Train Travels Thru Time or How I got to Big Bend National Park

I'm a fan of train travel. I've taken several of trips, I enjoyed them and I hope to travel by train again. While train travel seems to be rather quaint these days, it was just 50 years ago that passenger rail travel was the most frequent consumer choice for long distance travel. During the 1960's air travel quickly overtook rail as the more popular transportation choice and passenger rail service soon declined to the point of extinction. To prevent rail's total demise, the United States Congress created a public service corporation, namely Amtrak, to act as a service operator for passenger rail. Today, Amtrak is the country's sole provider of nation-wide passenger rail service.

Now, when I board a train some part of me does feel as though I am participating in an antique experience. I suspect a large percentage of Amtrak customers have booked passage precisely for that antique experience. There are many people who have never ridden a train but remain curious. If you mention to people that on a recent vacation you took a train to where ever location, the first question usually asked will be, "How was the train ride?". Well, I enjoy the spacious seating that is standard aboard Amtrak trains and I also enjoy the unique experience of dining while travelling aboard a train. In the dining car, for the sake of efficiency, it's four to a table and so it's probable that you will be meeting your dining partners for the very first time. I don't want to overrate it, but there is an enjoyable social aspect to train travel that seems to commence naturally. I suppose this social ambiance is attributable to the onboard space and comfort of trains relative to the space aboard a bus or airplane. Trians, of course, offer their passengers a great chance for scenic travel and Amtrak builds its cars with that in mind.

Now, for the pragmatists amongst us, I'll note that trains are still a viable travel option. Across our land, there are great swaths of territory with towns that are poorly accessed by plane or bus. Surprisingly, they may have train service. Such was the case for our trip out to Alpine, Texas. Also, the pragmatist might be lured to train travel because train fares will very often be a lower cost ticket when compared to the fares of bus or air travel. For instance, I can get a round trip coach ticket from Houston to Pullman, Washington for about $525. That's good! On the negative side, each leg of the trip would be 3 days in length and, with the tickets being coach seating only, I think the trip would be quite brutal! It is possible to upgrade your ticket to accommodate sleeping needs and privacy desires. But, these upgrades will then make train travel much less economical, the accommodations upgrade will cost more than the original fare. To consider trains as an option, I try to think of medium length distances with a travel time of under 24 hours. With this loose rule in mind, train travel can shine. I like the idea of leaving New York City in the evening then, after travelling throughout the night, I'll have arrived into Chicago at 8:30 the next morning. It's no longer possible to do this, but at one time it was! Nevertheless, overnight train passages do offer a nifty bonus for today's travellers, I'd rather travel and sleep through the night than waste a day driving.

Amtrak is not for the faint hearted traveller. It can be bumpy, inconvenient, unreliable and poorly accessed. While it is possible to arrive at your destination fully rested, showered, shaved and well fed, it's also possible to arrive late, tired and grumpy! Amtrak is a money losing government monopoly but, rightly or wrongly, it exists and it is an available mode of public transport.

Some of my first memories in life were of a train ride our family took from Indiana out to Washington State. My mother and father both grew up there and most all of our relatives still live there. I can remember my delight with the sight-seeing car whereupon with a turn in the tracks I could see the full expanse of our train's many cars. I also remember my father shaving while aboard the train (oops, nicked again! and again!). Also memorable, my sister Debbie, not being too sure of my awareness of anything, said to me, "Do you know where Beth is?" Well, my younger sister Beth was simply hung up in some netting and would swing about to and fro. Both Debbie and I found this to be endlessly funny. Eventually, we became jealous and we wanted to try it out too! I don't know if I'm able to remember a whole lot else about this trip, the memories may be jumbled with others as we made frequent visits to Washington State. Of course, there is the possibility that when I was tagged with a spanking for straying about the station platform in Indiana that my young mind was then able to achieve a few days of focus, I just don't know! I think this trip took place in 1960 when I was but 3 years old.

