City by the Bay, California Mountains in the Snow and Stuck in the Desert

Thursday night we had dinner with Michael's nephew David and his girlfriend Vali.  We took another antique trolley, this one originally from Milan, Italy.  We rode from Market Street near Union Square to the Ferry Building.  While waiting for them to arrive we checked out the up-scale shops in the interior. There was a wine shop, cheese shop; meat, fish and even a mushroom shop.  Not to mention olive oil, kitchen ware, cook books and all manner of restaurants.  San Francisco is really a foodie's paradise.

David and Vali, Michael and I shared a bottle of Chianti at the wine bar while waiting for our reservation at a restaurant called The Slanted Door.  David and Vali were delightful.  It was a bit strange double dating with a couple less than half our ages but they proved wonderful company. 

The Slanted Door is a Vietnamese fusion restaurant.  The setting was magnificent.  Plate glass windows overlook San Francisco Bay with views of the Oakland Bay Bridge.  At night the bridge, boats and buildings were lit up like a fairyland. The food, the atmosphere and the conversation were outstanding.  A walk across the small park and a drive back to our hotel completed a truly memorable day.

It was early to rise on Friday in order to catch the Amtrak bus three blocks from the hotel at 7:55 AM.  Another journey to Fisherman's Wharf followed by the Ferry Building and an excursion through some back streets leading to the Bay Bridge completed our tour of the city.  Then on to Emeryville and the Amtrak train station. 

It started raining south of Sacramento just as the local weather forecasters had predicted.  Rain turned to snow as the California Zephyr climbed the mountains east of Sacramento.  By the time we reached the higher elevations we were in a blizzard.  It was fascinating to see only trees and whiteness where three days before had been magnificent vistas.  Even the little towns like Truckee looked totally different in the snow.  I'm sure the ski resort operators were happy. The snow was tapering off by the time we reached Reno.  The sun set shortly thereafter.  There were occasional bright lights of little towns and crossings but no moon or stars.  For a second time we slept through most of Utah.

A crisp clear morning greeted us Saturday.  We watched the desert roll by as we breakfasted in the dining car.  Midmorning we were enjoying the view.  I got some good pictures of the old fashioned main street of the town of Helper, Utah.  Shortly after, the train unexpectedly came to a halt in the middle of nowhere.   We were in a dry wash with views of distant red hills.

Michael has been a ham radio operator for decades.  He had brought with him on the trip a receiver that tuned to the various frequencies used by Amtrak.   We had enjoyed listening to the train crew's chatter both on the way out and back.  We were the only passengers who knew what was going on during the four hour delay that ensued. 

We heard that the brake system failed and the emergency brakes stopped the train.  The engineers conferred with the dispatcher in Omaha and mechanics in Chicago who had some telemetry on the two engines.  At length they decided that the computer in the lead engine which controlled the various systems throughout the train was not operating or not communicating with the rest of the train.  Our crew, two engineers and a conductor, were able to reconfigure the control systems so that the trailing engine was able to drive the train at twenty mph to the next siding.  The group then discussed whether or not to leave the sick engine on the siding in the middle of nowhere to be picked up later.  The Chicago and Omaha folks didn't like this option very much.  I imagine that it would cost a "bunch" to send out a rescue engine and tow the ailing engine back to Chicago for repairs.  The train with only one engine couldn't make the grade to the Moffitt Tunnel at the continental divide either.  They would have to send out another "helper" engine to get the train to Denver.

The option they decided on was to switch the positions of the two engines so that the working one would be the leading engine and the misbehaving engine would be trailing.  They would still need a helper engine to make the continental divide while they towed the inoperable engine.  All the parties had a long discussion as to how to move the engines on the main track and the siding to accomplish the goal.  The train crew wanted to move everything several times requiring multiple changes of the track switches.  This would have taken forever as the switching system is apparently operated by very slow telegraph signals.  There was about a 15 minute delay from when the dispatcher in Omaha initiated the switch and signal change to when it actually happened.  Eventually the dispatcher convinced them to:

1.       Disconnect both engines from the rest of the train.        

2.       Push the disabled engine onto the siding.

3.       Disconnect the working (trailing) engine from the front engine and back it up onto the main line.

4.       Run the working engine to the other end of the siding and back it in to attach to the disabled engine thus reversing the order of the engines.

5.       Back the coupled engines onto the main line and connect them to the train.

The passengers saw the two engines disappear from view.  After about half an hour one engine reappeared but did not stop and connect to the train.  Instead it took off up the main line and disappeared from view again.  The passengers pestered the poor assistant conductor who had been left on our section of the train. They wanted to know what was happening.  He knew less than we did and assured everyone that they were "working on it."  Everyone but Michael and I were upset.  Eventually the two engines reappeared and reconnected to the train.

Amazingly, when they disconnected and reconnected the engines in reverse order, the computer on the former lead engine started communicating with the other engine just fine.  Michael's theory is that there was never anything wrong with the engine.  The problem was probably a loose connection.  Disconnecting and reconnecting cured it.  Meanwhile our train was four hours late.

