With a number of slow areas (with no opposing traffic, but maybe we're following a freight), we're an hour and 40 minutes late at Longview. On this leg of the train, our sleeper is right next to the diner; however, we're only on this train for one meal—tonight's dinner. Our table companions at dinner are a young man making his first trip out of Texas, who eats the cheapest dinner on the menu, and a young woman who may or may not be with him, who eats nothing at all. If this had not been the last sitting for dinner, the latter might have led to difficulties with the dining car crew, but there are empty tables at this sitting. During dinner, we make a double spot at Marshall. At Texarkana, left an hour and 20 minutes late, there's radio chatter about a “circus train", but we don't see it anywhere. Soon afterwards, we're asleep, although I wake enough at Little Rock to note that we're now only an hour late.

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2001

I awake as we are passing through Pevely. By the time I'm up, we're running alongside the Mississippi River, which we do for some 15 or 20 minutes. Then we turn away from the river and run through old industrial areas to Iron Mountain Junction, then through railroad yards to our arrival at St. Louis Union Trailers, about 15 minutes late. How much of the gain overnight is recovery time in the schedule? There's only about ten minutes difference in the northbound and southbound schedules between Poplar Bluff and St. Louis.

As we arrive at St. Louis Union Trailers (SLUT), the UP excursion train with 3985 on the head is on our left, and a string of private cars gathering for the Thursday and Saturday excursion is on our right, with an Amtrak P32 locomotive providing hotel power for the cars. Another NRHS conventioneer, whom I remember from pervious excursions in various parts of the country, has taken the trip down to Poplar Bluff and back in the off chance of seeing that line in the daylight (he lost out on that one), and is now heading for Chicago to get the detour on the IC green Diamond route (which he did get). I record the identities of the mail and express cars on the rear, added at Fort Worth, then we collect the checked bag and take a taxi over to the hotel that will be our base until midday Sunday.

NRHS St. Louis (6/19-6/23)

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2001 (cont.)

Our early morning arrival means that we could have arrived this morning and still taken today’s excursion. In fact, most of those riding the excursion are eating breakfast, or chatting in small groups in the hotel lobby when we arrive and while we’re checking in and getting our tickets for events later in the week at the Convention Registration desk. However, I would never have planned it that way, and we don’t have tickets for this excursion because they were sold out before our order was processed.

Among those I see in the hotel area prior to the first bus leaving for the excursion today are Donald Bishop, Wes Ross, Don Kehl and Ed Graham, Greg Molloy, Lee Dietrich, and Jim Bistline, and a number of others. We check in, but won’t get access to a room until late afternoon, so we decide to rent a car and chase today’s excursion, especially since the folks in the Registration Room have given us some direction to allow us to do that. So, we walk north on 4^th Street, looking for Budget, but find Enterprise first. It’s 7:30 am, and Enterprise has just opened (Budget wouldn’t do so until 8 am)., so we enquire about a car for today. Only when I make noises about seeing what the competition could offer does Casey offer to find us a car for 8:30 am. We go off to waste an hour, sitting down on a bench in the park surrounding the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Here, I discover that the convention’s “goodie bag” includes driving directions not only to where we need to go this morning, but also to other railroad locations in the St. Louis area. Good! This will make today’s activities easier.

The Gateway Arch is located on top of the bluffs above the Mississippi River, atop a tunnel through which the TRRA’s river front line runs. The bluffs in this area appear to have been built up to the same level as the adjacent city streets, since the land adjacent to the river does not rise as quickly north (Laclede’s landing and beyond) or south of this location as it does here. The land drops off dramatically east of the arch, with just a single road between the bottom of the bluffs and the river bank. There are a number of boats in river boat style (I can’t tell whether they’re all historic) moored at the rive bank. Also in the vicinity, one on either bank of the river, are some larger boats in river boat style, being used as floating casinos. We walk around the park for awhile, as far north as the park goes, then go back to Enterprise. Someone has just returned a car, so there really will be a car available for us, but Casey takes so long about it that I’m almost ready to tell him to forget it, since our reason for wanting the car will have passed (or rather, left). About nine o’clock, we finally get the car, and follow the first set of driving instructions on the sheet provided, to Valley Junction. (We had last passed through Valley Junction on our City of New Orleans (Amtrak) detour in 1998.)

Gorham Line Route Description

We head across the Mississippi into Illinois, make the required highway exit, and head the stated three miles south. I’m a bit doubtful about this, since I know our destination is only half a mile from the MacArthur Bridge, where the rails cross the river, just south of the highway bridge, but when the next steps are to go east three blocks, and then back north two and a half miles, I’m more accepting of the instructions, but more doubtful about our beating 3985 to the location. Before we get there, the road we’re on is closed, but by then we turn out to be close enough for me to walk the rest of the way. I walk to a place where a road crosses the tracks, and cross over to where other railfans are waiting. In just five minutes, 3985 and her train appear, and I take several photographs. We got the car in time, after all! I race back to the car, and we head for Dupo yard, the next place on the list. Along the way, we can see that we've got ahead of the train, and I pull to a stop alongside a large group forming a photo line, including Alex Mayes and Sheila Dorr (whom we had seen heading for Budget while we were waiting at Enterprise). Alex is yelling at a woman who is standing in front of the photo line, and eventually gets her attention by standing directly in front of her. Then 3985 sweeps by and we all get our photos. Elapsed time since I stopped the car has been about 90 seconds!

I leap back in the car, and we are able to pace 3985 along the Dupo yard until the road curves away from the tracks. We go back out to the main road, and stop to buy some coffee. (This turns out to be the time interval we’re behind Alex, fifty miles further south!) We then head south on Illinois 3, eschewing any attempt to keep up with 3985 along the farm roads. Nearing Chester, I think to catch the train by dropping down to the river bank, but the train is ten minutes ahead of us. We head for Chester, and find the train stopped alongside the river, next to the Inn we had seen surrounded by floodwater back in 1993 (when we had traveled this line on an Amtrak detour on the way to Chicago). It rapidly becomes clear that the train has unloaded for a runby, and we are going to be able to participate. Steve Lee and crew make two excellent runs past us all at this spot. (I later talk to Alex, who got here in time to capture the train’s arrival from the nearby bridge that crosses over the river, and got his shots despite being ordered off the bridge by the police!). This train, of course, is entirely composed of cars from the UP business and excursion car fleet, running behind a UP owned and maintained locomotive. Now that we get a chance to observe it at some length, it seems to be several cars shorter than in previous years. Presumably, this was a UP decision, and it would certainly explain why this excursion was sold out long before the other two mainline excursions at this convention.

Today’s excursion is going down the former St. Louis & Southwestern (latterly an SP subsidiary) and Missouri Pacific joint line along the east bank of the Mississippi to the river crossing at IllMo, now the UP’s Chester Subdivision, to Gorham, IL, selected because it has a wye on which to turn the train. After turning the train, the locomotive and perhaps the cars will be serviced, and the train will be there for at least an hour. The train will then return the same way it has gone down. The sun will be on the other side of the train by then, which means it will be on the wrong side at any of the locations we have actually been to, so far. Since we have now been able to capture the train on film on four passes (two at this location), we elect to break off the chase and use the rest of our time with the car to go to the remainder of the places on the convenient driving instructions.

The vast majority of the railroad facilities in the St. Louis area are on the east side of the river, in Illinois. Historically, there were many more railroads entering the area from the east than from the west (and many more than the three railroads coming from the east that there are now), so it made sense for them to have their terminal facilities on the east side of the river. Two terminal and switching railroads arose to handle interchange between the various railroad terminal facilities, including those belonging to the western railroads in Missouri. These were the Terminal Rail Road Association (TRRA) of St. Louis, and the Alton & Southern Railroad. We will not pass any of these railroad facilities on the Thursday or Saturday excursions, and we can’t get to them without a car. Today is our opportunity to visit some of them.

St. Louis Area Route Descriptions

So, we head back north, have some lunch at a Denny’s, and then return to Dupo to look at the yard. Then we follow the excellent instructions across the McKinley Bridge (we have returned to the west side of the river to pick up the location at which the instructions start) to the TRRA Madison Yard, serendipitously find a TRRA train crossing Madison directly in front of us, for which I step out of the car onto the street to take my photos, then continue along to Pontoon Road, a featured road crossing and then to Lenox Tower, where there is a conveniently passing Norfolk Southern train. It’s now mid afternoon, so we return to St. Louis, return the car, walk back to the convention hotel, and get our room. The hotel is under construction, and to get to our room (as to get to the Convention Registration room), we have to walk through a passageway constructed out of plywood into a tower whose atrium is filled with construction equipment, and no longer has its atrium bar and pizza parlor. It appears that this tower is being separated from the rest of the hotel (which has changed hands since the NRHS Convention team signed up with it)..

