De train! De train!

Two years ago, I decided to move to LA from Chicago. If I learned anything from the experience, it’s this: Amtrak isn’t spelled with a “c.” Also, don’t take Amtrak.

My idea for taking the train was sound: I was traveling across the country—I might as well see the thing. Did I run the risk of being in an enclosed space for over 2 days? Sure. Did I compound that risk by not first locating where the bathrooms on the train were located? Undoubtedly. But it was a chance to do something unique, and like a fool, I took it.

My first clue that the trip would not be quite as I expected was when I boarded. Years of movie-watching had put a very specific image in my head. The men would all be fedora-wearing bankers. The women would all be smoking cigarettes from those absurdly long cigarette holders and wearing scarves, or shawls. (I’m fairly certain there’s no difference.) Teary-eyed couples would be waving at each other desperately as the train pulled its slow but inexorable way from the station.

What actually happened was I boarded the train and then we left. Not quite as dramatic as I’d have hoped. Yes, the seats reclined a lot further than usual. And yes, the train itself was more spacious. But with the amount of fanfare our departure had, I could have just as easily been taking it to the suburbs.

My second clue was that there were only two electrical outlets on the entire train. This was a major concern. “How many electrical outlets does your train have?” is a question I'd actually called up Amtrak to ask about. I had a laptop and a cell phone with me, and I was going to be on the train for 48 hours. Without those vital connections to modern day civilization (i.e. video games) I would be no better off than your everyday Mongolian cave dweller. To pass the time, I’d have to either craft my own games from materials I could scrounge from my surroundings, or talk to people. Neither option was likely.

           

But it was okay. Maybe my departure wasn’t super dramatic, but at least I was on my way. And if I had to wait a few hours for a charger, well, it wasn’t like I was going anywhere.

Then the train broke down in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We, the passengers, weren’t really told what was happening. The train stopped in Albuquerque and it just didn’t start up again. And no offense to Albuquerque, but there’s nothing to do in Albuquerque. Not in their train station, at any rate.

Two hours later, we were on our way. It turned out that the engine had broken down. They do that sometimes, apparently. We got a freight engine called in from somewhere in New Mexico that was going to pull us the rest of the way. It would go ten miles an hour slower than the engine we were using before, but at least we’d be moving again.

My fourth clue that things were going wrong was when I woke up in the middle of the night with this realization: We weren’t moving. We hadn’t been moving in a while.

Frustrated, I tried to go back to sleep. Then I got clue number five. We were moving now, but we were moving backwards. Lovely.

We were scheduled to be in Los Angeles that morning. When I woke up, there was snow on the ground. (Snow is one of the classic signs that you’re not in LA.) 

So, remember that new freight engine? The one that was supposed to pull us the rest of the way? That one also broke, and now we were stranded in the middle of nowhere. Hundreds of miles away from Los Angles, we hadn’t even stopped in a station this time. We’d just stopped on the tracks.

One option was to get a third freight engine which would pull us even slower than the first one was going to, but Amtrak apparently decided to go the bus route. Four hundred miles outside of Los Angeles and hours after we’d stalled again, the passengers piled into Greyhound busses.

And so it was that, 58 hours after I left Chicago, I clambered off the bus at LA's Union Station. I managed to reclaim my luggage, though all the bags had been spread out randomly through the busses. One of the wheels had broken off an incredibly heavy bag I’d taken with, which at that point didn’t surprise me.

Amtrak’s motto: Enjoy the Journey. I guess they’re just trying to live up to their slogan by making sure the journey takes as long as possible. The upside is this: if Amtrak were an airline, they’d probably have charged me some sort of "extended service" fee.