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On the Right Track
By Tom Miller, May & June 2006
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When we returned to the train, we did it in style. Instead of meeting it at a conventional railroad station, we found that our trainmaster, who coordinates track usage with Amtrak and freight haulers, had calculated the nearest spot on the east-west rails where the bus could meet the train—that being Thompson Springs, a pretty-much-abandoned crossing in the middle of the Utah desert. He had the bus arrive there a couple of minutes later. The timing worked perfectly, and there in the heart of Thelma & Louise country (much of the movie was filmed around these parts) we got off the bus, walked a few yards to the tracks, and got onto our awaiting train. The whole affair, from when we pulled up until the moment the train lurched away into the desert afternoon, took no longer than three minutes. We'd have made great bank robbers.
That evening after dinner, as we sped westward, the well-traveled passengers were still marveling at what they'd seen earlier that day. Some spoke of Arches, but Bob Carter, a real-estate broker from Virginia Beach, Virginia, wanted to talk Canyonlands. "I've had drivers and guides all over the world," he said, "and the three things that have impressed me most are the Grand Canyon the first time you see it; second, Michelangelo's 'David.' That a man could accomplish that is unbelievable. And the third is the national park we went to today. Standing on the edge looking into that gully…" He shook his head in disbelief and drifted off into rapturous praise.
My Aunt Sylvia used to say with mock resignation, "The rich got it good." Most of the passengers on this American Orient Express trip were not rich, but they did have it good. They were indulging in their annual vacation, addicted to exceptional train rides, or celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. There were a few mother-daughter pairs, and train veterans who had convinced friends to join them. A New Jersey man had intended to bring his wife, but a pretrip spat compelled him to travel solo. One train-junkie couple was on their sixth AOE trip.
Since our average age was 62, we were seasoned enough to appreciate Bonnie Hackett, the onboard lounge act. Bonnie played the Baldwin baby grand in the Seattle club car during happy hour and then later in the evening when the fully stocked bar got a thorough workout. She had the patter and the repertoire that passengers enjoy. "Anyone here from New Yo—? 'Start spreadin' the news, I'm leavin' today….' " "Who's here from Chica—? 'Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town….' " "Do we have anyone from San Fran—? 'I left my heart in San Francisco….' " Bonnie, who personally prefers Chopin and Rachmaninoff, has worked more than 100 trips in the seven years she's been with the company. That's a lot of rainbows to be somewhere over.
What fascinated me more than Bonnie's inventory of songs, or the occasional shrimp-and-dip tray resting on top of her shiny black baby grand, was how the piano got inside the bar car to begin with. It turns out that when the car, initially a sleeper from the 1950s, was rebuilt in the mid-1960s, workers took the ceiling off and lowered the baby grand in by crane, then bolted it to the floor.
All the cars have gone through thorough reconditioning to a vintage luster at an estimated $1 million per car. Originally built in the late 1940s and '50s, they follow the luxe tradition established generations earlier by such railway classics as the Capitol Limited and the Santa Fe Super Chief. Indeed, the polish and gleam of each restored car were the main attractions. Real mahogany paneling, faux-marble walls, restful cabins, large picture windows, comfortable chairs—they were all spit-and-polish clean—along with shiny silverware and glasses in the dining cars and every thread in place in the carpets. The crew gave each car and sleeping compartment a thorough daily cleaning and carried out a deep cleaning between trips during turnaround—the sort you and I would carry out just once, the week before putting our homes on the market. The remarkable cleanliness made a good trip that much better.
Altogether our train consisted of eight sleeper cars with eight sleeping cabins in each, accommodating up to 125 passengers; two dining cars; and two lounges. Five types of individual sleeping compartments, ranging from the compact single sleeper to the Grand Suite, offered contented privacy. ("You be sure and tell your readers," a wife from Missouri said happily, "that snuggling on a moving train is fantastic.") All rooms had their own in-cabin toilets and sinks, and the three largest sizes had their own showers; all other sleepers shared shower compartments in the passageways.
With the exception of our own cabins, we spent more time dawdling in the dining cars than anywhere else onboard. A typical day's menu choices read like this: breakfast—egg dishes, peaches-and-cream French toast; lunch—shrimp salad, beef stroganoff, dessert of black-and-white cake or fruit; dinner—mushroom crepes, roasted-asparagus soup, spinach salad, New York strip steak, chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and artichokes, crab-stuffed halibut, dessert of chocolate-peanut butter mousse pie, bananas Foster bouchée, or fruit. All this served on fine china and white linen, of course. It was all tasty to the mouth and appealing to the eye. Had this been a stationary restaurant instead of a moving dining room, we all would have made reservations to return. There were some days—between 6:30 a.m., when the morning coffee and pastries emerged from the galleys, until 9:00 p.m., when the last of the desserts were cleared—that there was food available for almost 15 hours. I soon realized what this American Orient Express train lacked that cruise ships and hotels have: an exercise room.
Jeffrey Martin, AOE's executive chef, laughed when I mentioned this to him. "Don't trust skinny chefs," he cautioned. Himself tending toward the chubby, Jeffrey tilts the daily menu toward the region of the country his train passes through, buying as much as possible from local farmers and wineries. On the Coastal Culinary Adventure tour from Los Angeles to Seattle, this means Pacific snapper and Napa wines. On the Antebellum South tour, we could have sampled his Gulf shrimp and grits.
The train also provided ample food for the brain. Tom Noel, a bow-tied history professor and author from Denver who also goes by the nickname Dr. Colorado, would meet us in the 360-degree-glass-enclosed upper deck of the Copper Canyon dome car. An entertaining and informative lecturer, Tom spoke about the land ahead of us and the people who built upon it. Part historical, somewhat literary, and entirely educational, the talks he gave were both knowledgeable and droll. We'd interrupt him in midsentence to remark upon a distant bird or some nearby crops, then let him continue chatting about Mark Twain, John Muir, or Teddy Roosevelt. The dome car itself, of course, was one of the attractions of the trip, allowing us to crane our necks in every direction to take in the Rockies and the Sierras in all their splendor. After attending Tom's talks I came away with an added appreciation for the Chinese, Irish, Filipino, and Mexican workers who laid the westbound tracks.
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