My Solitary Amtrak Experience

I always wanted to ride a train in USA as I was exposed to train travel in India (India has the largest railway network under single management). Here are some of the most luxurious ones: http://www.luxury-train-travel-tours-india.com/. I love train rides.
I did some research and found that Zephyr would be a good option to try out Amtrak (http://www.amtrak.com/) between San Francisco and Reno. I visited the Amtrak website to buy tickets and the fun starts here. Since I live in San Jose I put the option of train from San Jose to Reno (http://www.renonv.com/) (roundtrip). Since, I overlooked the option of Zephyr and I did not think that Amtrak will have bus as well as train services between Reno and bay area, I mistakenly chose some complicated combination of bus and train going to Reno from San Jose with hops in Oakland and Sacramento. On the day of travel, when we (me and my girlfriend whom I convinced earlier that it would be a fun travel) were waiting in san Jose Diridon station (we reached early morning around 8 am), we were happy to see an Amtrak train coming to the station, only to discover it will not leave until 3 PM. Some of the crews of the train were totally lost when asked about the train and what time it is going to leave and where.

Coming back inside the station and discovering that my tickets only allow me to travel in train between Oakland and Sacramento, I was ready to have a heart attack.
The buses waiting outside did not have any driver and none of the people at the station had any idea what was going on. After a while, a station clerk announced that Capitol Corridor trains are running 3 hours late and I was explained that the California Zephyr starts from Emeryville (40 miles from San Jose) only!!!
At that point, I was surprised at the mess I made of the trip planning since most of it would be in Amtrak bus and not train! So much for a train ride! Luckily the bus to Oakland was late and station clerk refunded 100% of the whole trip cost ($154 total for two persons roundtrip).

We came back up home fast, and I was constantly thinking what to do next. We started looking frantically for other options and finally decided to rent a car from San Jose airport to Reno airport. We also booked a one-way ticket from Reno to Emeryville on Zephyr.
Drive to Reno was mostly un-eventful. We stayed in Atlantis Resort & casino. I tried my luck & skills in Blackjack (http://www.blackjackinfo.com/) and gained some capital. I was playing in the slot machines and tried hard to find the pattern of events. Being a student of statistics, I formulated a naïve thumb rule of gambling: You cannot increase the probability of winning but you increase the expected value of win if you bet properly. What it means is that you have to bet high on a card for which you think you are going to win and bet low on cards you think you will lose. There will be more times you lost but you can bet high on the ones for which you are going to win then effectively you make money. Does it make sense? May be not. But, it makes sense to me and that’s what matters. Continuing on the trip description…

The road to Black Rock Desert

Next day we drove to Pyramid Lake. I saw this lake on the Nevada map and found some interesting information. Pyramid Lake is the remnants of the pre-historic Lake Lahontan. The area around this is so remote that you get scared that if something happens to your car then you will be stranded for days. I touched the water of the lake to fill the pre-historic ness of the area :). It was a soothing experience to hear the ripples of water hitting the shore. There were some people who were fishing in the lake too. During summer time people do boat ride, fishing and other fun stuff in the lake. It is named so because of a pyramid like rock present within the lake.
Pyramid Lake is the site of some of the Earth's most spectacular tufa deposits. The Tufas are composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). The large tufa mounds, reef- and sheet-like tufas formed within Pyramid Lake, between 26,000 and 13,000 years ago, when the lake was part of pluvial Lake Lahontan.

Continuing further north is an area called Black Rock Desert. I did not know about Burning Man Festival until I found their website (http://www.burningman.com//). I was pretty impressed by the concept & ideals of this group and hope to visit some day.

In the evening, we went to downtown Reno to see some of the hotels and walk in and around downtown and also to check out the Reno Amtrak station so that we know from where do we catch the train to bay area. We followed some direction marks on the street only to be surprised to see a they always lead to a construction area. Where the hell is the station then, because we could see the rail tracks. After little more “treasure hunt” we came to know that the Reno station is under construction and there is only a temporary wooden structure as the stationmaster’s office and there is a bus, which takes people from that point to the next station at Sparks where the train stops. Since we bought the tickets online we went inside the office to get the hard copy tickets when a passer by Amtrak employee remarked, “Amtrak always runs late”, and he had a smile to his face as if he is proud of that.

Now, my girlfriend got little sick in the trip. She hates smoking and the casino smell caused some issues with her health. So, I thought let me find out any earlier train to the bay area. The Amtrak customer service person told me that we could catch the Christmas day train, which is coming from Chicago(California Zephyr runs between Emeryville & Chicago) but is 3 hours late to reach Reno. I decided on that train and got a very good discount on the tickets.

Based on expected arrival of the train, we reached the temporary office location to exchange my tickets with the latest change that I made. I was also interested in checking out whether there is any room available in the train. The stationmaster checked it and said yes there was one available with complimentary lunch. I was excited and bought tickets paying the difference amount and waited for the bus to pick us up to the next station.