Surprise! Our room has a wide-open view of the MacArthur Bridge and, as we look a little closer, the TRRA overhead along the riverfront among all the road junctions. This will make it possible for us to get a feel for the frequency of trains on these two routes, and the kinds of traffic they’re carrying, but because they’re a bit further away than were the tracks in Cresson, in 2000, and because there’s nothing to warn us of a train’s impending arrival, we can neither record the motive power nor the numbers of cars in the trains, as we had done then.

A little after 5 pm, I get one more set of pictures of 3985 and her train as she crosses the bridge on the return journey.

Later, we go out to look for a place for dinner, and after and extensive search of the area around Broadway and Pine for somewhere that costs less than an arm and a leg, we eat at a Chinese restaurant that makes it clear they’re ready to close just as soon as we’re done!

Wednesday, June 20^th, 2001

We have no planned activities today, since we didn’t get on the MetroLink (light rail) tour, and we have visited the Museum of Transportation, at Kirkwood, previously (1996), and have been assured that it hasn’t changed since that time. So, we take the opportunity to sleep in. When we do get up, we decide to spend the day riding the light rail system, since we haven’t been on the half of it going out to Belleville, IL. Before doing that, however, we follow the walking instructions from the hotel to the location of Gratiot Junction and its former Tower. Then we go to the nearby light rail station, buy $4 all-day tickets, and board a train heading for Belleville and the Southwest Illinois College station that is the current end of the line. We go through the tunnel under downtown, and across the Eads Bridge, on the route of the former Pennsylvania Railroad’s exit from St. Louis. Once we’re beyond the station in the center of East St. Louis, we’re on the new extension (it opened on May 7^th, 2001), fifteen miles or so of additional track, much of it along the right of way once used by the Louisville and Nashville (and before that, Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis) entry into the area.

Once again, as on every other occasion we’ve passed through this area, the physical fabric of East St. Louis confounds us. Much of the inner city area (where not covered by railroad tracks and facilities) comprises block-sized grassy lots. On closer inspection, these prove to have concrete or stone footing almost hidden by the grass. That is, each of these blocks was once full of buildings. Here and there, there are a very few derelict building, in the process of collapsing, to prove the point. The light-rail stations, even in the center of town, all have huge park-and-ride lots, enabling light-rail access to employment in St, Louis, across the river, rather than any obvious sources of employment themselves. A couple of station further out, there are construction activities on both sides of the line building new housing units—with no garages, indicating that they’re “low cost housing” developments. There is a new maintenance depot along this section of the line. Just a little but further out, we’re out of East St. Louis, and into obviously affluent suburban territory.

We cross a number of the lines connecting the various railroad facilities on the east bank of the river, as we proceed to the end of the light rail line at College. Since the vast majority of the railroad facilities in the St. Louis area are on the east side of the river, in Illinois (as we saw on Tuesday), while we can hear their scanner traffic, we will not see the actual trains themselves for the remainder of our visit, once we’ve returned to Missouri on the light rail train. (We had been expecting to do so on the upcoming Sunday, but were prevented from doing so by a tardy Amtrak train—see Sunday June 24^th for details.)

We spend no time out at College, returning immediately, observing the landscape from the other direction, and alight at Laclede’s Landing, where we inspect the restaurants with a view to dinner arrangements in future days, and have lunch at a place called “The Trainwreck on the Landing” . After lunch, we return to the light rail station, which gives us a chance to inspect the fabric of the Eads Bridge and the way the light rail line and station have harmoniously been built within the limits of the old bridge. One of the interesting things here is that the line passes from being on a bridge, well above the level of the river, to running in a tunnel one story beneath the streets of St. Louis, without any sort of gradient or change in altitude. This shows how much higher the city itself is than the level of the river below. Then we ride out to Delmar Avenue, passing the parked 3985 and her train along the way. The attraction of Delmar Avenue is that the light rail platforms are on the site of the platforms of the former Wabash Railroad station, and the station itself is still in situ and nicely restored. We take some photographs, and then take the light rail back to the hotel.

We have some more time to watch the traffic visible from our window. Because the railroads from the east and south never cross the river, the only trains we see here are those of BNSF (on the riverfront line), UP (on both riverfront line and bridge), and Amtrak (which this year is using the bridge to cross the river at this location, rather than the riverfront line to Merchants’ Bridge, as it had the last time we were here (1996). Both BNSF and UP run unit coal trains through here, but interestingly the BNSF coal trains are loaded heading for Gratiot Junction (southbound), while Union Pacific’s are loaded leaving Gratiot Junction (eastbound), on the tracks we can see. Thus, the respective loaded coal trains pass through Gratiot Junction in opposite directions, even though all of them have originated in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin! There are no UP coal trains on the river front line.

A number of times, we see eastbound and westbound trains on the bridge at the same time. At least once, there were two trains stopped on the bridge at the same time. There is at least one BNSF train with helpers (manned or distributed power) mid-train in a general merchandise train. There are also a number of automobile carrier trains through here.

Because we have all day passes on the light rail system, we decide to have dinner at the restored St. Louis Union Station, where the concourse and trainshed are now occupied by a hotel and shopping mall. After dinner, we get back to the hotel area just as the baseball game at the adjacent Busch Stadium has ended. The light rail station platforms are packed to capacity with people leaving the game, crush control is the order of the day for the security people in evidence, and we have to push hard to get out of the train and out of the station. On our return to the hotel, we go to bed, since Thursday’s excursion requires an early start.

Thursday, June 21^st, 2001

Today’s excursion uses former St. Louis and San Francisco (“Frisco” ) 4-8-2 “Mountain” number 1522 as motive power, and a train assembled from private cars owned by individuals and NRHS Chapters. The train will run on the former Chicago, Burlington and Quincy line from St. Louis to West Quincy (across the Mississippi from Quincy, IL) and return. This line is now the Hannibal subdivision of BNSF.

The first bus is scheduled for 6:45 am, and the last for 7:15 am, so we arise at 6:15 am, and make our way to the bus boarding location in front of the hotel, grabbing coffee and water from the stand in the lobby on the way. Although it is now only 6:40 am, the bus we board is on it’s second trip to the train boarding point at SLUT! The excursion is timed to be able to enter the platform and load passengers after the departure of an on-time Amtrak train 22, but today’s train is a little bit late and will delay our boarding and departure. (If Amtrak had been a lot late, as it often is and will be for the next several days, we could have brought the train in and boarded immediately.)

Train 22 arrives, pulls past the station, and backs in. Eventually, while Amtrak is still servicing its train, we see 1522 backing past its other side, and onto the already assembled train of private cars parked to the west. The fuel truck that has been refueling the locomotives on train 22 moves to the front of our train to fuel 1522.

Meanwhile, we are encountering old friends, such as Helen and Smoke Shaak, from Lancaster, PA, in the waiting crowd of conventioneers. Today, we are riding in “Lounge Service” and Helen and Smoke are in Coach, so we head in different directions as our train pulls into the platform for boarding. There, also, is Greg Molloy, talking about how he dared not shave this morning due to (a) the late return of the Dinner Train the night before (1:30 am at SLUT), and (b) the continued pouring of the free alcohol until arrival.

As we have already ridden in Pine Tree State (at Charlotte, in 1996) and in Kichi Gammi Club (at Atlanta, in 1994), we elect to ride in Dover Harbor for this trip. Dover Harbor is a 1924 Pullman sleeper-lounge car, from the heavyweight era. We sit down at the forward-facing seats with a table in front of them. Our tablemates for this trip, boarding after us, prove to be an older couple from Rome, NY.

St. Louis to West Quincy Route Description

Passing through the train are Whayne McGinniss, at one time, and Frances Mohr, at another. Carl Jensen is “Private Car representative” for Kichi Gammi Club, and Jim Fetchero for Pine Tree State.

