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I wish I had more to put in here, but since this was my first and only cross country trip by train, here we go :-)
Back then, when you were making less than 2 bucks an hour, and to buy a roll of
film and get it developed, cost around three and a half bucks. So you can
understand why I didn't take more pictures. As it was, I believe I took 13
rolls of pictures, 24 pix a roll. And since I didn't have a 35mm
camera yet, the pictures/slides are the strange square 2x2 slides from the Kodak Instamatic.
Since this trip took place 56 years ago, most of my recollection is going
to be a little fuzzy, darn-it - except for the sunrise on day 1, and the last
dinner I had on the train.
Background: The trip started out in 1970. My grandmother needed to go out to Los
Angeles to visit her daughter Amalia and son-in-law - my aunt and
uncle.
The trip was discussed back-n-forth
between my dad and his sister (that's the Amalia in this story). It was
decided that I would accompany her, since she had never flown before, she needed
an escort to navigate the "system". When she came to America from Italy
around 1910, she came over by boat. Her husband Angelo also came over from
Italy by boat, but at the time, they did not know each other. Imagine
that, they only lived about 50 miles from each other in Italy: Savona and
Bergamo, but didn't meet till here! Anyways.....
We flew out on a United 747, first class, which in and of itself was a hoot, especially because they were brand new then!
But then, how was I supposed to get back to Baltimore? Uh, lemme see..... yup, no brainer, BY TRAIN!
At 20, I had not done much traveling by train, except for the Baltimore to New
York City route on the Pennsy (and one round trip from Grand Central Terminal to
Batavia NY in 1966. That's when a one-way ticket in coach cost you a whole
SIX DOLLARS.
So I enlisted the help of John Engleman, who I knew from the Baltimore Streetcar
Museum, and had done a lot of travel by train. He set me up with a ticket
back for around $200 in a private Roomette.
The trip was the southern route going thru New Orleans:
- Los Angeles to NOLA (New Orleans) on the Southern Pacific (AKA the Espee),
- The Southern Railway from NOLA to Washington DC,
- and then to Baltimore via the Penn Central using a GG1!
Mind you, Amtrak's "A-Day" was still five months away on May 1st, 1971!
The return trip started on January 2nd, a Saturday. The train left LA
Union Station around 10PM, my aunt and uncle brought me down.
Not much fanfare in those days, no waiting in the station - we waited on the
platform - no security, no ID's, no nuttin. No hidden fees to change
tickets either. We didn't know how lucky we were back then.
Once on the train, got situated in the Roomette, read a little, and went to sleep.
The next morning, I awoke to a beautiful sunrise, the kind you never forget, as
we're humming along at probably 70MPH?
BTW, on the third night of the trip, I had the best ever dinner on a train, pork chops -
tasted just like mom used to make em! Ahhhhh, the good ole days :-)
Wish I had something other than a Kodak Instamatic traveling with me!
We came
thru Charlottesville probably around 5-6am, because I remember getting into
Baltimore around 8 or 8:30. The train also came/went thru Atlanta and Charlotte
NC.
Disclaimers:
New format 10/26/23: Please check out my disclaimer page for my standard
dribble and contact info here