After some time, the bus came and I realized that there are a lot of people waiting outside to go to the bay area in that train. I was vaguely looking at the ticket design and shocked to see that the ticket dates are for the next day travel. What the hell!

I ran inside the stationmaster’s office and showed him the tickets. Now, I have never ever seen anyone in my entire life get so pissed off about himself as this stationmaster. He was cursing himself like anything and could not believe he made such a mistake. He was saying that the system showed the next available option for the room when he reserved it(It suddenly came to my mind that similar events happened to me when I was booking online and it gave me bus/train combination because I chose San Jose as my origin and not San Francisco). Now, I was getting panicked to see this guy behave like this and was also wondering about the back up plan to get back home safely! We had already returned the rental car in Reno airport earlier in the day.

After apologizing he said he could not do anything but give me the normal tickets and I could check with the ticket checker in the train to see if any rooms are available. Realizing that there is no point in arguing on this matter I came outside to tell this to my girlfriend who smiled at me which made me feel that I am the culprit of all the mess that’s happening.

Then the bus took us to the next station, which is normally a station for loading/un-loading only. The train came and we boarded it one-by-one and the train clerks were asking about Christmas gift while boarding, which I guess I was looking for too.

I shoved our luggages downstairs and went upstairs to our seats. It looked nice inside and quite high from the ground. Train started, ticket checker came, we explained the situation and he said there could be rooms available. Now, the ticket checker is the same guy(he helped us later providing some train/bus schedules from Emeryville station) who smiled the previous day made the comments. He came back saying that there are rooms available and we bought the tickets again paying the difference for the room; I was hoping this was my gift from Santa.

The room was very small but I did not expect anything larger either. It was cozy with nice little arrangements for hanging coats,dimming lights etc. There was camp bed arrangement and sits can be unfolded into a bed. We sat down with a sense of relief and it made me nostalgic of the all the train trips I had made. After settling down, we went to the food cabin and were very impressed by the arrangements. Food items included sandwiches, pizzas etc and cheesecake for dessert.

The menu card had a quote by Harry Truman "You get a real feeling of this country and the people in it when you are on a train." Each table had a fresh rose in a stand and had a big window to see the outside beauty. I must admit that the pizza was very delicious. After a while an old couple joined us (Amtrak believes in the concept of community sitting which means people could be accommodated with other strangers in the train if there is a dining table available). This couple has been in Amtrak many times before and likes it. Just then, I realized one important thing about availing Amtrak: If you have enough time in your hand and you are not using Amtrak as part of your trip to go from A to B and you have to be there by so and so then you are good. Amtrak experience is the journey and not to reach the destination in time, which I believe is a philosophy regardless of how much we can hate it.

It started snowing high up in the Sierra through which Zephyr travels. It was a really beautiful journey through the Sierras. As with all good things this was also very short-lived. But, enough time to take some pictures, make some videos and feel good about it.

There was a very nice transparent viewing coach accessible to everybody in the middle of the train. There are coffee & snacks also available at the same area.

We reached Emeryville station around 8PM, 2 hours late. We took one ACE transit bus to reach MacArthur BART station. At the beginning of our trip I had dropped my car in Fremont BART station so that we could go from there without catching a cab or calling friends to pick us up.We came home, exhausted (yeah definitely, but not too much) but was wondering how many times we had changed tickets and what a headache it has been. Now, no wonder people who have traveled in Amtrak have always something to say and most of the time it is a not very positive feedback. See this Amtrak mooning link http://www.moonamtrak.org/ to believe it if you have not made any Amtrak travels yet. Amtrak runs on huge subsidies from US government and there is already a lot going on about improving its services and making it more competitive. See this official report: http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-145

To me, train travel is a unique experience and US should invest more in improving the quality of trains. But, I guess there are lobbies in Washington influenced by the airlines, automobile & car rental agencies who do not want this to happen for the their business sake. The tracks that Amtrak travels on are shared with the goods train companies (Union Pacific for example) who own them. So, Amtrak and hence the people have less priorities over the goods to travel across US. However, given the less polluting nature of train travel and the number of people who can travel at one time this is a very nice mode of transportation.

But, looking back, the lunch in the train (revolving restaurants are nothing compared to this experience except food!), the view of the snow capped mountains in the Sierras, the little room we rested in and overall winning some bucks in the casino and the serenity of the Pyramid lake area made me feel it a was trip worth doing and will remain in my memory for a long time and that’s why I am writing this travelogue after more three months of completion of my trip.

Now, will I travel again in Amtrak? So, this is what I have in mind. If someday I get laid off from my job or get sick of working, I will take a looooong vacation and travel in Pacific Surf liner from Seattle to San Diego. I will reserve a bigger room with showers etc. and will carry lot of books with me.

Now, will I ask you to travel? Heck yeah. Every experience is worthwhile in life. Try California Zephyr from Emeryville to Reno one-way ride between December to February. Enjoy….