Empire Builder

On New Years Eve, I plan, to roll into Portland, on this train, one of the historic routs on rail, I’ve yet to travel. It has always been Amtrak for me, I traveled twice to LA, from Paoli, in the mid seventies. In late 1990, I did 25 days, traveling to Philly, by way of Chicago, continuing on the Crescent to New Orleans, then north thru Memphis, on the Chicken Bone Special, the only train, at that time, without a dining car. That was some train, the Chicken Bone, it serviced a very rural area of the South. At every station stop, the platforms were busy, lots of people getting on and off the train, lots of picnic baskets too. Everybody ate on the train as we rolled up through the deep south, these people had food for anyone who was hungry, I had a sense, this was the norm, that everyday on this train was a picnic. The dining car gets hooked up in Memphis, for the remainder of the trip, back into Chicago. The tracks west, out to Portland, in 1990, ran through Laramie Wyoming, I stopped for a day, hung out with the two headed cow, drank a couple beers at that bar set just off the tracks, that two headed cow, Laramie’s only claim to fame. The Empire Builder runs a lot farther north, through Fargo, through Glacier national Park, this was the train, my Grandfather worked on, one hundred years ago. Family myth, is that he once jumped off in Washington State, to pick Apples, pickers were being payed better than conductors, I don’t know the whole story, guess he got back on, with his pockets full, as the train made its return trip. I know he didn’t loose his job, he went on, becoming a Union Organizer, for the Brotherhood Of Railroad Trainmen. These were hard times for Labor Unions, these were the men, who fought hard, for the work rules, and conditions that management fought so hard against. Pinkerton, the Blackwater of the last century, issued an order, to shoot my Grandfather on site. I wish I knew more of these times, at the time my Grandfather, would have surely enjoyed telling me his stories, I was just too busy, hell, I’ve been too busy, to hear most of my fathers stories. I can only be amused with myself, that it took 57 years, for me to understand that their stories, were just a preview of my life, you know, the nut, doesn’t fall far from the tree. My family, on both sides, go back a way in this country, the history, I am able to only get pieces of, what I think is so wonderful, the power in these posts, is to my family, I mean my future family, they will have a window, into the way I think, of what moves me. Well I never made it to Times Square on New Years Eve, but I was close, guess I’ll save that, for when I get old, this year, I’ll be spending it on the train, the Coast Starlight, should be just a little north of Mt. Shasta, but who knows, it’s Winter, the train West, runs way up North, this could be, another good adventure, thinking back, they’ve all been good adventures!