#california zephyr

[avoyagetoarcturus]

The view of Nevada out my window on Day 3 of my California Zephyr ride from Chicago to California (July 2024). 🚞 For Yeehawgust Day 29: Rode Hard.

[transit-fag]

Women don't want jewelry or make up, they want to ride the California Zephyr between Chicago and Emeryville for over 2000 miles and 50 hours. Give her a good birthday present this year

[drteslasagan]

The California Zephyr

[inkymaterial]

Riverside Train Ride • California Zephyr, Colorado countryside

[coolthingsguyslike]

[dorkvania]

The California Zephyr passing the California Zephyr

[bigtimesinsmallspaces]

Big Times in Small Spaces: The Big Train Adventure

So this is it, this is the day it all begins-- the BIG train adventure. That's me getting on the Palmetto Amtrak train in the early morning in North Charleston. By the end of this adventure I will have traveled across the country on the California Zephyr, north on the Coast Starlight to Portland OR, back east on the Empire Builder, south on the Capital Limited, and right back to Charleston.

A few years ago I had a blog called "Living Large in Small Spaces". It was about my retirement and downsizing from a suburban home where a family was raised and a life was lived and moving south to a little place called Folly Beach. I guess we're still building on that concept. By that I mean we are still trying to simplify and actively seeking to divest of stuff/things and clothes that we never should have owned--while also declaring a formal divorce from Dollar Tree. With that said, I don't think you can find many smaller spaces than a coach seat on the train.

So I'm here to share this adventure with you, in case you, like me, find yourself waking up in the middle of the night longing to be on a train. And not just any train, but the big one-- The California Zephyr. The one that is crowded and never on time and transverses hundreds of miles of old track but nonetheless captures the Rockies and the Sierras like nothing else.

No, I'm not in a fancy schmancy sleeper. I'm going coach and eating Amtrak cafe car food and looking forward to sleeping sitting up for oh so many nights with oh so many strangers. But I'm on and off the train and ready for adventure.

One big surprise-- remember PG? That's Philly Girl and she's going to join me on this 13, or 15 or 16 day test of endurance and she will be helping me write this blog.

First stop, Philadelphia tonight at 9:30--if all goes well. I'll meet up with PG, we will finalize our packing (which really means deciding on the proper haul of snacks) and I'll have a big sleep in a real bed before entering herd mentality.

I'm already settling in, the rocking of the train is hypnotic, and scenes of the low country are floating by as the sun rises. In true Amtrak form, my departure time was changed to be three hours earlier than the original 9 am departure. But then the train was an hour late, making me only two hours earlier. Or something like that.

This coach seat might be small, but it's got a big window that looks out to an even bigger world. I invite you to join PG and I on the rails. Sometimes the biggest times are from the smallest spaces. And thus the great train adventure begins.

[fishmech]

Tonight's train before we left

[ice-to-orange-blossoms]

California Zephyr by Howard Fogg

[collinthenychudson]

Amtrak P42DCs No. 45 and 71 and P32-8BWH No. 512 glide into Glenwood Springs, Colorado with train No. 5, the Westbound California Zephyr, several minutes ahead of it's scheduled departure time of 2:43 PM. This is one of many occasions where a P32-8BWH can be seen on any Amtrak service since they're mostly used for yard switching in Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, and Miami these days.

Taken on 09/15/2024

Pictures C) Me

[skinzh]

Travel on style on the Train.

[theamandacollection67]

National Geographic Magazine March 1951

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Next time you're on a train, write it down, Murder on the Orient Express is set on a train and it is considered one of the best works of English literature ever written and helped make Christie the second best selling author of all time. Just imagine your ride on the California Zephyr could be the next Murder on the Orient Express <3

[aryburn-trains]

Running late

The Zephyr is running over an hour late as it makes its way through Leyden, CO on Christmas Eve 2011.

[derelict-antiquarian]

Questions for a fellow writer. Sitting across from Neil Gaiman on the California Zephyr.

I sit across from Neil Gaiman riding toward California. Him and I had briefly chatted when we loaded the train, and he requested a journey to his finally destination to be with as little distraction and as much silence as he could get. I said I would like that as well, if he would have a conversation with me, no longer than an hour, some time before I would get off. Neil accepted the promise of a future conversation, but internally reveled in the silence of a ride sitting across from a stranger.

I would start off slow, asking a question at the top of the sixth hour of our ride.

How do you find someone who’s excited to read your work without screaming your work to the world?

When you’re writing, do you plan your way through the storyline before starting to write it out, or work your way through the story as you’re writing hoping it all works out? In other words, are you a “plans” writing type, or a “pants” writing type? “Write by the seat of your pants?”

Do you see multiple different outcomes and ways to each outcome, and you mentally work it all out and find ways of making each storyline possible if these different occurrences under these ever changing circumstance happens in this particular way, but you have to write it and choose one of the outcomes? Do you have any outcomes or failed story lines you wish you could have worked on longer or wished it would have worked out and been the one that worked best but may have fell short of the Final Cut?

Do you write electronically, or on physical paper? Is it primarily digital for you, or are you more of a hands on physically write it out kind of person?

What do you struggle with more, doing the dishes, putting away the dishes, doing your laundry, or folding and putting away your laundry?

What were you to yourself, before you started calling yourself a writer?

I don’t necessarily see a desire to write down exactly what the conversation would be. I’m trying to honestly remember all the questions I have asked myself as I have tried to develop my writing skills. This list will always be growing, expanding and evolving. The questions are the first step to answers. I’ll come back to this list whenever I have a question I want to be answered. Whenever I don’t know who to talk to other then another writer, someone who may have gone through this process. When I’m lost in my ideas and thoughts and everyone I reach out to only gets snippets of what the bigger picture is, so I hold it in to spare them from my rambling and spare me from a “That sounds cool, Caleb.” pared with a vacant look. I haven’t found a good system yet for the way I work and process things as a writer. No one told me it would be this lonely, but they also didn’t say how exciting it would be to have a new idea!

He knew I was getting off in Denver for a friend’s wedding and he was going further than that, and had no idea what the next passenger across from him would bring. I knew he wanted as many of those 8 hours of silence that he could get before my seat opened up. I had started talking, hoping it wasn’t to bothersome to his peace, and the conversation seemed to end five minutes longer then an hour. I had already stolen some of his time with the conversation at the beginning of the trip, the last thing I expected him to do was extend that hour and 5 minutes with a request of his own. After a long silence between us, he simply asked for the promise of a future conversation with me, no longer than an hour, once I finally can answer all these questions for myself.

“Nobody’s going to want to sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours to get from New York City to LA.”

Me. I will sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours. I’ll sit on it for days. I’ll write and read and nap and eat and then do it all over again. I’ll stare out the windows and see America from ground level and not have to drive. I’ll see the Rockies and the deserts and cornfields and the Mississippi River and your house and yours and yours too. I’ll make up stories in my head about the small towns I see as we go along. I’ll see the states I’ve yet to see because driving or flying there is a fucking slog and expensive to boot. I’ll enjoy the ride as much as the destination. And then I’ll do it all over again to come the fuck home.

[dorkvania]

Amtrak going through red rock formations