The train accelerated and the desert started moving past the windows.  Suddenly we heard the report "dragging" from the scanner as the train passed over a sensor.   The crew made an emergency stop.  They got out and walked up and down the length of the train.  They reported nothing wrong to the dispatcher in Omaha.  If they found that they had neglected to connect something, they didn't admit it and just fixed it.  In a few minutes we were once again on our way.  We made it to Grand Junction, CO at a speed of 79 mph, the maximum Amtrak is allowed on that stretch of track.   The crew told the dispatcher that everything was now fine and he could cancel the engine he had on standby.

We changed crews there and proceeded uneventfully until after dark.  We had just been treated to a spectacular night view of Denver and its environs from the heights of the Front Range of the Rockies when the train began to slow again.  This time we stopped at a road crossing in the mountains.  The crew had "gone dead."  According to railroad union rules a crew can't work more than 12 hours.  The crew we picked up at Grand Junction must have been on duty for hours before we got there.  They had timed out and another crew arrived by pick up truck within ten minutes to relieve them and get us to Denver.  We had made up about half an hour during the last 200 miles so we got to the Denver station at about 10:30 PM instead of just after 7.

It was a wonderful trip even with the delay. 

 

Train Trip to San Francisco

Michael and I spent a wonderful six days going to, staying in and traveling back from San Francisco, CA. Michael booked the train on Amtrak. A few weeks ago he got a letter from Amtrak saying that his "points" were about to expire. It seemed like a good time to take a train trip, especially as he got quadruple points for doing so. And I love San Francisco.

It took two days to get there and two to come back. That left us an evening and two full days to enjoy the sights. I think we made the most of it.

We took the California Zephyr from Denver to the last stop at Emeryville, just north of Oakland CA, right at the foot of the Bay Bridge. I had taken about half of the trip in May 2008 as part of a rail/bus tour of the National Parks of the West. The train travels through some of the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen. I had traveled before as far as Grand Junction, Colorado. I now got to see the rest of it. It was dark through most of Utah and half of Nevada on the way out so I missed most of the desert, Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City.

I awoke to more desert. Reno appeared after breakfast and eventually a climb through the Sierra Nevada range brought us into California. There was a great diversity of scenery from mountains and canyons to flat lands, more mountains and finally hills giving way to river estuary and San Francisco Bay. Amtrak was uncharacteristically on-time until south of Sacramento. There, track work delayed us slightly. I think we were about five minutes late getting in to the station. We were in our hotel room on Union Square in San Francisco in under an hour.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the Broadway-Columbus Ave area. This is a mixed neighborhood just north of Chinatown and south of North Beach which, Michael tells me, used to have a lot of topless bars. Anchor Steam Beer sure tastes better in the city in which it is brewed! The food was wonderful.

Next morning we bought three day transportation passes that allow unlimited use of bus, street car, light rail and cable car. In two days we managed to ride everything. We took the cable car from its beginning right outside our hotel to its end at Fisherman's Wharf and walked around. Whether it was early morning or time of year, there were virtually no tourists around. We rode another cable car line back to Pacific Street and walked downhill into Chinatown. I have lots of pictures of people buying strange foods in the local markets. As soon as the New Asia restaurant opened Michael introduced me to Dim Sum. Really good, even if I had trouble eating slippery things with chop sticks.

Later we took the ferry from the Ferry Building to Sausalito and back. We passed by Alcatraz once in either direction. Really close on the way back. The weather was sunny but cool, wonderful for sightseeing. Next we took the light rail from Market Street near the Ferry Building to Ocean Beach on the Pacific coast. It was warm enough to walk the mile plus to the famous Cliff House restaurant where we had some dynamite Bloody Marys made with calm juice. A hike up the hill and a bus trip completed our journey back to our hotel.

That evening we went to Scoma's on Fisherman's Wharf for sea food. We took a restored historic trolley from Market Street near the hotel to the Embarcadero and all the way out to Fisherman's Wharf, the last stop. There is a marvelous picture of me with a giant bowl of Cioppino. Michael had halibut caught that morning by the restaurant's own fishing boat. It couldn't have been a better meal. Afterward we visited Ghirardelli Square and then took the cable car back to our hotel. In all we went by the cable car barn and museum twice but did not have time to visit it. Oh well, next trip.

The following day, Thursday, we did the museums. We took the number 2 bus to Lincoln Park, again at the end of the line. It was a long climb up a steep hill to the Legion of Honor Museum. The building is historic, the setting is gorgeous but the exhibits were only so-so. Fortunately we got a senior discount and an additional discount for using public transit to get there. The admission was also good for the same day at the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco's premier art museum.

A bus ride and an electric bus ride got us to the park and a short walk got us to this museum. The Tutankhamen exhibit is there so the place was swarming with school children. We looked at some of the regular exhibits which we enjoyed thoroughly then had lunch at the museum restaurant. I never expected a gourmet lunch in a museum. I had a salad with smoked trout, a wonderful sauce, three kinds of heirloom beets and other munchies. Michael had a chicken curry that he raved about for days. A quick tour of the new contemporary art and it was back to the hotel by the number 5 electric bus.

More later...