At the service stop in Hannibal we stop for more than an hour (far longer than was planned), to service the locomotive, and for the 1522 support crew to sell souvenirs from their tool car. Conventioneers are allowed off the train during the servicing, to take photographs, look at the (nearer parts of the) town, and chat to others not riding near them, and to those chasing the train by car. I take the opportunity to talk to Alex about his experiences chasing 3985 on Tuesday (reported above). Just to the east of where the train has stopped is the riverfront itself, including a couple of those river boat style vessels that I’m not sure are original. To the west of the BNSF line is a grassy park area that is quite muddy, either from rain or from recent flooding (the water level is only about a foot down from the level of the park).

On restarting from Hannibal, we eat our box lunches as the train heads for West Quincy. Just south of the West Quincy yard, the former CB&Q line from Kansas City comes in from the west. At West Quincy, we pass the yard, and pull out onto the Bridge over the Mississippi. At this point, Chris and I are only a couple of miles from the station that represents the westernmost point on Amtrak’s Illinois Zephyr that we had ridden in 1998. On that occasion, we found out after the fact that if the crew had known on the way down that we were riding the train just to ride the track, they would have let us stay on while they turned the train on this same wye. However, we didn’t do that, so now we have a gap. My inclination is to follow John Harmon’s example, and declare this piece of track “small and insignificant (S&I)” .

Once the entire train is past the east switch of the wye, we back down onto the northbound track along the west bank, and come to a stop. We’re now ready to head back to St. Louis, but the West Quincy Yardmaster and the Dispatcher aren’t ready for us to do so. There’s apparently a “problem down south” . We sit for awhile, then crawl through the yard to the south end (not out on the main, which is, however, free of traffic the entire time). There, we sit again for awhile. When we do leave, I still have not seen any traffic or heard any explanation on the railroad radio channels. North of Hannibal, we wait while a Norfolk Southern freight crosses the former Wabash bridge and the flat crossing into its tunnel, ahead of us.

Approaching Hannibal, the Dispatcher asks the excursion crew if they would like to “run the train up and down the siding at Hannibal” (i.e., do a runby there), since we’re “going to be waiting for an opposing train there, anyway.” Our crew accepts, but then when we get there, they can’t find anywhere along the siding at which they wish to do a runby. So, we wait for the opposing freight to pass, then pull out onto the main and get the dispatcher’s permission to reverse past the switch, on the main, and do a runby there. When we actually do stop for the runby, south of Hannibal itself, we’re nonetheless alongside the siding, and still have insufficient room, due to an adjacent body of water to get far enough back from the active track to get a usable angle on the train for photographs (for the vast majority of the passengers, except for those at the very north end of the line). Naturally, this course of action causes us to be delayed longer than the Dispatcher had intended!

Not much further down the line, we are stopped in a siding for over an hour, awaiting the passage of a northbound empty coal train. Comparing that train’s apparent speed with the distance to the next siding, it had probably passed that next siding before we entered this one, but there is still considerable discussion among the conventioneers, then and later, as to whether the Dispatcher’s decision to make us wait for that empty coal train was his ‘revenge’ for our excursion crew’s choices at the Hannibal runby location.

While this is all going on, our tablemates are talking about their departure, on Saturday. They are leaving St. Louis on train 300, at 4:25 am, and have a seven-hour layover in Chicago before taking the LakeShore Limited the rest of the way to Utica, NY. She seems to be enormously concerned about that seven-hour layover, but quite uninterested in our suggestions of things to do in Chicago, on a Saturday. Based on her apparent lack of understanding of her husband’s railfanning activities (she’s asking him why he needs more than one photograph of 1522), even after 40 years of marriage, we do not suggest Metra or CTA train rides to pass the time.

After it gets dark, not long after the empty coal train passes and we’re again steaming south, we find ourselves sitting in the lounge saloon of a 1924 Pullman car, fully restored to its original condition, in a train being pulled by a between-the-wars express steam locomotive, with nothing to suggest the modern era (since we’re out in the countryside with no visible vehicles or structures). This is a most fascinating segment of this excursion, with a complete illusion of a bygone era, albeit one neither anticipated nor prepared for by the excursion planners. (For instance, no arrangements for evening meals have been made.) It’s a segment we’re glad to have experienced. But then we’re not suffering from pangs of hunger, since enough snacks have been provided in the lounge service, and with our box lunches, to tide us over until morning.

Eventually, we come into a built-up, lit-up area, and the illusion is lost. After waiting for Amtrak train 305 (due St. Louis 10:40 pm) to enter SLUT ahead of us, then having 1522 stall on the tight curve to the west on the TRRA elevated track, and having to be pushed by 511 from the rear, we return to the originating platform. We’ve already been told there will only be six buses, instead of the originally planned eleven, since five drivers have exceeded their allowed hours of service and had to return to base. Our car exits rapidly, and Chris and I are on the first bus to leave, slightly delayed by an argument between the driver and a “bus host” who tries to board a bus on which he has already filled every seat. At the hotel, people are waiting with flyers for a late night restaurant, but we choose to go directly to bed.

Friday, June 22^nd, 2001

I had expected to sleep in today, after last night’s late return, but I awake at six and read until seven, before returning to bed for some more sleep. We’re up in time to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant (i.e., we’re in there between 10 and 11 am). Having eaten, and having already missed all of the morning seminars, we return to our room, and read our books and continue to observe the passing trains outside the window, until it’s time to go to the NRHA Annual Meeting at 3 pm. At one point, about 8:35 am, I hear the words “3985 all moving” come over the scanner, indicating that the UP excursion train is leaving for its date in Kansas City on Saturday. We see Amtrak #22 at 11;17 am and #303 at 121;32 pm crossing the MacArthur bridge.

At that meeting, we spend some time chatting with old friend Whayne McGinniss in the break between the Board Meeting and Annual Meeting. Then, during the meeting at the “new business from the floor” segment, a member of the St. Louis Convention team raises the issue of attracting new members for NRHS. Some interesting discussion follows. After the meeting, I write down my thoughts on the subject (which weren’t well formed enough to have presented at the meeting), and later I e-mail them to Greg Molloy.

Before the banquet, this evening, we chat some more with Helen and Smoke. At the banquet Rich Eichhorst, a member of the Convention Team, tells those at his table about a disturbing disagreement he had had with Whayne, while running the dinner cruise (not the dinner train) on Wednesday evening. The after-dinner speaker is Ed Ellis, no longer VP of Mail and Express for Amtrak, who has some discouraging words about Amtrak’s future, and serendipitously (I think) makes some comments about old timers at Chapter Meetings not discouraging younger members who relate their recent experiences, by making responses indicating how much better such experiences were when the old timers had had them.

Saturday, June 23^rd, 2001

Today’s excursion uses almost the same consist, and same locomotives as Thursday’s, but is headed the other way from SLUT, down the former Frisco mainline to Rolla and Newburg, MO, now the BNSF Cuba subdivision. The routine is the same as on Thursday, to the same (Convention) schedule, but this time Amtrak train 22 is very late and our excursion train gets to board and leave essentially on time. Today, we’re riding in coach and choose Clinchfield, since it is immediately behind the commissary car. (Lounge service on Thursday provided us with drinks and snacks all day, as well as the standard box lunch. Coach service includes only the box lunch, so coffee will have to come from the commissary car, hence our choice of seating.) As the coach loads, it transpires that Carl Jensen and his wife are sitting across from us, Dave Ackerman is two seats in front, and Joe and Lisa Williams are another two seats forward, on the other side of the car. All of these people arrived in St. Louis traveling on Kichi Gammi Club (which is run by a group managed by Carl’s son), and are returning on that car, departing at 4:25 am Sunday morning. They have already checked out of the hotel and loaded their luggage onto that car, and will take up residence there on this train’s return to St. Louis, tonight.

Frisco Line Route Description

The first ten miles or so, past Iron Mountain junction, where the UP De Soto subdivision (originally St. Louis and Iron Mountain, and more recently MP, and the route of Amtrak trains 21 and 22) branches off to the south, and then past the BNSF yard, are covered at an excruciatingly slow pace. (This appears to be normal, since trains 21 and 22 do it between SLUT and Iron Mountain junction, and we will do the same thing on the return.) Once we’re past the BNSF yard and onto the Cuba Subdivision, the former Frisco tracks come back adjacent to the former Missouri Pacific, now UP, tracks to Jefferson City, which we will run in sight of between here and the town of Pacific. Before the routes separate, we pass the local Six Flags amusement park (which is interesting, in that we had passed the original, in Arlington, TX, on the way here on Amtrak train 22).

