Travel Stories Vol. 2 - Trains

After that last post, this is gonna be kind of a let-down, but I figured since I actually took notes on some stuff while I had this blog, I may as well record it here too.

In April of this year, my office moved from Alameda to downtown Oakland. This didn't affect me too much, since I only drove in two days a week, but parking a Jeep Wrangler in Oakland? The hell with that. So I started researching other ways to get to work.

Initially, I was going to drive to Becky's parents' place in Berkeley and park there. Then I'd take BART the rest of the way to work and back, and either drive home that night and repeat the whole process the next day or stay overnight. But as it so happened, my work got a deal to write transportation expenses off on their taxes, so they gave us all the chance to get free travel vouchers through this program called CommuterCheck, and I decided to take Amtrak from Sacramento to Oakland instead.

My schedule goes like this now - get on the train in Old Sacramento around 7:40 AM Tuesday morning, get to Jack London Square in Oakland about 9:40-10:00. Sounds like a long haul, yeah, but considering it takes 1.75 hours by car it's not that much different time-wise....plus, I'm not stressed out by driving, I can sleep if I want, and oh yeah did I mention since work is paying for it it's FREE. Contrast that with the $80+ per week in gas and tolls I'd be paying now and it's definitely the smart choice. Even if I had to suddenly pay for my train tickets, it'd only work out to about $25 a week.

At any rate, once I get to JL Square, I walk the one mile to my office downtown. I've clocked myself, I do it in about 12-15 minutes, not bad for a chubster like myself. I can actually walk several miles now at a decent pace without my back or feet hurting, so this schedule is having added benefits. When I'm done with work, the BART train is right there outside the building underground (also funded by CommuterCheck). I grab that and go about 3 stops to Rockridge station in Berkeley. From there I can walk 15-20 minutes or so to Becky's parents' house and stay there overnight. The next day (Wednesday) I just take BART back to the office, leave around 5:00 PM to walk back to JL Square and hit the 5:30 PM train, which (if it runs on time) puts me back in Old Sacramento around 7:30 PM.

So...why tell you all that. Well, as it stands, two hours on Amtrak when you're not distracted by the job of driving somewhere is actually a pretty long stretch of time in which to occupy yourself. As I mentioned before I could sleep, but I've actually found that pretty impractical; although the seats on the train are vaguely comfortable and definitely more roomy than any coach airline seat, the train jostles around quite a bit and unless you've got a big-ass pillow it's pretty difficult to maneuver yourself into any position of comfort where you could actually fall asleep. Once I get my new laptop from work, I plan to plug in and work on the train (they do have 120-volt outlets at most seats, and either tables or tray-tables to work on as well). But for right now, mainly I just read, play around on my Sidekick or just stare out the window.

Having grown up in the Northeast U.S. and traveled the NJ Transit line between Trenton, New Brunswick and New York fairly frequently, I can honestly say that the scenery out the train window in northern California has the NY/NJ scene beat hands down. Between Sacramento and Fairfield, you see lush farms and marshland, and if you're sitting on the right side of the train between Fairfield and Richmond you have these incredible views of the SF Bay. Contrast that with the NJ Transit Atlantic corridor line which runs up through the armpit of NJ civilization parallel to the Turnpike, and it's no wonder why I actually like riding the train to work here.

So again...why all this. Well, when the usual distractions of reading, playing and staring get too much, I have no choice but to focus my attention on my fellow passengers. Most of them are fairly uninteresting types, but occasionally something pokes through that will pique my interest enough to eavesdrop or observe. Generally speaking I keep to myself on the train, preferring to converse with my wife over text messaging or IM if I get too lonely. I don't sit at the tables because those are pretty popular seating choices and I really don't want to sit face-to-face with someone else, it almost forces you to have to interact and well, dammit, I'm just anti-social enough that I really don't want to talk to anyone. And?

All that said, my train travel micro-impressions so far (I'm working off my notes here - displayed in italics - I'll have to explain as I go along) :

- The smell of coffee mixed with the smell of Amtrak is pretty harsh. - yeah, it is. Trains have a certain funky smell of their own, it's more or less a combination of diesel fumes, carbon monoxide, aluminum tin can train car, dusty fabric seats and cleaning solution. All in all, not a bad smell - it's actually kind of welcoming after a while, like ahhh yes I made the train on time and here's that old familiar smell - but it doesn't play well with others. So when someone in the next seat is drinking an espresso drink from the cafe car or eating some rather fragrant bacon-breakfast-extravaganza, it gets a little overwhelming. Especially at 7:30 - 8 in the morning when I'm barely awake.

- A man stands in front of me, talking to two old ladies about his prostate cancer. I'm actually ok with this, it's somewhat entertaining. I really feel sorry for the girl in the seat opposite the ladies who has his butt pointed directly at her face. He yips cheerfully along for 30 minutes, proving it IS possible to talk about nothing but your own ass for an entire half hour. - Can't really say it much better than that, other than to wonder what the girl was thinking. "Is that thing contagious? Is it loaded? It better not go off in my face..."

