In which we find out what kind of people one meets in an Amtrak first-class lounge... In which we find out what kind of people one meets in an Amtrak dining car...
On the Train 1998 Jul 30 Thursday
I looked out the window. Beyond the trees, a tall snow-covered mountain gleamed in the morning light. It was quite grand. Later on, I would learn that this was Mount Shasta. A cynical part of me noted that if the train had been on time, it would have been to dark to see this. Not that I was able to see it for long--the train rattled on, and the mountain was soon obscured from view by trees and gully walls.
Someone sat down next to me. I looked over. This guy didn't look as dull as everyone else on the train. Okay, he was another white-haired white man, but he was in bicycling clothes. Maybe not everyone on this train would be unrelentingly dull. Maybe he knew about biking in the area. I asked him if he knew where we were. He smiled and said we were in Dunsmuir. Ah, so we weren't really catching up on our schedule, no were we? He said that the tracks around here were not really suited for high-speed use. Another old man sat down on my other side. This one seemed more typical of the men I'd seen in the car--he was pudgy, was carrying the Money section of USA Today. His clothing spoke to prosperity and a gullibility concerning magazine ads showing middle-aged men with flat bellies doing rigorous things on boats. The bicyclist said that the Southern Pacific lines in the Southwest are straight and well-maintained, and the trains there can go super-fast. Our rails, on the other hand followed a twisty course and were furthermore twisted--they had expanded in the heat, twisted as a result. I was all wound up to nod and say at least it was pretty country and had he done any bicycling in the area when the USA Today reader decided to share his knowledge with us.
He said that since these rails weren't able to expand length-wise, they had to expand width-wise. My head spun. My knowledge of physics, chemistry, metallurgy, rail travel--they aren't what they could be. Still, I didn't really know how the rails would know which way was length-wise and which was width-wise when it came time to expand. Where all the molecules somehow lined up? This seemed unlikely. "So, are you saying that the rails butt up against one another, that they try to expand lengthwise, and end up twisting or mushrooming or something?" I asked. "Uhm, yeah," he said, "on other lines, they've got those, uhm, those,..." he hesitated. There was a pause. I ventured, "Expansion joints?" "Yeah, expansion joints." I shouldn't have piped up. It would be my last chance to pipe up for a while. This guy was good at monopolizing a conversation, always jumping in before I could try to direct it away from rail engineering. Considering that none of us seemed to know anything about rail engineering, it wasn't a particularly edifying conversation. I started to stare out the window, occasionally flicking a glance at my empty coffee cup, this conversation flying past me.
A voice came over an intercom: "The dining room is now open and serving breakfast." The bicyclist hopped to his feet, said his goodbyes, and walked out the back of the car. I looked around stupidly. This wasn't the breakfast? Was there a dining room beyond this? I looked over at the stupid guy. He was reading USA Today. The attendant came around, put some coffee in my cup. I asked him about the dining car. He pointed out that if I just walked past the bar and to the next car of the train, I'd be at the dining car. Oh. I drank my coffee, walked back through the lounge car, and into the dining car.
Though I didn't realize that this was special at the time, the dining car is the place on the train where first class passengers and the rabble mix. Everyone shares the dining car, it is the border between first class and the rest of the train. I immediately noticed that this crowd in this car was younger than what I'd seen; while rather white, it wasn't unrelentingly white. I noticed my shoulders un-knotting. The MaitreD sat me down opposite a middle-aged couple, and sat a middle-aged lady down next to me. We looked at our menus, looked out the window. It occurred to me that it was unfair that I, historically a very shy person, should have to be the one to start up a conversation. But, then life is unfair. I asked the couple where they were from. Soon the table was chattering away, talking about the pleasantly unexpected availability of grits on the menu.
The couple was from Dunsmuir. The husband knew the local geography. As we traveled, we'd move from this forest region to a desert. Not only did mountains block rain, but some of them were volcanic. We should be on the lookout for flows of volcanic rock. The wife talked about what people do for fun around Dunsmuir: they walk along the railroad tracks to get to Mossbreak Falls. At first, not many people would make the hike, but more locals were getting interested. In fact, some people were calling for a trail to be put in, so that they didn't have to walk on the railroad. I, naive city boy, asked if it was dangerous to walk on the railroad tracks. "Oh, you can always hear the train coming. And you know when it's coming, there's a schedule." So what was wrong with walking on the tracks? She shrugged.
The lady on my left was named Tina. Tina's dad had had a rough year. Tina's mother (his wife?) had died, and he'd gone travelling. He'd been pickpocketed somewhere, and lost a suitcase somewhere else. Now he was in Chicago. He and Tina were going to meet half-way in Couer d'Alene, then she was going to escort him home.
In short, people in the dining car were much easier to talk to than the people in the first class lounge.
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