Today, the traveler often takes the easy way out.

That can be flying across the country at altitude, comfy in your coach seat, served peanuts along with that complimentary soft drink. Or if driving, by what Google tells them is the shortest route from mythical point A to mythical point B. There are other options such as Greyhound, if it still serves your destination or as in this case, Amtrak.Yes, trains do still carry passengers, and more each year, believe it or not.

Yes, to hear some folks tell the tale, no one rides the train any more. That’s odd; as what I saw on my trip from Emeryville to Denver and back again (almost) would seem to seriously contradict that belief.

For the record, I rode a private railcar, carried on the back of the California Zephyr last month. Our trains were the winter consist with two locomotives, a full baggage car, a crew dormitory/sleeping car, two full sleeping cars, a dining car, a lounge car and two full coaches. While I don’t have an exact count, I do know that for some parts of this trip, those coaches and sleeping cars were full. And it wasn’t just at bigger stations where people got off and on either. The train did a good business all along the route.

Let’s step back a moment and go over some history about Amtrak. How did it come to be? In the late 1960’s, passenger train travel was in decline. The growth of the interstate highway system, personal travel by automobile and fast airline service had drawn travelers away from the passenger train. In their day, trains crossed the country offering great service from one town to another. And they were all operated by private companies. Even post war investments in newer and more modern trains couldn’t slow the transition for travel. Add in increased labor costs and it was inevitable that the golden era of train travel would not last.

The real death knell for the passenger train was sounded when the US Postal Service made the decision to end handling mail aboard trains. Because when the revenue earned ended, passenger trains became to expensive to operate privately. Fabled named trains gave way to simple numbered trains between cities, with maybe a coach or two and a baggage car. The railroads were going out of the business, wholesale.

The Nixon presidential administration created Amtrak (or the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) as a way to let the private companies off the hook with a new nationalized passenger rail system.They would run the freight trains and let Amtrak carry the passengers.

Amtrak bought a selection of the best passenger cars from the railroads, put on a shiny new face and marched boldly into the 1970’s with a short term plan to keep trains running. The funny thing was, the public discovered they needed trains again. The decade also saw the oil shortages and people decided Amtrak could get them where they needed to go. So Amtrak invested in new equipment and it kept people on the move.

Fast forward to today. Most of the equipment running today has exceeded it’s designed service life. Amtrak has been a favorite whipping boy of Republicans, yet manages to show a better fare box recovery year by year. The reality is that it will never be profitable and will always require some form of subsidy; just as airlines and highways do, at the Federal level.

But why ride the train? A fair question. First, you don’t ride the train because it is the fastest mode of travel. Even in the vaunted Northeast Corridor, the airlines still get you there faster from start to finish. You may pay the price for it, however. Second, Amtrak trains do travel through some of the most scenic areas of the country. You do get to see the scenery in a way you just do not get to at 40, 000 feet flying over it. You get to experience it at “see level”.

My trip crossed the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies and it was magnificent. Crossing Nevada under a full moon was an experience I am not likely to forget, with a clear night, even if temperatures outside were in single digits. I was safe and warm, taking it all in as the miles rolled by.

Another thing that comes into play on the train is the shared experience. You can get to know your fellow travelers on your journey in a way that doesn’t happen on an airliner. Be it over a favorite beverage in the lounge car or sharing a table in the dining car, you can meet people and learn who they are; why they travel on the train.

One last thing I enjoy about train travel. Even though the train has a timetable or schedule to meet, you don’t really worry about delays. Sure, it would be nice to arrive at the scheduled time (and oddly enough, the trains do manage to be on time more often than not), but it doesn’t seem as important as it might with a connecting flight to meet onto that final destination. Unlike the plane flight where you can’t wait to be off the aircraft as soon as you can, a delay on the train is not the end of the world.

And yes, Mother Nature can make a train trip as unpleasant as she can a trip by car or airplane. The recent events where snow delayed trains here in California and Nevada shows that delays can be longer than you would like. But they tend to be much more the exception than the rule.

Travel today tends to be a hurried affair. We get testy if things don’t go as we want. Everything from that TSA screening to gate delays on arrival, all conspire against us. Or just traffic on the freeway that slows to a crawl as everybody rubbernecks to see what ever is causing the slowdown. But that’s just the way it is…

So, why the train? It’s the adventure. Seeing the countryside as the miles roll by, without the hurry. Leaving the driving to someone else. Meeting fellow travelers who are seeking the same.

All in all, not a bad way to go.

Anniversaries manage to find their way.

