Train Piece

They were S—— L., L—— C., C—— A., and M—— G.; a political divorceé, a post-collegiate backpacker, a collegiate backpacker, and an affluent nonagenarian. From Chicago we had climbed up the steps into the first-class sleeper car together, but we would only really meet, beyond the faintest friendly glance, on the second day, and the cross-continental trip would have time to spare. Through the narrow hallway-space, our personal attendant escorted me, then L——, then S——, then C—— and L—— (they shared a room) into our roomettes: padded facing seats, soft Union blue, white cushions, a fold-down bed, clothes-hangers, curtains, and a door.

There was one more passenger riding with us “the whole length,” and I had a pleasant conversation with her for the first five minutes of our voyage, until she pressed the attendant bell. It was all very routine, how she demanded that the incline of her fold-out table be adjusted by our helpless attendant, that she requested the presence of the captain of the California Zephyr Train Number Five immediately, that the incline of her fold-out table should warrant at least a fifty-percent refund. She was being quite annoying and I had the good sense to point out that my table was inclined too, and thus by empiricism everyone’s was, but then she came over and inquired if I would kindly be willing to switch roomettes — I told her no, I really just don’t feel like switching, and she told me to mind my own damn business in the future. The captain finally came over and explained, while the lapse in service was not excusable, the Zephyr had facilities with much sturdier tables — the first-class dining car, the glass roof observation car — for her enjoyment. She had been very loud, and my future friends had heard her abuse of the attendant and me, so she didn’t have much choice when she explained that the issue lay in that she would now be taking all her meals inside her roomette. The captain took down her meal times, she drew the curtain and shut the door, and that was the last we saw of her.

***

I did my research a week before departure. The California Zephyr has always been something of an escape. The line was founded in the post-war forties, long after the heyday of the 20th Century Limited and the Orient Express, of Union Stations and Grand Central, had passed. Escapism is apparent in the name, distinctly naturalist and futuristic, while still hedging on wildly Romantic notions of a century now long over though having read Muir or Thoreau. Its period cousins bear the same affectations: the Southwest Chief, the Coast Starlight, the Lake Shore Limited. The Zephyr’s architects designed its route with a singular goal: a train that leaves Chicago Union Station at two p.m. on any day of the week to rapture in the maximum dose of day-lit scenery through the Rockies, the Colorado River, and the Sierra Nevadas before touching down in San Francisco just over sixty hours later. Denver, Reno, Salt Lake — it was an absurd All-American fantasy even in the forties, and though the original shut down by the seventies, evidently us beautiful fools still scramble for a glimpse.

Courtesy of Amtrak, the California Zephyr route was still well-trodden by the time of my first year in college. Despite living and schooling in Massachusetts, heading to Chicago via five other forms of transit for the privilege of the ride did not feel egregious for the Zephyr — anything for the Zephyr. I had begged my parents to finance the trip. I’m not sure if it was my sheer determination or the fact that even they could sense I was not doing well that they agreed. We had chosen the granddaddy — the longest, and most scenic of them all. Now I was in a metal tube in Illinois.

The tube surprised me. The Zephyr was much all that; Amtrak had lost profitability from the line long ago. In fact, four hours before I was supposed to board at Chicago Union Station, I received a robo-call conveying that my train had been canceled, and that it would take me the greater part of a day and ten phone calls to rebook. Chicago was freezing in mid-March; that, I knew from the two days I had stayed past my scheduled departure date, alone in an antique hotel, when I had wanted to be anywhere but there. Now as I moved through Yorkville, Mendota, Cameron, fields in a stormy umber, I didn’t expect the scene to remain unchanging quite as much as it did. Blurred and elongated in the space-time of the Zephyr, the fields could have been modern, post-modern, or contemporary. A relic of its time.

The tube — how grand it was, how great. How it loomed over my baggage-laden self as I confronted its vista in the dark of the station. How I did not realize until the steps that it was a double-story affair. How with a groaning lurch the mass of the metal body moved.

***

You cannot take the California Zephyr without a belief in grandeur. Not necessarily in that of the train, of course, but in the fact that ice-cubes will dully clink in its rocking across the desert plain, that the verdant glimmering of pines around an alpine lake will not be tarred by its track around the bowl perimeter. We all believed, in our own ways. Even the weathered steward, who served us gin-tonics gratis with the announcement that this was his final crossing.