- Martinez stinks just as bad as it does in a car. - that's actually only somewhat true. The path the train takes through Martinez manages to spare the passengers the more fragrant oil refineries that line the bay there, but on occasion one of them is in full-on ASS mode and there's no escaping it no matter how you're traveling through the area. I often wonder what the cancer rate is in Martinez and Benicia, it can't be that good what with 3-4 major oil processors stationed right there.

- If this train derails between Martinez and Richmond, we're screwed. - as I mentioned before, there are some really gorgeous views of the bay from Fairfield on through (save for Martinez). But from Martinez to Richmond/Point Isobel (incidentally where Laci & Connor Peterson washed up), the train is no more than 20-30 yards from the shores of the bay itself. And if it derails there, kersplash, hope this tin can floats long enough for me to swim out. Ironically, one of those mornings I was taking BART from Berkeley to Oakland, I saw there was a system delay and later read in the news that some dude was ranting around Amtrak, leaving several suspicious-looking packages in varying cars and making a lot of noise about how he was going to blow the train into the sea. He got arrested off the train in Richmond and the bomb squad found that the packages contained nothing more than parts from Radio Shack, but....I don't really wanna think about it.

- The train is late getting home by 2 hours due to a derailment near Santa Clara. Apparently Amtrak has something against me getting home at a reasonable hour - I said that because it was the second week in a row that the train was delayed getting home. The first week was because a train walloped some homeless dude between Berkeley and Richmond, killing him. The trains were delayed for at least an hour while the coroner made his way there. This time around, it was a two hour delay because one of the freight trains that runs on the same lines as the passenger trains derailed somewhere near Santa Clara (that's about an hour south of Oakland for the non-CA people). Incidentally, that left me with 2 hours to kill, so I searched out a place for dinner and came up with "The House of Chicken and Waffles" on Broadway and Jefferson. No lie on the name. It turned out to be some sort of soul-food diner, I was the only white dude in the place and the menu was as advertised - all chicken or waffles on the main dishes, plus side dishes like grits, black-eyed peas, collared greens, all that. I had a damn good chicken sandwich though, and the people were really really nice - I sat at the counter and my waitress was one of those really big heavy-set black ladies with an apron that calls everyone "honey" and "suga". She had a vaguely Caribbean accent and I could have sworn she was trying to flirt with me, but I was probably just hungry and distracted cause my train was late so I can't trust my judgement. I tend to be mostly oblivious as to when women are hitting on me anyway, I'm just a weird guy like that. I don't really realize it until after they walk away most times, or someone else points it out. Good for Becky, I suppose :)

- The man behind me will not stop clearing his throat. Eh-eh-um. - I wrote that out of sheer irritation. Eh-eh-um.......Eh-eh-um.....in an otherwise dead silent train car.....Eh-eh-um.....I felt like saying "are you gonna say something or not?" I mean keerist, he keeps clearing his throat like he's gonna ask the professor a question in front of the whole lecture hall, and he hasn't said a damn thing in 30 minutes. He manages to escape off the train before I kill him.

- Some people are old at 22....there is a girl in front of me who has a turtle, excuse me, tortoise named Bill....yes I know not the most creative name but he is actually a gift for a friend in Davis that has a large terrarium and will most likely rename the tortoise Sahara. I know this not because I have spoken to this woman directly but because she is loudly discussing thw tur....dammit, tortoise with anyone within view. She claims the tortoise needs to be out since he has been on an 11-hour bus ride and now 2 or 3 hour train ordeal...yet her desperation glances in fishing for coversation opponents make her look like one of those old people who chat up the clerk in front of you at 7-11 - yeah, you know? La-hooo.....za-herrrr. Like I mentioned previously, I tend to keep to myself on the train (or the bus, etc). Same goes for standing in line. It's rare that I partake in the sort of small talk that causes Bil Engvall to load people up on signs. Unfortunately for me, over my long career of riding public transit alone or waiting on lines alone, my silence has somehow made me an unwitting target for missionaries, misfits, miscreants and general loner boneheads who just can NOT keep their damn mouths shut. "boy, hot out there isn't it?" "you like that kinda soda? me too" "man I hate riding on this damn train" SHUT... UP... AND... LEAVE.... ME... ALONE!!!! I especially reserve a special place on my pile of things to ball up and nuke for the ones who don't actually say anything, they just pull one of several stunts in order to draw attention to themselves and/or appear happening : (1) fake a cough, manly style; (2) look from side-to-side as if scoping the place out for their next move, or (the worst - 3) if they are directly in front of you in line, they turn completely around and pretend to look behind you, as if scanning the crowd for their (non-existant) gang of friends who are all coming to regale in their purchasing brilliance. Dammit, I hate that. Y'know, I've been told on occasion that I appear to have a scowl on my face even when I don't feel particularly scowly, so I wonder if the reason people are drawn to stare at me has anything to do with that. But really, what am I gonna do, smile like some fruity figure skater every time someone looks at me? This is the face, people. Sorry. I've just learned to blow it off but occasionally it gets a bit uncomfortable and annoying.

That's all I had for right now.