Past Pacific, we’re now out in open countryside, and lovely countryside it is, too. Fully-grown deciduous trees line lush fields. This would be a great place to spend some time, if it weren’t so hot in the summer (but not so bad today) and cold in the winter. A little further along, we have a photo runby at a nicely scenic location. While we’re setting up for the runby, a number of the locals appear on a road across the way, and enquire as to what'’ happening. The ever-present BNSF police officer helps answer their questions. We then continue on through Rolla, where there is a stuffed and mounted sister locomotive to 1522 on display. All the way from St. Louis to Rolla, we have been climbing steadily, and are now some 700 feet higher than at the beginning of the trip. We then proceed down Rolla hill and through Newburg to the wye a couple of miles beyond, where we turn the train before returning to Newburg for a service stop and later a photo runby. As we detrain in Newburg, I take the opportunity to introduce myself to Joe Williams, Convention Chairman from the 2000 Convention in Stamford, so that he can put a face to the name he saw in our e-mail exchange last winter. I also see Mitch Dakelman here

While waiting for the runby, I run into the man who was our car host on Thursday. He lives in Rolla, and has come down to see the train, even though his service for the convention is over. Once the locomotive has been serviced, the train backs up out of sight from the crowd standing in the remains of the Newburg yard and performs our photo-runby. In fact, it does it twice. Then we reboard, and set off for our return to St. Louis.

First, however, we must negotiate the climb of Rolla Hill. That accomplished, we pass through Rolla and past 1501, once again, then start rolling off the miles in fine style. It is unclear to a number of us whether our performance today is simply happenstance, or whether it is due to the presence of BNSF VP Rollin Bredenberg on the train today (and his corresponding absence on Thursday). At Rosati, we have a rolling meet with a 6600 ft. long train in a 6800 ft. siding. East of Pacific, we’re passing an eastbound loaded coal train on the former MP when a westbound UP freight on the same (double) line meets us both.

Apparently, we’re running too early, since the buses are called for 7:30 pm at SLUT and on our present pace we would be back an hour before that. So, an additional runby is cooked up, to take place at the BNSF yard just west of St. Louis. Although this is wrong side for the sun, the railfans take it anyway. At the runby, I take the opportunity to ask John Harmon if he had taken train 22 north to get the Illinois Central detour on Friday. He had not tried, because the train was so late (we saw it cross the bridge at 11:15 am), but apparently it took the detour anyway. We return to SLUT just as the buses are arriving, and are soon back at the hotel. The events of this year’s NRHS Convention are over. As we had originally been scheduled to leave for home this evening (on train 21, at 9 pm, when it was the scheduled connection through to Los Angeles), we pay some attention to the return time of the excursion with that in mind.

As it happens, we would not only have had plenty of time to catch our train, we would have had time to walk over to St. Louis Union Station for dinner, as well. But after the return time of Thursday' excursion, we would have been very uncomfortable for much of the day!

After returning to the hotel, we walk over to Laclede’s Landing, by way of the park around the arch, and have dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. After dinner, walking up the hill in Laclede’s Landing to Fourth Street, we note the presence of the TAW Dome just a block or two further to the west. I remark on the impression that the whole of downtown St. Louis appears to be compressed into the six north-south blocks between Busch Stadium and the TWA dome, and doesn’t seem to go much further west than the the indoor arena and the mall at St. Louis Union Station. We walk back down Fourth Street to the hotel and go to bed.

The Journey West (6/24-6/27)

Sunday, June 24^th, 2001

We take the opportunity to sleep in, then get up, pack for home, and check out exactly at noon. Following lunch in the (empty) hotel restaurant, we take a taxi over to SLUT about 1 pm, and check our big bag to Los Angeles (after some difficulty getting the agent to understand that we really do want it to go out on train 21, this evening.

We're expecting to leave on train 304, at 2:05 pm, spend three hours in Springfield, IL, and then head south on train 21 from that location, at 7 pm, in time for dinner on the train. (We added this leg when Amtrak moved our returning train from Tuesday morning arrival in LA to Wednesday morning arrival in LA, and thus Sunday evening departure from these parts.) However, train 304 proves to be several hours late on its journey from Kansas City, for reasons never adequately explained to the waiting passengers. I spend a couple of hours outside, sitting on the baggage cart, having an extended conversation with Steve Miller from Sacramento. Steve is also waiting for train 304, but only so that he can go to Alton, where he will spend the night and take train 22 (through the Illinois Central detour) tomorrow morning. It's about 85 degrees out in the sun, which is still much more comfortable than the crowded station (trailers) in which the failing air-conditioning is being supplemented by a couple of floor-standing fans. To add to the misery of those waiting, the soft-drink machine is completely out of drinks.

When it gets to 4 pm, and train 304 still hasn't even left Kirkwood, I go inside to talk to the agent about our potential need to change our arrangements and not go to Springfield after all. We don't want to find ourselves sitting in a siding, south of Springfield, watching train 21 pass us southbound. We also don't want the conductor on train 21 to sell our sleeping space, as no-shows, if we don't get on at Springfield. Finally, we don't want to have paid for a dinner we haven't received (regardless of what happens with the transportation cost of the Springfield legs of the trip). Unfortunately, the staffing at SLUT in mid afternoon is quite inadequate to this task, none of the responsible people that one would see at morning or evening passage of the Texas Eagle being present at this hour.

It takes us two hours to get things squared away. Train 304 finally shows up at 4:38 pm, but the assistant conductor on that train strongly recommends we not get on, given the circumstances; the train leaves at 4:53 pm. By 6 pm, we have (a) spoken to the agent at Springfield, who concurs with our decision not to come there, and who will let the conductor know why we have not shown up, and that we will be boarding at St. Louis, (b) spoken with the folks at the reservations center, who tell us what to do with the unused ticket (send it in to Amtrak with an explanatory letter; apparently it can't just be refunded because it was already issued as an exchange when we were reticketed in LA on June 15th), and what to do about the shortened journey on the Springfield to Los Angeles ticket (have the agent reissue it right there and then), and (c) watched as the “agent” had someone on the phone talk him through the process, taking 45 minutes! :-(

Finally, we get to walk over to St. Louis Union Station (and its restaurants), where we have something cold to drink, and then have dinner at one of the few restaurants still open after 6 pm on a Sunday. We then return to SLUT, and sit on the baggage carts outside until the baggage agent needs them for official business (i.e. loading our checked bag). At train time, three other NRHS conventioneers appear, one of whom (Mike Bedford) has just upgraded his coach ticket to Dallas to a standard bedroom in the sleepers.

Train 21 arrives, I record the consist as it passes, and we walk down to the rear sleeper. After I have noted down the boxcars and roadrailers on the rear, I board and find that Mike has the room directly across from ours. We depart St. Louis 37 minutes late (I didn't record the dwell time). We talk with Mike for about an hour, and then go to bed.

Monday, June 25^th, 2001

I awake just as the train is stopping in Texarkana, which we depart only 26 minutes late. As on the way north, we have lost no time during the night on this segment. We choose not to go the breakfast, since the dining car is again at the other end of the train. Mike awakes about an hour later, and gets in for breakfast just before last call. We then chat for several more hours until we have to head for lunch just as the training is arriving at Dallas, where he gets off. At Dallas, we arrive an hour late (having dropped 35 minutes since Texarkana), and leave 99 minutes late (due at least in part to the time taken to remove the mail and express cars from, and add private car Tamalpais to, the rear of the train). Based on my discussion with Steve Miller, I'm now keeping a very detailed record of everything that slows or delays the train, at least during waking hours.

One of our lunch companions is worried about getting her lunch before we get to Fort Worth, where she is transferring to the Heartland Flyer for Oklahoma City and her home a three hour drive beyond that. It transpires that she can't eat wheat, and nothing available on the latter train passes her dietary restrictions, so if she doesn't eat now it will be after arrival in OK City before she gets any food. The dining car crew on this train is the same one we had between San Antonio and Fort Worth, just over a week ago. (They have had five days off in between.) The Chicago to San Antonio passenger cars are also the same as we had had on that train, but the through cars to Los Angeles are different. The San Antonio cars have (presumably) made a full round trip in between.

West of San Antonio, the corn fields are very dry, in marked contrast with those up the line towards San Marcos, just a few tens of miles to the east. This reinforces the notion of a strong climate boundary just west of San Antonio. As we proceed west, fields along the line are replaced by stand of Mesquite, and then by scrub as the land becomes successively more arid. The sky is overcast, but our breakfast companion from Temple, TX, assures us these “Gulf clouds” will burn off by 10 am, which it does. (We're several hundred miles from the Gulf, however.)