Take the major excitement of the first afternoon. S——, who had smuggled and now popped a clandestine Moët N.V., was asking our Zephyrette for a bucket of ice, and a knife — would any kind stranger provide S—— with a knife. She was trying to shave the now-dilated cork to fit the fizzing bottle, which she assured we could all drink from at our leisure. C—— finally helped S—— fashion a suitable cork, while I helpfully quipped that I had smuggled a bottle of pre-mixed Aviations (which we could all have at our leisure), and that I wasn’t sure if Aviation 75s existed, but we could make one. Our attendant, fully privy to the conversation, also helpfully supplied that the first-class dining car came with complimentary beverages at every meal, which prompted a mild hurrah.

Our attendant (her name was J——) would have been a Zephyrette in the good years, between twenty-four and twenty-eight, between five-foot four and five-foot eight, between a college and nursing degree. We were not particularly sure our Zephyrette fit any of the criteria, though she was a woman, but the sole spite for my unkindly passenger-neighbor had brought us all to a common sympathy and general understanding for J——, not to mention at least one conversational tid-piece whence we all met. We included our Zephyrette in our plottings; she tolerated our drunken behavior and echoed our contempt towards the part-wayers.

Perhaps Moët N.V. is too on the nose, perhaps too crass — I certainly thought so, hence the pre-mixed Aviations. I had brought miniature F.L.W. sprites and a facsimile of Ono’s Grapefruit. One page:

PURIFICATION CHAMBER PIECE — for a person who claims to suffer from complexity of the mind or schizophrenia.
Build a room where you do nothing but stand and carry a stone until it's unbearable. You will soon find that your thoughts are purified to the point of thinking only about the weight of the stone.
1968 winter.

Booking a roomette on the California Zephyr was a lamely grand excuse for a purification chamber, but Ono understood our affliction better than most.

***

Lunches and dinners were four-to-a-table, almost brazenly irrespective of who I had known or already dined with. I have not mentioned the others in the first-class suite: the digital nomads, the couple that biked Paris à Singapour, the thermonuclear family, etc. They all had curious lives, as I learned over our two courses each day. The first dinner was with a farmer and his kid, but they would leave the same night, and I had not met my companions quite yet. For dinner on the first day I selected:

I would also share what the farmer and his son chose, but I’m not sure the California Zephyr’s miniature kitchen would be able to handle all that.

***

On the second day the brightest stars faded as the horizon turned blood-orange in the morning. The Zephyr’s beds were parallel to my starboard window, and so my Union-blue sheets turned to navy. J—— came around and asked if we would like coffee (but say no, because the central kitchen will have a better brew). We made our ways to the dining car, the steward asked for our orders — continental, French toast, omelette, etc. — and now we will ask for coffee. S—— asked for some rum in hers.

By nine-thirty the observation car was packed as we rolled out of Denver. Our bellies were satiated, and drip coffee drunk. There was a large contingent of standers, but they did not have to bend down to see outside, for there were curved ceiling windows. C—— and L—— leaned over a board game. The climb began.

John McPhee has written extensively about the Rockies, the Montagnes de Roche, in his acclaimed series on plate tectonics. The Rockies are relatively young for a mountain range, practically teenagers, rising above the North American continent fifty million years ago. Deep time is largely incomprehensible: imagine continental plates like rugs bunching against each other, and now imagine us, surveying the Zephyr, blasting out the Zephyr, laying down the Zephyr, taking the Zephyr, all in the fraction of a second before the wrinkle is flatted out again. When the Farallon Plate first ran into the North American Plate, their collision formed a sky-high rock plateau, which, as deep time and glaciers do, whittled down into mountains. McPhee titled his book Rising from the Plains, but I do not think he was referring to the mountains. They are chiseled from falling water and glacial ice, and they will come and go, talking of Michelangelo.

