Train Travel

I have to tell you, for me, train travel is the way to go.  I'm not saying I'll never fly again, but if there is a train option, I will take it like a shot.

The California Zephyr goes on what is advertised as the most scenic route across America.   On its journey it goes from Denver across the Rocky Mountains, the high desert of Utah and then the Sierra Nevada, finishing at Oakland across the bay from San Francisco, and it is certainly beautiful.  The Colorado River runs alongside the track for a lot of the first day.  At first it's not much more than a small creek tumbling over stones, overhung by the high rocky mountains.

 Sometimes the terrain opens up to wide meadows, and here people have settled, building towns that survive on skiing in the winter and white water rafting and fishing in the summer.  We pass these white water rafters on our journey, bouncing along beside us or below us as the track wends its way up the side of the mountain. People bring little tents, and camp alongside the river, with just their boats to get them from place to place, when there are no roads. At one point we pass Moon Point, where anybody camping rolls down their shorts to moon their bare backsides at the passing train.  

The high desert of Utah is largely crossed during the night, but is still there in the morning, several hours later.  It amazes me just how huge this country really is.  Travelling by train highlights its enormous scale, and I keep thinking of the early pioneers and gold rush settlers who came so far with wagon trains, crossing the rivers, finding ways to get through the mountains and crossing these great dry plains.

Eventually the desert gives way to the beginnings of the Sierra Nevada.  Here we come to the Donner Pass, where a party of settlers were trapped at the beginning of the winter and cut off by the snow, eventually resorting to cannibalism to enable some to survive.

This is gold rush country, mountainous and deeply wooded. Here, even now, some communities still exist, and gold is still found.  I wouldn't live up here, so isolated, for any amount of gold.

But as well as the fantastic scenery, the train journey has something unique to offer the traveller. Every meal is taken in the dining car, and at every meal you are seated with people you have never met before.  We shared a meal with a couple of ladies, one of whom was the wife of a farmer from Nebraska and her friend, whose father had had to leave his farm because he couldn't make it pay. We learnt so much about the drought and the hardship endured by the farmers. These ladies were very much interested in Lady Di, and were quite surprised that we didn't share the interest to the same extent. We met an Australian Vietnam veteran, who still shakes because of his experiences so many years ago, and his friend, who had survived throat cancer, only to lose his wife a few years after his recovery.  With them, we talked rugby and cricket and some politics. 

We drew out a quiet couple by talking about their children, and enjoyed a lively debate with a hippy couple who had very different views from ours.  Everybody was interested in us, and everybody was interesting to us.   No conversation was small talk.  We got to know them.  Somehow, travelling by train made for a deeper connection, but no demands.  No addresses were exchanged, no facebook friendships made.  It was totally unique.

I may well not travel the same route again, and may never see such wonderful scenery again, but I would happily go by train again to experience the cameraderie we felt on this trip.