Originally Posted by Sassy!
This Winter I took The Coast Starlight from LA to Oakland. I was in the dinner when we stopped in Salinas CA. There were many desperate and angry looking people milling about and cop cars patrolling the right of way around the station.
At the table across from me was an Indian graduate student. I asked him to draw the curtains and I will explain in a minute. He immediately drew the curtains tight and volunteered he didn't like the scene outside either and went on to explain to the retired Anglo couple from Ohio that we were riding in a very fancy train and his street smarts from India told him to not rub it in the faces of those less fortunate milling about outside.
It was sad
For the record, I have been at the Salinas station several times and I did not feel uncomfortable at all. Salinas is not Beverly Hills (neither is my hometown), but it is not a third world country either. It is a blue-collar, agricultural community with all the attributes that come with that demographic. Given the diverse nature of Amtrak clientele, I suspect there were people as unsavory on board your train as you feared were lurking outside your curtained window at the Salinas station.