The moment I’d been waiting for, for the signal on my phone to peter out to nothingness, finally occurred, and like that, we were rising. One moment all anyone could see was barren, snowy wasteland, and the next rock face pressed in on both sides, and we were moving through a mountain pass — the illusion of stillness was broken. I don’t know if I’ll experience anything quite like rising from the plains ever again. This was nothing like the experience of driving, of Dean Moriarty’s endlessly dynamic Colorado, for on the Zephyr we become silent spectators of the former world. There would be no rest stops, traffic signs, opposing lanes of pavement, far as the eye can see. Even the track, covered in snow, appeared to disappear into the surrounding earth, so that we were truly floating.

Our Zephyrette had originally been in the observation car with us, individually alerting spectators on swivel chairs that they could only be seated for two hours at a time. I guess it was a sensible policy, seeing that some economy passengers had curled up on the central couches, directly facing the thing that we wanted to see. But soon, look, there’s a herd of deer sinking into new snow on the right side, and the whole car would rise in unison and lean against the starboard windows for a collective glimpse. Some would stay standing, attempting to spot another herd, or perhaps a pack of wolves, following behind. Then rock face would break away to reveal a sloping alpine vista on the left side, and the whole car would move again to take in the port view. Then a tunnel — in the dark there’s a free-for-all scramble for the seats, and when we see light again no one would be where they were. I suppose the Zephyr’s architects, in divining The Most Beautiful Route, would have killed to precisely balance the left and right sides’ beauty, but who can say where deer roam, or when the sun shines just so on the mountain landscape? And thus we passed the hours: standing, sitting, leaning.

***

S—— L. described herself as a woman who was always adventuring. The champagne incident was my introduction to her, and we had spent the rest of the afternoon passing the bottle as well as pleasantries through our narrow car. After glimpsing the peaks of the Rockies, I requested to have lunch with her. She traveled with Bert, who sat on our dinner-car window-ledge overlooking the Colorado River holding a plush cigarette that looked remarkably real (Bert was a puppet). Bert had photos from all around the world, Moscow, Easter Island, Anchorage, all in the same pose, held up in S——’s left hand. Bert was jaded and fraying in places from his adventures, but plopped on the Colorado River he looked quite at peace. She would get a lot of where’s Ernie? but it appeared that there had only ever been one Muppet in her collection, and that was Bert, and she didn’t find it odd.

S—— worked at what I could surmise to be a spyware company. Imagine a customer complaint call to Chase Bank: this call may be recorded for quality control purposes, and before the call is over S—— will have delivered a report on your mood, the nature of the complaint, call frequency, whether Jamie Dimon should extend you a special offer soon, the weather, and, crucially, God-forbid, if and how many times Bank of America was brought up. I recalled, with horror, my ten calls to Amtrak in my desperate attempt to rebook the Zephyr — I was ripe for analytics. S—— smiled knowingly.

Despite Bert, she was alone. Her hair was always frizzy, and her one striped tee tattered. Her face had the type of firm resolve that was not necessarily unkind; she had a beautiful smile when she decided to wear one. We laughed from our bellies. We cursed. We conjectured whether C—— and L—— were lovers. We parroted circumstantial evidence. When I asked her why she was taking a sixty-hour train across the country, she didn’t have any more of an answer than I did: everyone who takes a sixty-hour train must be an interesting person, and S—— liked to meet interesting people. She had a vague sense of longing tinged with relentless optimism, and nothing could distract her and Bert from doing as they pleased.

***

At Fraser the train made a short stop, and I stepped into the bright frigid air. A stranger takes two photos of me, one on my phone and one on film, the Zephyr behind me to the right, the mountain expanse to the left. My arms are behind my back, and though my eyes are not exactly wide open in either, on film I’m clearly blinking.

***

I spent the afternoon with L—— and C——, inexplicably underneath the dining car, in what I couldn’t quite ascertain was a passenger space or not. There they taught me how to take unsmudged photos on film despite the immovable windows, and I picked some pieces of their lives too. No updates on their relationship status — but I learned that they were students from Northwestern on their senior year trip, they were best friends, and that it was also their first time traveling. I shared my own story too, how I had come on a spring break trip alone, how in fact the trip was not pointless, I did have friends at Stanford, etc., et cet., &c. They were both white, and were the only people remotely close to me in age, so we had one thing in common. When I asked them why they were taking a sixty-hour train across the country, they said the trip was for fun. L—— backpacked a lot and C—— wanted to do something nice.

