back home to Newton, Kansas after a week visiting family in upstate New York. Their journey had started the day before aboard the Lakeshore Limited out of Albany, New York and this was the second time they’d done this trip by train. Wendy explained that they’d discovered the train five years ago when a search for low airfares between Wichita and Albany proved to be an unpleasant and unfulfilling experience. Amtrak offered a great fare and although the departure and arrival times out of Newton weren’t ideal, at least they wouldn’t have to drive down to Wichita and pay for airport parking.

Since we all had 6:00pm dinner reservations, we decided to continue our conversation over dinner in the diner. I should add here that I usually try to arrange for an earlier seating because experience has taught me that the more popular entrees – such as the steak – occasionally run out later in the evening.




Dining car on the Southwest Chief



Menu Covers are unique to the train


Our waitress Bonnie arrived with a cheerful “Good evening” and an offer to bring drinks while we looked over our menus. After informing us that the Chef’s Special was a Turkey Shank, she then headed off to fetch a Jack Daniels for me and a Sam Adams for Joe. Shortly we were joined by Jorg, a young traveler from Austria who was on his way to Flagstaff to see the Grand Canyon.

Bonnie returned with drinks and salads and we placed our orders – the Turkey Shank for me and Wendy, a flat iron steak for Joe and the baked chicken for Jorg. It’s interesting to note that passengers are required to fill out their own meal order forms – the wait staff is not allowed to do so. There’s some archaic reason behind this but as of this writing I simply can’t recall so it’ll have to remain a mystery for now. Perhaps the next trip report!

Amongst our group, I was the only one traveling in the Sleeper. As such all of my meals were included in the fare, which is a big plus when you figure in the cost of eating three meals a day onboard. Indeed, the inclusion of meals is in large part why I’m willing to spend the extra money or points to travel in First Class on Amtrak. The quality of those meals is why I’m willing to part with several thousand extra miles to travel in First Class aboard the world’s finest airlines. Those of you who’ve read my other trip reports know that for me at least, meals are an integral part of an enjoyable travel experience. They represent delicious respite from the ennui of long distance travel, especially on airplanes where we’re so often isolated in our own private suites for hours on end.

The Swiss-British writer and philosopher Alain de Botton puts it best in his book "A week at the airport - A Heathrow Diary": "Naturally airline food is dismal when we compare it to what we'd get on the ground but this is to miss the point. The thrill of airline food lies in the interaction between the meal and the odd place in which one is eating it. Food that, if eaten in a kitchen, would have been banal or offensive, acquires a new taste in the presence of the clouds. With the in-flight tray, we make ourselves at home in an unhomely place: we appropriate the extraterrestrial skyscape with the help of a chilled bread roll and a plastic tray of potato salad."

And to think de Botton would appear to be writing about Economy Class meals! Here at FlyerTalk, more than a few of us have come to appreciate the elegance – not to mention deliciousness - of a well prepared and presented meal in International First Class. Some of you have also noted that I sure seem to eat a lot of food on my flights. Part of this perception is due to the fact that I focus on it and part of it is due to the fact that I take full advantage of the wonderful service being offered. After all, it’s not every day I’m presented with beautifully presented multi-course meals and on the rare occasion where it does happen, it’s either at Thanksgiving or at a very nice restaurant where I’m also going to be presented with a substantial bill afterwards.

So what I’m saying is if there are any self-righteous food police out there who cringe at what they consider to be my personal gluttony, go stick a fork in it because in this regard I am totally unrepentant. Indeed, one of my personal commandments when traveling in First Class is “Thou shalt not count calories!.

And what about all that food?! Well let me tell you, that turkey shank dinner was absolutely delicious! I accompanied it with a baked potato while Amtrak threw in some kind of a vegetable mix on the side. Joe, Wendy and Jorg all liked their meals as well. Conversation flowed and I enjoyed listening while my dinner companions provided some color to their personal lives and travels.

Interestingly, Joe turned out to be – as he put it – a vegetarian gone bad. Now he’s really into barbecue! I can totally relate because back in the eighties I dabbled in vegetarianism for almost a year before eventually returning meat to my diet. That said, I love vegetarian food and to this day still eat lots of millet, couscous, quinoa and other things which many of my fellow Americans tend to shy away from.

It also turned out we had something else in common. We were fellow newgrass and jamband fans. Joe and Wendy had been to a good number of festivals over the years, including my old favorite each summer in Telluride, Colorado. I raised a few eyebrows when I related that the cost of a three day pass for my first Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 1976 was a mere $19.00. These days that same ticket runs over $200.00!