This year sees an interesting one for an ancestor of mine. One that marks a moment that changed his life and set in motion a career of 51 years, a family in northern Nevada and a life long passion for this writer.

Christopher Cameron Walker was my great-grandfather. He was born in the mining town of Eureka, Nevada on October 7, 1881. He was the firstborn child of Jonathan and Mary Walker. They were married in November the year before in nearby Mineral Hill, another mining camp where they both worked supporting the community. He was a saloon keeper; she was a house keeper in a boarding house. Not long after Chris was born, Jonathan and Mary moved to another booming mining camp named Safford. There Jonathan built one of the few structures and operated it as the Pioneer Saloon. Eventually, it became more of a general store.

As with many mining camps in Nevada, once the silver ore played out, the community moved on to other camps where things were promising. The Walker family grew, even as the business continued during lean times. Eventually, things had to change. So it was that in 1893, Jonathan took his eldest son aside and broke the bad news to him. At the age of 12, it was time for Chris to make his own way in the world. Jonathan could no longer afford to support him.

Now, at that time in central Nevada, there was not much in the way of opportunities for an uneducated young man. An apprenticeship was rare as most of the trades tended to be in bigger cities. Mining was limited to the places where ore was paying enough to cover costs and make a profit. Ranching was the other going concern as folks had livestock that needed attending.

Along the Central Pacific Railroad in that part of Nevada was the town of Palisade. From here, freight went to various mining camps. At first a toll road ran south and later came the narrow gauge Eureka and Palisade Railroad, running through the Pine Valley to Eureka, the county seat. The Pine Valley was so named because of Pine Creek that flows into the Humboldt River at Palisade. With water in the creek year round, the land was good for ranching with plenty of grasses for feed.

And here it was that Chris went to work as a vaquero. For the next 6 years, life was lived on the back of a horse working at a series of ranches. And from what Chris described, it was pretty much the same, day in and day out. He had the same slouch hat, the same pants, shirt, jacket and boots. If he was lucky, he may have had an extra shirt to wear when it got cold.

About the only thing of note was a yearly round-up of wild horses to be driven to the railroad for shipment east. A buyer would pay so much a head and the ranch owner would count his profit on the sale. The price differed from year to year, depending on the need. Sometimes, horses were sold for work. Others, just for meat and other materials processed.

The way Chris described it, the hired hands would herd horses into a box canyon from out on the ranch. Once that was done, the gathered animals would be driven to the railroad in either Palisade or Carlin. Often, such a drive was a multi day trip there and back again.

It wasn’t all dull on the drives. For entertainment, the hands would put up a pot of six-bits or so, to be won by the man who could ride a wild horse. Chris had a knack for riding and he said he could usually stay on. He claimed only to have been thrown from a horse once, when it was scared and reared up unexpectedly. The real trick wasn’t riding he said. It was saddling the wild horse, and that wasn’t part of the plan to win the pot. But it did make for amusement.

In the winter of 1899, there was a Mardi Gras dance to be held in Eureka. Now as a young man on the range, Chris was sweet on a particular girl he had met. Rumor had it that she was going to the dance as well. There was a whole group coming from out in the Pine Valley who planned to ride the train into town.

As the story is told, Chris had a miserable time at the dance. While he may have been sweet on the girl, she wanted nothing to do with him. In fact, she went out of her way to avoid him all night. After the dance, when it came time for the train to go back to Palisade, Chris didn’t want to ride with the rest of the group. He decided instead to ride with the crew of the train’s locomotive.

Remembering the night years later, Chris told of how he decided right then and there, that the life of railroading was for him. He tried to go to work for the Southern Pacific soon after and was turned away as being too young at 18 years of age. Instead, I believe he found work with the narrow gauge Eureka and Palisade that summer and gained experience as well as growing.

He hired out as a steam locomotive fireman in December of 1900, in Wadsworth, Nevada. His job took him over the original route of the transcontinental railroad on a line that hadn’t been greatly improved. Ties in the alkali dirt for ballast on light rail that had come around Cape Horn. He must have been good at the job, for he was promoted to engineer in 1906. He retired in 1951, being number one in seniority on the SP’s Salt Lake Division, running the diesel-powered Streamliner City of San Francisco; what was considered one of the finest passenger trains on the railroad.

He claimed never to have ridden a horse after he started his railroad career. Years later, after he retired, his grand children wanted him to go with them to see the rodeo in Reno. He declined. telling them that he “didn’t need to see the rodeo. He had already lived it”.