There is a rail gang just west of Del Rio that is waiting for us and three eastbound freights to pass, after which it will close the line until 5 pm today for rail replacement. In common with all the remaining stops we will make today, Del Rio is a “smoke stop” at which smokers are allocated ten minutes (not in the schedule) to indulge their habit. (There is a Chief of On-board Services on this train, in contrast to all others we've been on this year, whose major functions seems to be orchestrating the smoke breaks.) We leave Del Rio 4 hours and 10 minutes late, those last 10 minutes being due to the smoke break. Apparently, the Sunset Limited once had coaches with smoking lounges, but “they were all taken by the Texas Eagle” (which certainly has had them on all three legs this trip).

We now pass through the Amistad National Recreation Area and the Chihuahuan Desert. There are some “rails and trails” guides from the National Recreation Area riding on the train, giving most of their talk in the lounge car, but making occasional comments on the PA for the full train. While this seems like a good idea, I wonder what they do if the train is (ever) on time, with a scheduled 6:35 am departure from Del Rio. These folks give commentary all the way to the next stop at Sanderson.

We cross over the reservoir called Lake Amistad, and later cross the Pecos River High Bridge. Lake Amistad is 1119 feet above see level; from here to Paisano Pass, west of Alpine, we climb about 6000 feet. At 12:35 pm, the dispatcher discusses having an eastbound crew put its train way at Amistad, then return to Shumla to recrew another train, which is picking up part of yet another train, also at Shumla. At Sanderson, the guides depart, we have another smoke break, and leave just less than five hours late. During lunch in the diner, I hear stories about people caught smoking marijuana in the lounge car.

Some time later, I start hearing the conductor telling the engineer on our train about “level 3” status at various places. At the time, I don't know what that means, but later find out this is a heat restriction applied to the Sanderson and Valentine subdivisions between noon and 9 pm each day, requiring speeds to be limited to 40 mph. I don't know what is prompting the conductor to remind the engineer of this (perhaps we're going faster than 40 mph in his estimation?). As an aside, this is a disadvantage of continuous welded rail; jointed rail had expansion gaps at every joint that could absorb some of the heat effects, but continuous welded rail is subject to sun kinks when the temperature gets to far above that at which it was laid.

As we climb higher towards Paisano Pass (highest point on the Sunset Route at just over 7000 feet), the vegetation gets ever more sparse. Scrub has given way to rocky ground and spiky clumps of “grass". At Alpine, we have another smoke break, and leave over five hours late by just the length of the smoke break (which means we have lost no time, at least since Sanderson, due to the “level 3” heat restriction). Immediately west of Paisano Pass, we enter flat (but not level) open country, still sparsely vegetated.

Awhile later, we pass through the fringe of a thunderstorm raging in the mountains off to the south. Down in the broad river plain in the last fifty miles or so to El Paso are irrigated fields and orchards that provide strong contrast to the scrub that is still evident in unirrigated areas. El Paso is one of those cities with very slow track approaches; in this case, 20 mph for the last 15 miles to El Paso Union station. By the roundhouse at the junction with the Tucumcari line, we stop in tack 106 to refuel the locomotives. This 16 minute stop erases all the recovery time in the schedule approaching El Paso.

In El Paso, I record those parts of the consist that I haven't been able to capture as we traveled along (e.g. by walking through the cars on the way to the diner), and observe four men (presumably DEA agents) and one of the drug-sniffing dogs going over the baggage in the baggage car. The two pot smokers have long since been removed from the train. Once the train is serviced, we depart still about five hours late.

We leave El Paso as the sun is starting to set, are eating dinner in Deming, and go to bed after leaving Lordsburg (5 hr, 20 min. late). Today, we awoke on Central Time, spent the last few hours on Mountain Time, and again set our watches back to Pacific Time before bed.

Wednesday, June 27^th, 2001

I awake about 6 am, in the desert. This isn't really a surprise, until radio traffic tells me we're passing MP 822, well to the east of Yuma, still in Arizona. Clearly, we have lost a significant amount of time during the night, probably due to the crew that took over at Alpine timing out on the hours of service law, somewhere to the east of their destination at Tucson, and the train remaining stopped awaiting the patch crew from Tucson.

At breakfast, we finally meet the couple from the room across the corridor. They live in Ridgecrest, near the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, at which she works for contractor Lockheed Martin. They have just spent a “week” in Oklahoma City. At Yuma, there is another smoke break, and we leave almost eight hours late, having lost another two and a half hours on the schedule, overnight. We cross over the dregs of the Colorado River, and then over the All-American (irrigation) canal.

An hour or so later, we start to pass alongside the Salton Sea. Here, the track is almost a hundred feet below sea level, but when it was built it had been almost three hundred feet below sea level, at the bottom of the Salton Sink that was then completely dry. The present body of water was created in the first few years of the twentieth century, when a flooding Colorado River burst through the control gates at the irrigation outlet, and the flood water poured downgrade to the Salton Sink. Over the next several years, numerous attempts to close the breach in the Colorado's flood walls were unsuccessful, and the level of the new Salton Sea continued to rise. As it did so, it began to cover the lines of the Southern Pacific, which was forced to lay a new line higher up. Several years later, when forced to move the line for the third time (to its present location), the SP's management had had enough, and the railroad took on the challenge of sealing the breach. With all of the engineering resources of the railroad at its disposal, it was successful were other had not been, and the breach was closed. In the ninety plus years since then, evaporation has reduced the level of the “sea” so that in most places it no longer washes adjacent to the tracks, and in so doing has raised the salinity of the water well above that of the Pacific ocean, just 200 miles away.

As we leave the Salton Sea behind, and approach Indio (returning to sea level), the PA is full of announcements about bussing passengers destined for the San Joaquin valley and train 14 to the north, who will be transferred, along with their checked luggage, at Palm Springs. It now becomes obvious that the Chief has another function beyond orchestrating smoke breaks: he gets to orchestrate bus transfers for passengers on late trains, as well! Although we've already climbed up from below sea level, Indio is the nominal start of the steady 2500 foot, 50 mile long, climb to the summit of Beaumont Pass. There are very few railroad facilities, even very few artifacts, left in Indio, now, except for a helper track or two, where once was a large freight yard, massive icing facilities for refrigerated cars (reefers), and a large locomotive depot, as well as a passenger station.

This is the first time we've passed this way in the daylight in the twenty years since a Pacific Railroad Society excursion to Yuma and back in 1981 (our first Superliner trip), and the difference at Indio is quite remarkable. At Thermal, just east of Indio, a bridge across a creek once had facilities for several more tracks than the two it accommodates now. At Garnett, 23 miles from Indio, we pull into the more than two mile long siding, and stop at the Palm Springs station. Actually, two stops are required: 16 minutes to unload the transferring baggage and 7 minutes to unload the transferring passengers (but the smokers get all 23 minutes). We leave at 11:03, almost nine hours late. Across the broad summit valley of Beaumont Pass, located between the 10,000 foot peaks of San Gorgonio to the north and San Jacinto to the south, there are several large fields of electricity-generating windmills.

Seventy miles further along, in San Timoteo Canyon above the Ordway Crossovers, we change crews again, with a new “patch” crew to take us into Los Angeles. At West Colton yard, we stop for a deadheading UP crew to alight. Then we reach Ontario, where the folks across the corridor get off to rent their car (at Ontario airport) and drive back to Ridgecrest. Along this stretch of track there are quite a number of “unforeseen: speed restrictions, several of them to 10 mph. We are nine and a half hours late at Ontario, 14 minutes more at Pomona.

Finally, we reach Los Angeles, although with the aid of the extensive recovery time built into the timetable in the last leg to LA we're only seven hours late into LA, at 3:01 pm. We take our carry-on bags directly to the car in the east garage, having to walk around those carefully place Amtrak carts again, then drive around to baggage claim to get our checked bag. As the bags start to arrive, that same officious Amtrak employee shows up, yelling at various people. I decide to ignore him, we get our bag and leave. We're home a little after 4 pm, far too late to bother going in to work today. For the first time in days, the air around us is cool, here at the beach!