Jorg was on his first trip to America and though he didn’t have much to add to the music related parts of our conversation, his tales of his present travels were quite interesting. He’d purchased an Amtrak Railpass and managed to put together an impressive itinerary that over the past two weeks had taken him from New York down to Florida, then back up to Washington DC and down to New Orleans. He’d actually ridden up to Chicago on the City of New Orleans with me but somehow our paths had never crossed while on that train. After visiting the Grand Canyon, he was headed for Los Angeles and then up to San Francisco and on to Denver before returning to New York and back home to Salzburg for the summer. He had a good spirit of adventure about him and was already looking forward to his next trip to the U.S. when he hoped to spend more time in Florida as well as see Yellowstone National Park.

After dinner, Jorg headed back to his seat in the coach while Joe, Wendy and I returned to the lounge car. I also made a quick trip back to my roomette to grab that bottle of Jim Beam Black Label that I’d purchased in Chicago.

For those of you who may be concerned about my beer and whiskey purchases prior to this trip, I don’t buy it all for myself. The last thing I want to do is sit in my roomette and drink all alone. I’m a social drinker and to that end I certainly don’t want to pay $7.00 per single serving bottle of Jack Daniels or $6.00 for a beer when with a little advance planning a $23.00 bottle of bourbon will supply the equivalent of about twelve of those $7.00 minis. I’m into sharing a good time and it’s a lot less expensive to “buy” rounds from my $23.00 bottle of bourbon than it is to pay $21.00 for a single round of three plus tip. Additionally, I’m not into getting drunk. I never have been. I appreciate the flavor of good beer and/or bourbon as well as the affect – but only to a point. My bottle would serve us well for this night.

Amtrak allows First Class passengers to bring their own liquor on board, though consumption is permitted only in their private compartments. Now for the most part I’m a fairly law abiding guy and were I to have had the spaciousness of a Superliner bedroom I would have gladly invited Joe and Wendy back for a drink. Unfortunately, Amtrak’s roomettes are a bit tight for any more than two people and so I decided to bring my bottle up to the lounge and enjoy it there. Discreetly.

The main thing in situations like this is to be discreet and be cool. Joe and Wendy seemed like pretty even keeled people so it was worth the chance. If we got caught we’d probably only be admonished to stop although you never know – some hard a$$ed conductor might decide to take a more Draconian stance and kick us off the train at the next stop.

For my part, I enjoy the challenge. After all, years of practice smoking pot in school taught me the benefits of discreet behavior. Those who were incapable of being discreet often got caught and were subsequently kicked out of school. Definitely not cool. I learned my manners while going to school in California with a bunch of pretty smart kids. We did mainly pot and LSD (back when it was still good!) and yet we still got our work done. My graduating class (all 16 of us) had a cumulative grade point average of over 3.1. We weren’t a bunch of down and out stoners. We used pot, sure, but the responsible ones amongst us didn’t abuse it to the point where we didn’t get our work done. Mind you I’m not putting this out there in support of drug use – I’m just saying this is what I went through back in the 1970s and how it’s colored my attitude and approach today. Different people will have different experiences. Mine were positive.

I told my dreadlocked nephew recently that if he ever got caught smoking pot, he ought to get a ticket for stupidity rather than 6th degree possession because it’s so easy to just enjoy your smoke, be cool and not get noticed. It’s the idiots that need to hoot and holler and generally draw negative attention to themselves that ruin it for the rest of us. That said, I quit smoking pot by the time I was 25. Although I enjoyed every bong hit I ever took, I returned from a trip to Australia one day and just decided I’d had enough. It was that simple.

We’d polished off about a third of the bottle (Wendy was drinking Screwdrivers from the bar) when we decided to call it a night. At this point we were about forty-five minutes out of Kansas City, sitting on a siding waiting for yet another freight to zoom by. There sure are a lot of trains on this line, and all of them except for us are freights. In those places that are double tracked, the sight and sound of these freights roaring by is quite impressive. I mean, we’re rolling along at close to 80mph and they’re heading in the opposite direction at similar speeds. The two of us are only about five feet apart and our combined speed when we meet is about 150mph. It’s all quite sudden. And noisy.

Since Joe and Wendy would be detraining at 3:30am in Newton, I bid so long to them and exchanged addresses so I could send them a couple CDs worth of music. We shared similar musical tastes and in our conversations it turned out I had all kinds of music from bands they’d never heard of. I spend a lot of time on sites like livedownloads.com searching out eclectic bands and performances, and I’m always happy to spread the good tunes. And who knows – maybe we’ll cross paths at a festival someday!

Back in my roomette, the temperature was pleasantly cool. My bed had already been put down and set up for the night so after breaking in a new tooth brush, I grabbed my latest book and put in a half hour or so of reading before lapsing into a comfortable sleep.