Train Travel

During childhood, I spent weeks traveling on trains. Often we took a  trip to the San Francisco Bay area from Los Angeles.

At other times, we crossed the country in three days and arrived in Chicago. It took another day to complete the trip at Grand Central Station.





The Union Pacific provided slumber coaches. I chose the top bunk for my den; soon rocked to sleep by the motion.

The cars jerked and jostled us when my father and I adventured from car to car.  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk sounded and light shot up from the tracks to our feet as we passed across the metal plate from one car to another.

A scent of metal and oil followed us.

We ate cinnamon raisin toast and drank hot cider in the club car. Onward we tromped and climbed up the stairs to sit in the observation car for an aerie's view.

Our favorite car, the caboose, provided a panorama of the landscape scooting around us. We counted windmills and white horses on farm lands.

My father wove stories about growing up on a sheep ranch near the Powder river in Wyoming.



When the Super Chief crossed New Mexico, he sported tales of cowboys and indians.




His hobo stories revealed how men "flipped a train" with their brindle sticks. He told how Louis L'amour, John Steinbeck and Eugene O'Neill bragged of their hobo experiences. Some "possum bellied" on tops of passenger cars.

 

My father engaged conductors and waiters in conversation and urged them to embellish their stories. They raised my heart rate with images of bridges with trolls, tressels and hair pin turns that lurked up ahead.

All the way to the locomotive we'd sneak and persuade the engineer to let us inside. We even gained the honor of tooting the horn at a crossing.

My train rides included travel across Russia and most of Europe. I never wanted to reach the last station. The movement provided thrills and an education not many experience today.