Causes of Delay on Amtrak Trains (recorded on this trip)

As noted above, I recorded the reason (as I could ascertain it) behind every slowdown or stop made by our Amtrak trains, on the second half of this trip, and many of those for the first half. The tables that follow contain the complete data. In summary, the reasons fell into the following categories on the different legs of the trip:

Train Segment	Delays, by Category
Train Segment	Amtrak	Smoke Breaks	Slow Orders	Traffic	Other
Train 2, 6/15/01	8	0	2	7
Train 22, 6/17/01	7	0	0	6
Train 822, 6/17/01	2	0	0	1
Train 821, 6/18/01	“0”	0	2	3
Train 22, 6/18/01	4	0	4	7
Train 21, 6/24/01	11	0	19	6
Train 1, 6/24/01	8	4	32	12

Clearly, there is a substantial difference in the apparent causes of delay between the days when only casual attention was being paid to recording all of the causes of delay, and the days when detailed observations of all such causes were being recorded. Of course, it is possible that there was a real substantive difference between the performance on June 15^th to 19^th and the performance on June 23^rd to 27^th, but this seems unlikely. In casual observation, it seems that Amtrak is responsible for about half of the delay incidents, and other traffic (usually freight trains belonging to the line’s owner) the other half. However, in detailed observations, there seem to be as many delays due to slow orders (foreseen or unforeseen) as there do the other causes combined. This suggests that track upgrades, routine maintenance, and slow orders due to lack of maintenance have as much impact on time-keeping as do the more widely-reported causes.

We’ve always been prepared for Amtrak trains to be late, and only have difficulty with this if it causes us to miss a connection (which so far has only involved taking a later connecting bus, on one occasion). We travel on enough railfan-oriented excursions to know that such excursions operate on “Railfan Excursion Time” (which is as flexible as a Salvador Dali watch). However, the last couple of years, it does seem as if Amtrak has adopted Railfan Excursion Time; timekeeping has become that much worse on the routes we’ve traveled on. L

Train 2, 6/15/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
06/15/2001
	LAUS	10:30 PM	Passengers from train 11	15
	LAUS	10:45 PM	Restore HEP which crahsed on starting	15
497.3	Bassett		Signals	10
501.5	Industry		Signals	10
06/16/2001
732.7	Yuma	4:40-5;09 am	Extra time in station	8
776.4	Noah	5:53 AM	?
897.8	Maricopa	7:37-7:50 am	Crew Change (normally Tucson)	13
983.9	Tucson	9:12-9:40 am	Extra time in station	8
1055	Dragoon	11:14-11:25 am	Opposing traffic at end of 2MT	11
1148.3	Lordsburg	1:52-2:01 pm	Restart HEP	7
1295.9/829.3	El Paso	4:31 -4:56 pm	Extra time in station	5
827.6	Cotton St.	5:01-5:06 pm	Signals	5
827.5	Tower 47	5:05-5:11 pm	Signals	6
815.5		5:34 PM	Stop and flag signal	5
794	Tornillo	5:54-6:11 pm	Take siding for #1	20
738.2	Sierra Blanca	7:04-7:08 pm	Switch problem	5
607.2	Alpine	10:02-10:27 pm	??	23
			Total	166

West of El Paso, mileposts are from San Francisco (ex-SP).
East of El Paso, mileposts are from Houston (ex T&NO).

Train 22, 6/17/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
	San Antonio	7:00-8:12 am	Late arrival of train 2, switching	72
227.3	New Braunfels	9:25-9:29 am	Cross traffic	5
	San Marcos	9:57 AM	Double spot	2
179.1	Austin	10:39-10:52 am	Extra time in station	11
172.6	Sneed	11:15-11:18 am	Meet train	5
160.4	Round Rock	11:25 AM	Meet train
149.9	Hester	11:37 PM	Meet train
144.4/918.9	Taylor	11:46-11:50 am	Double spot	2
880/218.2	Temple	12:44-12:51 pm	Extra time in station	5
	McGregor	1:17-1:22 pm	Extra time in station	3
314.4		2:36-2:46 pm	Meet freight	10
317.5	Cleburne	2:53-2:57 pm	Extra time in station	2
345.6	Tower 55	3:33-3:45 pm	Cross traffic	12
			Total	129

On the ex-MP Austin subdivision mileposts are from Palestine, TX.
On the ex-MKT Waco subdivision mileposts are from Kansas City.
On the ex-AT&SF, Fort Worth Subdivision mileposts are from Galveston.

Train 822, 6/17/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
346	Fort Worth	6:00 PM	Late departure of train 21	35
411.3	Gainesville	7:28-7:32 pm	Extra time in station	2
450.4	Ardmore	8:28-8:40 pm	Wait for opposing freight	12
			Totals	49

On the ex-AT&SF Fort Worth and Oklahoma Subdivisions mileposts are from Galveston.

Train 821, 6/18/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
510.2	Wayne	9:20-9:47 am	Wait for opposing freight	27
423.1	Thackerville	11:34-11:49 am	Wait for opposing freight	15
380.1		12:44-12:45 pm	stop for ??	5
		1:31-1:33 pm	stop for maintenance	5
346	Fort Worth	1:41-1:50 pm	Wait for opposing freight	9
			Totals	61

Note: this train seemed to lose a minute or two between each pair of stations, even when it covered the distance without any apparent slow orders or other causes of delay.

On the ex-AT&SF Fort Worth and Oklahoma Subdivisions mileposts are from Galveston.

Train 22, 6/18/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
	Fort Worth	2:30 PM	Late arrival	32
	Fort Worth	3:11 PM	Extra time in station	16
245.4	Tower 55	3:24-3;31 pm		7
	Arlington	3:46 PM		2
		4:04-4:08 pm	Foreman Simon	5
216		4:14 PM	Maintenance gang	2
215	Dallas	4:21-4:24 pm	?? At w. end of station	3
214.8	Dallas	4:26-4:39 pm	Extra time in station	3
213		4:49-5:03 pm	??	15
209		5:15-5:24 pm	wait for opposing train	10
189.2		5:44-5:50 pm	slow	10
149.6	Grand Saline	6:25-6:30 pm	slow	5
		6:59-7:11 pm	stop then slow	15
108.2		7:31-7:35 pm	slow	5
89.6	Longview	7:49-7:53 pm	Extra time in station	2
65.5	Marshall	8:16-8:24 pm	double spot	6
			Totals	138

On the ex T&P, Dallas subdivision, mileposts are from Texarkana

Train 21, 6/24/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
6/25/01
0	Texarkana	7:29-7:34 am	Extra time in station	3
50		8:25-8:35 am	slow
65.5	Marshall	8:43-8:54 am	slow, with stops, entering station	9
65.5	Marshall	8:54-9:00 am	double spot	4
89.6	Longview	9:26-9:31 am	double spot	3
		9:35 AM	pass train of grain & tanks	0
135.9	Mineola	10:20-10:24 am	double spot	2
150		10:37 AM	pass eb double stack	0
198	Mesquite	11:20-11:30 am	KCMQ workng in front of us	10
212.8		11:45-11:55 am	slow	10
214.5	Dallas	11:58 am-12:10 pm	Foreman Blankenship at "Amtrak lead	12
			pass eb BNSF double stack	0
214.8	Dallas	12:10-1:09 pm	Remove roadrailers, add Tamalpais	39
215	Dallas	1:12-1:13 pm	stop just e. of Dealey Plaza	1
		1:44 PM	slow, Foreman Simon	5
346	Fort Worth	2:08-2:47 pm	Extra time in station	4
		2:27 PM	sb loaded coal on ex-MKT	0
342.6	Birds	2:57-3:13 pm	wait for train 22	16
		3:13-3:19 pm	slow, Foreman Nelson	6
		3:34-3:40 pm	10 mph speed restriction	10
325.3	Joshua	3:53 PM	pass nb mixed freight	0
317.5	Cleburne	4:03-4:09 pm	Extra time in station	4
303.5	Blum	4:15 PM	pass nb mixed freight	0
287.5		4:34-4:37 pm	25 mph speed restriction	5
253.1		5:06-5:15 pm	40 mph	5
	McGregor	5:15-5:18 pm	Extra time in station	1
		5:27 PM	pass nb unit grain train	0
238.8		5:30 PM	25 mph speed restriction	5
225.6		5:36 PM	30 mph speed restriction	4
		5:40 PM	slow	2
218.2/880.0	Temple	5:45-5:54 pm	Extra time in station	7
892.5		6:12 PM	25 mph speed restriction	5
918.4	Birge	6:35-6:37 pm	slow, pass empty UP coal train	5
918.9/144.4	Taylor	6:47 PM	stop to copy slow order	2
	Hutto	6:59-7:01 pm	30 mph speed restriction	5
161.5		7:08 PM	25 mph speed restriction	5
179.5		7:25 PM	25 mph speed restriction	5
179.1	Austin	7:34-7:41 pm	Extra time in station	5
		7:58 PM	slow order	5
		8:46-8:49 pm	stop to copy track warrant	3
231.7		8:54 PM	30 mph speed restriction	5
235		9:02 PM	25 mph speed restriction	5
242.5			25 mph speed restriction	5
	Tower 112	9:45-9:55 pm	wait for eb freight on ex-SP	10
	San Antonio	10:00-10:10 pm	reverse into depot

On the ex T&P, Dallas subdivision, mileposts are from Texarkana
On the ex-AT&SF, Fort Worth Subdivision mileposts are from Galveston.
On the ex-MKT Waco subdivision mileposts are from Kansas City.
On the ex-MP Austin subdivision mileposts are from Palestine, TX.

