When the Journey Matters Most

I have a love affair with trains. They’re comfortable, relaxing, and civilized. Compared to the cramped claustrophobia of air travel, trains are luxury made tangible. And there’s a certain romantic quality to them. Compare Murder on the Orient Express to “Snakes on a Plane” and you’ll understand what I mean.

San Diego station

Last month I indulged my railway romance to travel from San Diego to Portland—a thousand-mile journey that began with the single step of getting from my apartment to the Amtrak station a mile and a half away. There, at about 6am on a Tuesday, I boarded the commuter train to LA.  

And because I had booked a sleeper compartment for the next leg, I spent a short layover in the first class lounge at Union Station. After about an hour a redcap drove us and our luggage to the platform where the Coast Starlight waited. At 10:10am it pulled out so gently and quietly you might not have known we were moving.

Lounge at Union Station

After stowing luggage in my room I checked out the three trailing cars: parlor car, dining car, and domed observation lounge. I reserved a seat for lunch and dinner (meals, ordered from the menu and served on good china, are included in the ticket price), and sat back to watch the California coastline roll by. The route took us past Mission Santa Barbara, through the wine country of Paso Robles, then on to San Jose and Oakland, stopping there about 10pm.

Sleeper car

Facing seats fold down
to make bed

Dining

Parlor car

Observation car

Mt. Shasta from a postcard (it
was overcast when we passed)

When we passed Sacramento at midnight I was comfortably asleep in my room, but at 5am I saw Mt. Shasta roll by and stayed awake for the rest of the trip to watch the scenery: the high desert of Klamath Falls, the Cascades Range with its many tunnels, and finally north up the Willamette Valley from Eugene. We arrived in Portland about 4pm on Wednesday, just a few minutes behind schedule.

The purpose of this trip was a work-related conference and the weekend with son Scott in his new condo, but the journey mattered as much if not more than the destination. It was an adventure, an odyssey of discovery, something I’ll treasure in memory for many years.

Maya Angelou wrote of love that it “jumps hurdles, leaps fences, [and] penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” One could say of the love of trains, it traverses valleys, climbs through high deserts, and negotiates tunnels to bring the joy of travel and a more relaxed way of viewing the world. ■

Klamath Lake

A rainbow greets me in Oregon