Football announcer John Madden is so right about a lot of subjects, but no more so than his attitude about train travel, albeit he has broadened his scope by adding buses, and now uses both as the real method to see America. Train travel can be fun and is invariably interesting. The nostalgia one may exercise relative to their own experiences may be displaced by the mistaken belief that it is out of vogue. Recent statistics from Amtrak, the nation's giant that oversees passenger services, is convincing: millions of passengers carried by them and the addition of superliners, the luxurious double-decked vista domed cars.
Americans can claim more than 150 years of railroading, with many of us measuring a preferred recollection of using this great national treasure. As youngsters, some of us were actually delivered to our fairyland at Idlewild Park in Ligonier by train -- as inconceivable as simple reflection by the unknowing perceive this. Right smack into the middle of the park moved the great locomotive with its promise of fun and frolic. This cannot be done now as the tracks no longer exist. It was this fond memory that made it more welcome to plan my own travel schedule to include trains; that, and having a long-standing reluctance to hauling our family of seven around anywhere by air. Our big family excursions dictated happily the use of transcontinental trains, principally the King of American trains, the Super Chief of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad.
Living for a time on the West Coast, it became a periodic circumstance to combine business with family pleasure utilizing this storied passenger behemoth. In no time, it seemed, the employees recognized us. The reason could have been that we made five cross-country trips in less than five years, but regardless, it made our hours aboard the train far more friendly than hoped for in advance. Our first trip together on the Super Chief developed when we moved to Los Angeles after I accepted a promotion with a soft drink enterprise located there. Boarding the train in Pittsburgh, we had to transfer to Dearborn Station in Chicago. We eagerly awaited our first glimpse of the Super Chief that would take us to our new life in California. While waiting in the Fred Harvey restaurant -- a name that soon became familiar and appealing to us, our son repeatedly asked to use the men's room during short periods of time. I finally realized he was fascinated with the automatic flusher, which created a virtual waterfall over the expanse of an entire wall.
Eventually, we boarded the magnificent hotel on wheels for our 40-hour journey to Los Angeles. En route, the pure and visual impact of the American Midwest and far west, with its flamboyant history everywhere present and indelible, astounded us. Crossing the majestic Mississippi River at the Illinois-Iowa border, we were soon in the great cattle collection point of Kansas City. We were fortunate to have our arrival coincide with the end of the cattle drive, with cattle visible to the horizon. Crossing the great state of Kansas, one received first impressions of the country's vast, flat table of wheat fields, beautiful in the sun and with a proud message: golden, wholesome food for America's pantries. Then, Topeka, Emporia, Dodge City -- grown in and from the wheat fields. Suddenly, one crossed a wisp of Colorado at La Junta and Trinidad before topping the Continental Divide at Raton Pass, N.M. Rolling down the western slopes of the magnificent Rockies, wildlife in abundant presence, flat country was again evident. Early western landmarks emerged in a sequence of familiar antiquity; the muffled click of the wheels rhythmically accompanying the singsong litany: Albuquerque, Gallup, Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Kingman, Needles, Barstow, San Bernadino and finally Los Angeles, the City of Angels, the end of the line, but in another sense, the beginning.
While this was our first exposure to cross-country travel as a family, it was not our initial train trip. The first was a visit home for the Christmas holidays from our residence in Cincinnati. The return home from that wonderful holiday is what rings the bells of my memory. Arriving at Pennsylvania Station in Pittsburgh, we were greeted by what seemed to be the entire U.S. armed services -- soldiers returning to Fort Knox. My brother, Ron, assisted by watching the children, while I traversed the train looking for seats.
Finally finding seats at least for the children, I beckoned to Ron through the windows, and he assisted the boarding before saying our farewells. I noticed an empty lounge car next to us, wherein railroad employees were busy with written records. Risking official frowning, I paraded my family into it and sat. The collected officials ignored us, which is what I wanted. A white-jacketed lounge attendant stood near the empty bar. I risked a question, "Is the bar open?"
"Why?" he asked.
"I would buy all of us a drink," I replied. The ice, if it indeed existed, immediately melted, and we all became comrades of a post-holiday letdown.
Subsequently, the conductor advised me that he had a private room for the family. One condition, he warned; do not answer the door no matter what. We were moved to this comfortable sleeper, entirely welcomed, even though the trip to Cincinnati was only a few hours long. The rightful ticket holder for our accommodations did commence knocking, which we ignored as instructed. He knocked, and he knocked, until wearying of the lack of response, he parked outside our door, guitar in hand, and serenaded us through the evening.
One significant satisfaction of all our eventual train trips centered around train people, those habitues by preference, of the great rolling homes away from homes that traverse every mile of America. Sitting in the breakfast car of the Super Chief one morning, as my family slept comfortably, I read the morning paper, delivered to our door, and the news was bad -- a plane crash in Cincinnati. A gentlemen, also reading, looked up to tell me he had just left Cincinnati, Louisville being his hometown, and how relieved he was to be on the train. It was Victor Mature, the actor. My wife soon joined us, and also a soft drink executive and his wife, both whom I knew, and together we enjoyed breakfast, lunch and a thoroughly impressive day highlighted by a private dinner in the Turquoise Room, hosted by our new and interesting acquaintance. We found much to talk about, including mutual friends as it turned out, and this developed into a brief but satisfying correspondence.
On another starlit night as we left the alcohol dry country of Kansas, my wife and I found ourselves in the bar car, our children safe, asleep and attended. We became, eventually, a carefree group of six, with, as I have fondly repeated, more talent at which one could shake the proverbial stick: a lawyer from Santa Fe, N.M., brother to Kathleen Nesbitt, the actress; Mia Farrow, the actress; Andre Previn, the conductor; and Bobby Darin, the performer. I cannot forget the bartender who artfully performed his duties for this unlikely assembly.
I relish these great experiences, especially the transcontinental trips. Traveling east on the Santa Fe, these wonderfully accommodating people would create more magic. Arriving in Winslow, Ariz., in the middle of the night, our car was unhooked while we slept, hooked to a different locomotive, and eureka, breakfast was served at the Grand Canyon National Park. On our first use of this side trip, our housekeeper, who was a Mexican Indian by birth, marched to the canyon edge, raised her right hand, and solemnly spoke: "How, my people." Our final trip east together with our children occurred when I resigned, preferring an eastern existence. Our neighbors, as a final gesture, presented us with a box of fruit. Fruit was forbidden as legal luggage on the train, leaving or entering California; the state is very protective of their fruit industry, a major economic factor for its populace. We were able to keep the booty until a sudden slowdown dislodged the fruit from its place of hiding to roll unimpeded down the aisle for all to see. The Santa Fe employees present treated this humorously, however, once again establishing them in our memories as astute and valued friends, as they had been since our very first trip on this wondrous marvel.
R.C. Paluzzi is a Greensburg freelance writer for the Tribune-Review.