During their quiet board games in the sun-soaked dining room, they had picked up M——, the old lady. She shook my hand, I complimented her hair. She had the strongest words of any of us to say about the fifth passenger who had been so rude at the start. S—— walked in, and then there we were: friends.

And so, at Grand Junction on the Colorado River we all came together, S—— L., L—— C., C—— A., M—— G., and I. Our inaugural activity was to laugh about how all of us were supposed to be on a smoke break, and how funny the term “smoke break” was. The train stopped, down the steps of the first-class sleeper train we went, and split a pack. Our Zephyrette came down to join us too. She took a photo of us, smiling. She was our saint. I will likely never see them again.

***

Rolling, rolling, rolling. The Zephyr was on the move again, racing across Utah. The Moët was long gone, but I had another split of prosecco and the drinks from the steward were still chugging in our systems. We ran with the train, and we ran against the train, reveling in the emptiness of the moment. The dining car was completely empty, and even the observation car had reverted to a few economy passengers shoring up for the night. Between the various cars were double doors that would open with a kick of a pressure plate, and L—— kicked them harder than necessary, inciting a laugh every time. M—— was keeping up remarkably well; she had inhaled more Golds than any of us.

Crossing a desert in the dead of night was different from the daytime Rockies. I grew up in two countries, five cities, and nothing could prepare me for the altogether emptiness that washed over our windows. I think we were all Romantics in our own ways, and found each other for that reason. I think about “Skimbleshanks” rather often. I first encountered that cat at an interpretive kid lit competition; imagine my surprise when I realized he was a rhyme of Old Possum.

There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start.”

M—— actually resided below us, due to mobility concerns. Her room was twice the size of our roomettes, and came with its own toilet and basin. We all squeezed in, forming a circle. I sat on the toilet, between S—— and C——. He had some toffees and only then brought them out to share. We began to talk — of how much we loved the trip so far, how unbecomingly good the Amtrak Signature Flat-Iron Steak was, what we were going to do after arriving in Emeryville, just outside of San Francisco. I would eschew the Amtrak-provided bus to San Francisco, and head directly to Palo Alto. S—— would see Napa for a day then fly back to Florida. C—— and L—— would head back to college not much later than I had to.

There were two magnificent windows on each side that swallowed the room. I noticed in the darkness that M——’s nonagenarian face had begun to tear up, and S—— had gone silent, patting her shoulder with more intimacy than two strangers. Her best friend of fifty years had passed away the past week, M—— explained, and it was sad to make it a bigger deal than it was. Hence the California Zephyr, the granddaddy, the longest, and most scenic of them all.

***

On the third day even brighter stars faded as the horizon turned burnt-sand in the morning. J—— came around, smiled knowingly, and asked if we would like coffee (but you know to say no, because the central kitchen will have a better brew). The four of us went to the dining car, the steward then asked for our orders — the regular — and now we will ask for coffee. S—— asked for some cream in hers.

Train life is cyclical, yet not so. There are only three active routes longer than the California Zephyr: there’s the Trans-Siberian, Beijing-Moscow, and Shanghai-Lhasa. There are some more luxurious routes: there’s the reincarnated Orient Express, running a five-day Paris-Istanbul once a year, or the Andean Explorer if orientalism is not quite your thing. There are more American routes: the Acela (“acceleration,” “excellence”), the Hyperloop (“a fifth mode of transport”), etc. Sixty hours (really, fifty-three, our train was just running slow) is an odd time, yet just quite right. Only the second day is a full day by any measure, and the first and third days serve to mix memory and desire — a dual-sensation we have experienced before, but will not quite feel in full ever again.

We rode over the belly of the Sierra Nevadas, ascending in the morning, rising from the basin plains, falling in the afternoon. That which was the riddle of the sphinx: I grew up going to Tahoe. Once again the observation car teetered from side-to-side, yet now I sat steady. C—— and L—— had a new board game, and I saw S—— reading a book.

We reached the end of our trip as twilight neared, moving down Marin County along the sea. I had chosen right. I could see the surface of the Pacific barely ripple by at just under sixty miles per hour. I loved it.

Take a train. Think about the weight of the stone. Meet S——. Have the signal peter out, and hear the ice cubes rocking across the plain.