Had it not been for the Mardi Gras dance in Eureka and the young girl who spurned his interest, he might never have ridden in the cab of that narrow gauge steam locomotive and taken up railroading as a career. Now 120 years later, I will hoist a glass in his memory and toast his good fortune on Fat Tuesday.

I for one am glad he did!

Once upon time, Union Pacific travelers used the Overland route to reach Denver from either the east or west. Their partners in doing so included the Southern Pacific from San Francisco as well as the Chicago and Northwestern from Chicago.

At the peak of rail travel, UP offered service to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. It’s Streamliner trains were some of the finest with service standards right down to the placement of a chilled glass for a passenger’s favored beverage.

While my trip this week follows part of the Overland route from Emeryville to Salt Lake City, it still harkens back to days like above, when Colorado was calling to the travelers.

The Denver and Rio Grande Western has a wonderful history. Crossing Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, it managed to overcome adversity and be the lifeline to many communities in the days when roads were few and trains were the only really reliable way to go from place to place.

The Rio Grande used a slogan in marketing the railroad which really did describe what it did best. “Through the Rockies, Not Around Them.” And yes, it was a dig at competition. The mighty Santa Fe and it’s Chief took the southern route west. The fabled Union Pacific went over Sherman Hill to the north through Wyoming on it’s way to Salt Lake City. The Rio Grande went direct through the Rockies. But with the construction of the Moffat Tunnel, and opening in 1928, it shortened the route west between Denver and Salt Lake City.

At 6.2 miles long, it was an engineering marvel. A smaller tunnel next to the railroad tunnel carries water, as part of the supply for Denver. Previously, trains crossed the area high on the mountain in a slow and laborious route. This new route was a key element when the Rio Grande joined forces with the Western Pacific and the Burlington Route to run passenger trains between Chicago and San Francisco. The 1939 Exposition Flyer and the 1949 California Zephyr proved popular with travelers offering the best scenery along the route.

I’ve ridden through the Moffat Tunnel twice; once east and once west, back in the fall of 1980 on my vacation to Denver. Aboard the Rio Grande Zephyr, it was a throwback to earlier times in the streamliner era. The Rio Grande had decided against joining Amtrak in 1971 and continued to operate their own segment of the California Zephyr between 1970 and 1983. Using the same passenger cars and offering much the same service as it had years before, the train operated on a tri-weekly trip between Denver and Salt Lake City, with Wednesday’s being the day the train was serviced in Denver. My trip was part of a larger adventure, but I know many for whom the Rio Grande Zephyr was the destination, rather than the mode of transport.

As I head east again this week, I will head back some 39 years to my first ride. Indeed, “Through the Rockies, not Around Them.”

In a little more than a week, I will be riding with a small group of folks on a private railroad car heading from Emeryville to Denver and back again.. As things go, this isn’t a new experience. I have made many a trip aboard private railroad cars including a couple of long distance trips of many days.

What sets this one apart is that I haven’t ridden a train east of Sparks, Nevada by rail over the Southern Pacific”s Salt Lake Division since October of 1980. As then, the destination in 2019 is Denver, Colorado.

Now before this particular trip, I had been lucky enough to have ridden to Reno a number of times by train including a trip before Amtrak in 1963. But this trip would be different. For the first time, I would be riding the same rails that my great grandfather had worked over between Sparks and Carlin. I was keyed up from the excitement that night. I chatted with some of the train crew members who worked for the SP then. Listening in on my train radio, I could hear discussions between the train and the dispatcher as we sped east. The stop the train made in Carlin to change crews was a quick one. Headlights from automobiles illuminated the trackside for those moments as the San Francisco Zephyr made it’s short stop there. It was a visit back in time, even if a brief one.

I was lucky enough to have ridden for a short ride around the Spark’s yard at the age of 3. My great grandfather arranged with some friends to take me into the cab of a locomotive being moved about one afternoon. It was indeed memorable and somewhere, I have a photograph taken at the ancestral home at 401 Sixth Street in Sparks with my father and great grandfather after the ride. I was all smiles. (And yes, it rubbed off big time, leading to a life long passion for railroading.)

My father used to ride on occasion with his grandfather on trips to Carlin. They would stay with my grandfather’s brother Joseph, who was also a conductor with the Southern Pacific. My father recalled trips aboard both diesel and steam locomotives, including the famed Cab-Forwards. In those years, Chris Walker had enough seniority that he was strictly working passenger trains. I have some train register books from the post war era, and his name is listed among the engineers who signed in, on a regular basis.

While I may not have the same anticipation today as I did back in October of 1980 for the ride over those rails between Sparks and Carlin, I will be taken back to many years ago of family history.

Special, indeed…