Train 1, 6/24/01

Milepost	Location	Time	Reason for Delay	Duration/ Time Loss
6/26/01
MP 209.3	San Antonio	7:29 AM	Unknown prior delays
		7:31 AM	Stop to hand throw switch	2
MP 211.0	Tower 112	7:38 AM		0
MP 289.6	Knippa	9:01 AM	slow	2
MP 301.1	Uvalde	9:12 AM	pass stack train	0
MP 311		9:18-9:24 am	slow, then enter siding	6
MP 350		9:56-10:00 am	slow for MoW crew	4
MP 357.8		10:07-10:11 am	slow	4
MP 362.8	Amanda	10:16 AM	pass eb mixed freight	0
MP 378.5	Del Rio	10:37-10:47	double stop + smoke break	10
	Del Rio		pass eb double stack	0
MP 391.4	Amistad	11:02 AM	pass eb freight	0
		11:19 AM	slow	2
MP 431.5	Shumla	11:49 AM	pass eb freight	0
		11:56-11:58 am	slow	2
MP 456		12:01 PM	40 mph speed restriction	2
MP 442.7	Langtry	12:09 PM	pass eb freight	0
MP 456.5	Pumpville	12:32 PM	pass eb freight	0
		12:32-12:41 pm	slow	9
MP 466-468	Malvado	12:45-12:56 pm	25mph speed restriction	11
MP 506.9	Sanderson	1:48-1:58 pm	smoke break	10
	Sanderson		pass eb freight	0
MP 551		2:40 PM	"level 3" heat restriction	?
MP 559		2:50 PM	25mph speed restriction	5
		2:58 PM	pass eb freight	0
MP 575.1		3:10 PM	"level 3" heat restriction	?
		3:43-3:48 pm	slow approaching Alpine	5
MP 603.9		3:48 PM	stop & go at signal	2
MP 607.2	Alpine (CT)	3:57-4:07 pm	smoke break	10
MP 608.5	Alpine Jct (MT)	3:12 PM	pass eb freight	0
		3:35 PM	stop @ signal for wb freight to clear	9
MP 632.8	Marfa	3:44 PM	pass that wb freight	0
MP 642.9	Aragon	3:55 PM	pass eb freight	0
MP 723.		5:00 PM	stop & proceed @ signal	2
MP 726.1	Mallie	5:04 PM	pass eb freight	0
		5:08 PM	Slow; "approach" signal’ freight still clearing	10
MP 736.9	Sierra Blanca	5:18 PM	pass eb stack train	0
MP 751.3	Small	5:31 PM	pass eb double-stack	0
MP 760.9	Finlay	5:38 PM	pass eb double-stack	0
MP 761.5		5:38-5:43 pm	40 mph speed restriction	5
MP765.5		5:43-5:52 pm	10 mph speed restriction	9
MP 770.1	McNary	5:54 PM	pass wb freight	0
MP 790.5		6:12-6:13 pm	30 mph speed restriction	1
MP 794.0	Tornillo	6:16 PM	pass eb freight	0
MP 811.0		6:29-6:32 pm	40 mph speed restriction	3
815.4-816.0		6:35-6:41 pm	15 mph speed restriction	6
MP 816.7		6:46 PM	slow to 20 mph for El Paso approach	?
		6:55 PM	momentary stop	2
MP 827.5		7:12-7:21 pm	fuel on track 6 @ roundhouse	9
829.3/1295.9	El Paso	7:30-8:03 pm	less time than planned in sta.	-14
		8:40-8:49pm	slow running, pass eb freight	9
MP 1208.0	Deming	9:50-9:53 pm	no smoke break!	1
MP 1148.3	Lordsburg (MT)	10:43-10:53 pm	smoke break	10
6/27/01
MP 783.6	Colfred (PT)	6:59-7:07 am	stop & proceed @ signal	8
MP 770	Wellton	7:26 AM	pass eb freight	0
MP 760		7:30 AM	pass eb stack train	0
MP 756		7:35 AM	25 mph speed restriction	5
MP 738		7:51 AM	slow for Yuma yard limits	?
MP 732.6		8:06 AM	10 mph speed restriction	2
MP 732.7	Yuma	8:08-8:16 am	smoke break	8
MP 700		8:47 AM	slow
MP 639.6	Ferrum	9:37 AM	slow to enter siding, meet eb freight	2
MP 619.5	Thermal	9:59 AM	pass eb double stack	0
MP 600.5	Thousand Palms	10:14-10:26 am	crossover, pass work train on wb main, cross back	5
		10:21 AM	pass eb locos	0
		10:24 AM	pass eb freight	0
		10:34 AM	pass eb freight	0
MP 588.1	Garnet	10:36 AM	slow for signals, enter siding for Palm Springs stop
	Palm Springs	10:40-11:13 am	unload baggage and transfer passengers	30
	Palm Springs	10:59 AM	eb TOFC/COFC passes	0
	Palm Springs	11:20-11:30 am	wait for eb double stack at w. end Garnet	10
		11:40-11:54	slow across top of Beaumont Pass	10
MP 574.1	Cabazon	11:54	crossover
MP 569-575		11:54-12:02	Foreman Woods has track out of service	2
MP 568		12:03 PM	pass eb double stack	0
MP 567		12:07 PM	pass 3-unit helper set	0
MP 562-566		12:08-12:16 pm	Foreman Mason	5
MP 562.3	Beaumont	12;18-12:22 pm	crossover from track 1 to 2	4
	San Timoteo Canyon	12:35-12:42 pm	stop to change to patch crew	7
MP 549.3	Ordway	12:50 PM	crossover on high-speed Xover, pass eb frt	0
MP 542.6	Loma Linda	12:58 PM	pass eb double stack	0
MP 538.7	Colton BNSF X	1:00-1:02 pm	slow on approach, eb freights	2
MP 535.0	W. Colton	1:11-1:13 pm	let of UP deadhead crew	2
MP 520.2	Ontario	1:28-1:36 pm	double spot	6
MP 517.8	Montclair	1:42-1:46 pm	stop	4
MP 517.8	Montclair	1:47 PM	10 mph speed restriction	8
MP 516.9		1:53 PM	25 mph speed restriction	3
MP 515.4	Rservoir	1:56 PM	25 mph speed restriction	3
MP 514	Pomona	1:59-2:00 pm	station, wb freight on Xover	0
MP 513.6	Hamilton	2:04-2:06 pm	10 mph speed restriction	6
MP 503.5	Marne	2:15-2:31 pm	slow (MoW had equipment failure)	16
		2:34 PM	wb local in side track	0
MP 494.6	El Monte	2:36-2:40 pm	wait to enter Metrolink	4

West of El Paso, mileposts are from San Francisco (ex-SP).
East of El Paso, mileposts are from Houston (ex T&NO).

Appendix

Potential Approaches for Attracting Younger Members to NRHS

I have been thinking about this issue, ever since it was raised at the NRHS Annual Meeting, a week ago. While I recognize that much of the onus for attracting and keeping younger members rests with the Chapters, I think that the National Society could adopt policies and make constructive suggestions to the Chapters in this area.

The major issues I see are with the tacit assumptions as to what is meant by “historical”, and what the society (or a chapter) should be doing in terms of “historical” activities.

From my reading of the annual “activities” issue of the NRHS Bulletin, it seems to me that many members (and especially organizers) tacitly assume that to be “historical”, something must date back to the steam era, or at least to the mid-century streamliner era. Yet, almost by definition, “younger” members remember nothing before Amtrak, and little before second-generation diesel locomotives, in operations on commercial (as opposed to museum) railroads.

