A few slides from my Amtrak trip in June 2000 when I made the Los Angeles Turn out of Houston on the Sunset Limited. Amtrak built this new depot right next to the old Southern Pacific depot in downtown San Antonio. The old SP station was restored and is now used as a multipurpose venue. It has recently been renamed the ESPEE from what it used to be called, Sunset Station. https://www.theespee.com/history/ This is the depot at Alpine, Texas. Some day I want to get off the train there, rent a car and drive around Big Bend National Park. Maybe stay at the Gage Hotel in Marathon.
A foggy and drizzly afternoon, over forty years back. F40PHR #251 has one of the old "Mount Rainier" (Seattle-Portland) trains just departing Portland Union Station.
California Zephyr heading up the Colorado River down stream from Grand Junction, just after leaving Utah.
I wish they would go back to having REAL domes. My neck does not like viewing sideways. I prefer the seated facing forward to see the train and a panoramic view. Not just off to one side.
It's a foggy and drizzling winter of 1981 morning at Tacoma Union Station. A "Mount Rainier" from Portland is pulling into the platform with F40PH #227 in front:
Thanks, I believe the flat area just up and to the left from the train is the old Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge roadbed from back before the line was converted to standard gauge. In the center of this photo you can see a drainage cut where a trestle was long ago. Now only filled with some bushes.
Yup. It was sad to see this station down to just two tracks. It is now almost unrecognizable from the former trackside.
One reason I like North Dakota is the lack of hurricanes and earthquakes. However, from time to time, NoDak throws a big curve ball and cranks up the wind to ridiculous levels. In winter, Special Instructions restrict the speed of trains during extremely cold weather, and heavy winds also invoke slow orders. Someone knowledgeable please chime in with additional info, please? Already suffering from service disruptions, crew shortages and terrible late performance, the eastbound Empire Builder reaches the Magic City some 13 hours late, and departs nearly 14 hours late. In part due to wind-related delays and slow orders, hurricane-force winds batter the Peace Garden State. The crummy skies detract from the image, and snow/dust and debris clouds the background, but daylight shots on Amtrak 8 in Minot are impossible otherwise this late in the season. Standing on the embankment of 55th Street NE, bracing ourselves against a guardrail post, my son and I are buffeted by the voracious wind as we both bag the unusual opportunity. Minot station stop as wind-driven leaves swirl about: West of Gavin Yard in a rare daylight eastbound shot (that's not May-August) on A8:
Durn it all. Have to wait for a train again. There should be a law to prevent me from being held up like this all the time.
