Editor’s Note: This is another in a series of commentaries by Russ Jackson, the distinguished retired editor of the Western Rail Passenger Review. In addition to his former editing duties, Mr. Jackson has been a tireless professional advocate for improved passenger train service on a national level. – Corridorrail.com Editor
By Russ Jackson, Guest Commentator; September 29, 2021
Yesterday… It all began long ago in a galaxy familiar to all of us just before the second world war: At age five my father gave us (him and me) a Lionel trainset. What fun, and then he and I visited the Tucson, Arizona depot to watch Southern Pacific trains powered by powerful steam locomotives. I was hooked. Later experiences of actually riding trains with my wife, Susan, like the Santa Fe’s El Capitan and Amtrak have been exciting.
Fortunately, we have never been involved in a train wreck. The terrible September 25 Empire Builder wreck in Montana is a tragedy, no doubt about it, that points out two things about train travel: like any method of travel something bad can happen, and yet train travel is the safest means of transportation. A rail sun kink is a possible explanation for the Montana derailment; we survived a sun kink on a San Diegan out on Camp Pendleton in California years ago. Luckily, the Amtrak engineer saw it ahead of the train soon enough to slow down sufficiently that we rode over the defect and despite being bounced around the train remained upright and on the rails.
Today… Susan and I stepped off train 422 at Ft. Worth Central Station on Sunday, September 17, 2021, a warm Texas afternoon, after our usual trip to California and riding in the same Amtrak Sleeping Car (32063) in Bedroom C in both directions.
Can we compare what we rode in the early days to what we have experienced on Amtrak since 1971 and with what existed before then? Well, most of today’s onboard experience is the same! … The scenery, even across the barren West Texas desert, is a wonder to watch … the onboard crews are friendlier and very competent today, and many have hopes of growing with the company … the food is EXCELLENT on the Sunset Limited and is almost back to the days of not so long ago, but not on the four-car Texas Eagle where any food comparison with what we had on the long-ago El Capitan is laughable … today’s trains are almost sold out (22 riders got off our Eagle Sleeper at Los Angeles, and the coaches were full from riders added in Arizona and Palm Springs) … we are older and traveling is not as easy as it once was requiring us to have “room service,” which was cheerfully provided by attendants Ricardo, Miriam, Will, and Jason, (morning coffee has returned to the Sleeping cars) rather than us having to go through moving cars to get to the diner.
There was a day we could visit with interesting folks from everywhere like Jeff Morey, who was going from Palm Springs to Tucson when we were seated across from him in the Sunset Limited dining car about 15 years ago. Jeff turned out to be the author-historian who is widely recognized as the expert on the 1881 gunfight by the OK Corral! What a night of conversation that was! With coach passengers now barred from partaking of the cuisine Jeff would not be allowed to be a customer. Why not?!! With “credit card-only” the onboard method of payment, surely most coach riders have them and used them as payment for their trips. Why not have some more menu choices at lower prices … you know I still mean a BLT which can be made from the bacon, lettuce, and tomato (on a grilled bun) which are already in the kitchen and used in the breakfasts, salads and the cheeseburger menu items.
Conductors are as rigid as always. Every one of them loves to grab the public address microphone and make very clear what the rules are, but most of all: the Federal requirement for WEARING MASKS at the threat of removal. On our trip the removal of a female passenger for defiantly refusing to wear a mask happened on the 422 at Alpine, Texas. I watched the event. Crews said they are doing it once on most trips, but once is usually enough to get “believers.”
There were no booze or smoking related removals! On-time performance, usually a nightmare on the Union Pacific Railroad in South Texas, was excellent on the westbound Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle (early arrival at Los Angeles Union Station was at 4:20 AM!), but OTP was nearly a disaster on the eastbound Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle thanks to UP dispatching. There were things that never seem to be solved: The sliding door between rooms still opens when least expected, and it was COLD in that room despite our efforts with duct tape and towels.
Tomorrow… We all know what the foibles of Amtrak at the top management level are. I doubt ANY of them have ridden the Sunset Limited or Texas Eagle. Ever. Graham Claytor and David Gunn rode, and are considered the best two CEOs. The present top people DO NOT KNOW their product except for the Northeast Corridor. The future ain’t just dollars, folks, as they are about to reap a mountain of funds.
First, last, and always they must recognize that the near future is in the entire present system while they “research” what the future (10-20 years) will require. That 41-point project list they threw out for consideration this year gives an unrealistic picture of what could be. Maybe two or three projects stand a chance of getting approved by the freight railroads and state legislatures, like the Heartland Flyer extension to Newton, Kansas, or the trains from New Orleans to Mobile, both of which have been studied and negotiated for YEARS. The other 39 look good on paper, but the reality is states will hate the five-year clause. Can you imagine the State of Arizona agreeing to spend the dollars on the Phoenix-Tucson project, and the Union Pacific agreeing to run three round trips a day on their two-way freight single track line between Phoenix and Picacho Junction? Come on!
In a sizzling critique of Amtrak decision-making Andrew Selden described what the return of limited consists on the Southwest Chief really means: “Sabotage.” [Published on this platform September 9, 2021] No, that doesn’t mean anything about train wrecks including the unsolved wreck of the Sunset Limited outside Phoenix that helped end service to that city.
Selden said the Chief “is a train that is structured to fail for the simple reason that even if it runs full every day it is so small a train that it cannot generate enough revenue to sustain itself.” (Days after Selden wrote this the transition cars mysteriously reappeared on the Chief.) Ridership demand is there, in fact it always has been, but instead of responding to that demand the “demanders” are forced to squeeze themselves into the space available or go away. The Texas Eagle has only four cars daily, two of which go on to Los Angeles west of San Antonio three times a week. Having seen the sold-out condition of those two cars compared to the Sunset Limited cars it is obvious DAILY service from Chicago to Los Angeles on that route would be very successful.
Bob Johnston, writing on the Trains magazine Newswire on September 23 quoted Amtrak’s Roger Harris that Business Class coach riders in the Coast Starlight will have access to the dining car in October, and that restoring coach and sleeping car capacity “will take some time” because of DECISIONS MADE to sideline equipment and reduce mechanical forces more than a year ago.” Bruce Richardson pointed out “they get points for laying out the situation with some truths as they see it, but they lose all of the points for lousy pandemic planning based on their implicit bias against the national network and their hope this would be the beginning of the national system going away.” [Published on this platform on September 10, 2021] The riders on our trains, westbound 421 and eastbound 422, were there because they wanted to be … none were saying “never again.” Does anyone “up there” care what these folks think?