Likewise, many Chapters seem to place major emphasis on the preservation and restoration of artifacts from those earlier eras. This tends to exclude those with no mechanical skills, or who are not interested in performing such work. But even for those who are, the artifacts are from days beyond their memory. Who is thinking about preserving an Amtrak F40 as they are retired by Amtrak? if that isn't old enough, how about an SDP40F (from those taken over by Santa Fe)?

How many groups pay attention to the operations (as opposed to artifacts) of railroads, past or present? How about the context of today's traffic and operations compared to those of yesteryear? After all, today's operational data is the raw material of the history of the future. The more we collect now, the more there will be for future historians to base their history on.

Finally, for now (and Ed Ellis made a similar point at the NRHS Annual Banquet), older members should not do things like telling interested younger people that, say, current operations over Tehachapi or Horseshoe Curve are not interesting, because Southern Pacific or Pennsylvania Railroad (or even Conrail) don't operate them any more.

For several years, I have been making notes on my trips by train, with a view to writing them up as snapshots of the operations of both Amtrak and the freight railroads that might be useful to researchers at a later date. I think that providing a way of collecting and accessing such data might be a useful activity for NRHS that could be of interest to younger members.

Train 2, 6-15-2001	Schedule	Actual
Los Angeles	10:30pm	10:45pm
Ontario	11:37pm	12;33am
6-16-2001
Yuma, AZ	3:19am	4:40am 5:03am
Tucson	8:10am	9:12am 9;40am
Benson PT	9:47am	10:41am
Lordsburg, NM MT	12:05pm	1:52pm 2:01pm
Deming	12:57pm	2:57pm
El Paso, TX	3:01pm 3:21pm	4:31pm 4:56pm
Alpine	8:06pm	10:02pm 10:27pm
6-17-2001
San Antonio (arr.)	4:11am	6:04am

Train 22, 6-17-2001	Schedule	Actual
San Antonio	7:00am	8:12am
San Marcos	8:32am	9:57am
Austin	9:31am	10:39am 10:52am
Taylor	10:22am	11:46am 11;50am
Temple	11:25am	12:44pm 12:51pm
McGregor	11:51am	1:17pm 1:22pm
Cleburne	1:00pm	2;53pm 2:57pm
Fort Worth (arr.)	1:58pm	3:52pm

Train 822, 6-17-2001	Schedule	Actual
Fort Worth	5:25pm	6:00pm
Gainesville, TX	6:45pm	7:32pm
Ardmore, OK	7:31pm	8:26pm
Pauls Valley	8:28pm	9:38pm
Purcell	8:53pm	10:05pm
Norman	9:11pm	10:27pm
Oklahoma City (arr.)	9:55pm	10:50pm

Train 821, 6-18-2001	Schedule	Actual
Oklahoma City	8:25am	8:25am
Norman	8:50am	8:52am
Purcell	9:09am	9:12am
Pauls Valley	9:34am	10:04am
Ardmore, OK	10:30am	11:02am
Gainesville, TX	11:14am	12:06am
Fort Worth (arr.)	12:55pm	1:55pm

Train 22, 6-18-2001	Schedule	Actual
Fort Worth	1:58pm 2:23pm	2:30pm 3:11pm
Dallas	3:28pm 3;38pm	4;26pm 4:39pm
Mineola	5:23pm	6:44pm
Longview	6:15pm	7:49pm 7:53pm
Marshall	6:48pm	8:16pm 8:24pm
Texarkana	8:11pm	9.32pm
Little Rock	10:59pm	11:50pm 11:55pm
6-19-01
St. Louis (arr)	6:22am	6:39am

St. Louis and the Southwest
June 15^th-June 27^th, 2001

Don Winter

Introduction

The Journey East (6/15-6/19)

Friday, June 15^th, 2001

Train 2, 6-15-2001

Saturday, June 16^th, 2001

Sunday, June 17^th, 2001

Train 22, 6-17-2001

Train 822, 6-17-2001

Monday, June 18^th, 2001

Train 821, 6-18-2001

Train 22, 6-18-2001

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2001

NRHS St. Louis (6/19-6/23)

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2001 (cont.)

Wednesday, June 20^th, 2001

Thursday, June 21^st, 2001

Friday, June 22^nd, 2001

Saturday, June 23^rd, 2001

The Journey West (6/24-6/27)

Sunday, June 24^th, 2001

Monday, June 25^th, 2001

Train 21, 6-24-2001

Tuesday, June 26^th, 2001

Train 1, 6-24-2001

Wednesday, June 27^th, 2001

Causes of Delay on Amtrak Trains (recorded on this trip)

Train 2, 6/15/01

Train 22, 6/17/01

Train 822, 6/17/01

Train 821, 6/18/01

Train 22, 6/18/01

Train 21, 6/24/01

Train 1, 6/24/01

Appendix

Potential Approaches for Attracting Younger Members to NRHS

Train 21, 6-24-2001	Schedule	Actual
St. Louis, MO	9:10pm	9:37pm
6-25-2001
Little Rock, AR	4:37am	4:58am
Texarkana, TX	7:08am	7:29/34
Marshall	8:23am	8:54/59
Longview	8:53am	9:24/31
Mineola	9:40am	10:20/24
Dallas	11:10am 11:30am	12:10pm 1:09pm
Fort Worth	12:43pm 1:18pm	2:08pm 2:47pm
Cleburne	2:00pm	4:03/09
McGregor	3:08pm	5:15/19
Temple	3:51pm	5:45/54
Taylor	4:44pm	6:45pm
Austin	5:38pm	7:34/41
San Marcos	6:20pm	8:24pm
San Antonio (arr)	9:00pm	10:10pm

Train 1, 6-24-2001	Schedule	Actual
6-26-00
San Antonio	3:40am	7:29am
Del Rio	6:35am	10:37am 10:47am
Sanderson	9:10am	1:48pm 1:58pm
Alpine CT	11:00am	3:59pm 4:07pm
El Paso, TX MT	2:20pm 3:07pm	7:30pm 8:03pm
Deming, NM	4:37pm	9:53pm
Lordsburg MT	5:31pm	10:43pm 10:53pm
6-27-00
Yuma, AZ PT	12:25am	8:08am 8:16am
Palm Springs, CA	2:38am	10:40am 11:13am
Ontario	4:08am	1:28pm 1:36pm
Pomona	4:18am	2:00pm
Los Angeles	8:00am	3:01pm

St. Louis and the Southwest June 15th-June 27th, 2001

Don Winter

Introduction

The Journey East (6/15-6/19)

Friday, June 15th, 2001

Train 2, 6-15-2001

Saturday, June 16th, 2001

Sunday, June 17th, 2001

Train 22, 6-17-2001

Train 822, 6-17-2001

Monday, June 18th, 2001

Train 821, 6-18-2001

Train 22, 6-18-2001

Tuesday, June 19th, 2001

NRHS St. Louis (6/19-6/23)

Tuesday, June 19th, 2001 (cont.)

Wednesday, June 20th, 2001

Thursday, June 21st, 2001

Friday, June 22nd, 2001

Saturday, June 23rd, 2001

The Journey West (6/24-6/27)

Sunday, June 24th, 2001

Monday, June 25th, 2001

Train 21, 6-24-2001

Tuesday, June 26th, 2001

Train 1, 6-24-2001

Wednesday, June 27th, 2001

Causes of Delay on Amtrak Trains (recorded on this trip)

Train 2, 6/15/01

Train 22, 6/17/01

Train 822, 6/17/01

Train 821, 6/18/01

Train 22, 6/18/01

Train 21, 6/24/01

Train 1, 6/24/01

Appendix

Potential Approaches for Attracting Younger Members to NRHS

St. Louis and the Southwest
June 15^th-June 27^th, 2001

Friday, June 15^th, 2001

Saturday, June 16^th, 2001

Sunday, June 17^th, 2001

Monday, June 18^th, 2001

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2001

Tuesday, June 19^th, 2001 (cont.)

Wednesday, June 20^th, 2001

Thursday, June 21^st, 2001

Friday, June 22^nd, 2001

Saturday, June 23^rd, 2001

Sunday, June 24^th, 2001

Monday, June 25^th, 2001

Tuesday, June 26^th, 2001

Wednesday, June 27^th, 2001