I'll toss in another memory here. When my family lived in Columbia, Missouri my grandparents would arrive via train for their visits from either Ephrata or Pullman, Washington. This would have been in the 1960's and like most people they soon switched to air travel. Our grandmother, Myrna Loan, continued to use the train the longest and so it is with her visits that the following few memories are most relevant. The nearest rail station service to Columbia was up the road in Centralia, Missouri which was located about 45 minutes north of Columbia. On the day our grandmother was to arrive our mother would've packed a picnic lunch which the family would take on up to Centralia. We'd picnic at a little (public or private?) park called the A. B. Chance Gardens though we kids invariably miscalled it Marvin's Gardens. Bologna sandwiches were our typical fare along with green grapes, apples, carrot and celery sticks. Excepting the bologna sandwiches, mom's picnic lunches were generally filled with healthful things. To be sure we'd still have some Fritos and lemonade and cookies, but I remember most the fresh fruits and vegetables. Later, at the rail station we kids would stand on the station's platform squinting out into the distance competing with one another to be the first one able to see grandma's train coming. We'd also stand near a yellow line of demarcation challenging our closeness to the railroad tracks and the trains that would come thundering in. On occasion we were fooled by a freight train coming through, but eventually grandma's train did arrive.

Here's an interesting link to train travel circa the 1940's: www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/225401

I hope everyone has set their snooze alarm because I blog onwards.

I guess it's time to write a little bit about our trip to Big Bend National Park. The train trip from Houston to Alpine, Texas (Big Bend's gateway city) was a nice value. We left Houston at 9:45 pm Monday and were scheduled to arrive in Alpine at 1:30 pm the next day. This trip included a scheduled 2-1/2 hour layover in San Antonio. For our trip, the layover was increased to 6-1/2 hours due to some track maintenance further on down the line. Now, the increased layover wasn't all bad. We were hoping for some sleep and a motionless train is quite conducive for a little shuteye! The stress involved in getting an old jeep to the Houston station and the bumpiness of travel while enroute to San Antonio had combined to rob me of some sleep. We'd upgraded from coach to an economy roomette but sleep was still difficult. The layover in San Antonio extended well past daylight so Mai and I took a short walk to see the Alamo. It was still early so there was really no one else there to speak of. We used our portable computer to take a couple of impromptu pictures, one of which I've uploaded to this blog posting. We also used the computer to record a short video, we got a good laugh out of it and hope you do too!






Soon after we shot the video we were back on the train and resumed our trip towards Big Bend and Alpine, Texas. Alpine is actually a very small town, it's large only in that it's the biggest thing out there in this remote region, this area is sparsely populated. In Alpine, road runs alongside the path of the railroad track and is the city's main drag. Often times in towns of the old west a person would disembark the train and simply walk across the street to the hotel. It's still this way in Alpine and that's exactly what Mai and I did. We stayed at the Holland House and were upgraded to the best room at the hotel. It wasn't penthouse luxury but we were impressed and very pleased to have been treated so nicely. Though Alpine is Big Bend's gateway, the park itself is still a 2 hour drive away. So, the next morning we picked up our rental car and continued our journey.

Big Bend National Park is an excellent spot for hiking adventures and it is scenic as well as historic. Being so remote, the park gets only about 400,000 visitors a year so there are no large crowds to deal with. It also means that hotel accomodations and food service are not well developed. An exception to this was the place me and Mai stayed at, the Ten Bits Ranch. This was more like a bed and breakfast and was off of the electrical grid. It was powered through solar cells and batteries and both Mai and I enjoyed this experience. We were lit well enough and still had the use of our computer. Solar power could not supply enough juice to run air conditioners and so Ten Bits Ranch closes down during the summer. At the ranch you can enjoy a full breakfast but no other meals are provided. It's an interesting place due to its proximity to an old Indian camp and also for the dinosaur bones found nearby though you're not allowed to collect relics. Our time at Big Bend numbered only 3 days and one of those days was wasted because of a breakdown of the rental car. With the help of an older couple from Boston we avoided being stranded and were very thankful. Still, we did not take the planned 12 mile hike nor did we get to ride horses as we'd hoped to, I guess we'll just have to go back!

I'm okay with that.