General Correspondence: P.O. Box 1615, Queanbeyan NSW 2620 Street Address: Queanbeyan Railway Station, Henderson Rd, Queanbeyan Office Hours: Mon-Fri: 10am-3pm Bookings Phone: (02) 6284 2790   Facsimile: (02) 6284 2791 Email: trains@trains.org.au

'Best of the West'

Rail discovery tour

By  David Bennetts

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Friday's trip on the Durango and Silverton steam train was through superb scenery, following the Animas River. At one stage crossing the river on a high bridge, the engineer opened the cylinder drain cocks, creating a beautiful rainbow effect.

Along the way, hikers were set down and taken up, as the railroad provides the only access. The high line is really spectacular, with a sheer drop into the river below. Colour was added by the aspen leaves turning a golden yellow.

On Saturday, we travelled over a high mountain pass, and followed the Arkansas River through to the Royal Gorge. The scenery was again quite beautiful and varied. Unfortunately a pea soup fog prevented us seeing the world's highest suspension bridge, and we continued on to Denver, passing through Colorado Springs.

Sunday was once again rather foggy in the Denver area, but we fortunately ran out of the fog at higher altitude on our way to the Georgetown Loop Railroad, which is restored and operated by the Colorado Historical Society. The steam train was a little late arriving at the platform at Silver Plume, but we clambered aboard the open gondola cars and rode down the hill on the steep and winding narrow gauge trip.

The highlight of the trip was passing over the Devil's High Gate bridge, where you can look down and see the track passing underneath far below. On our return journey up the hill the loco was working hard.

On the way back our coach stopped at the superb viewing area on Interstate 70, where we were able to watch the next train descend on almost its entire journey. Lunch was taken in the delightfully restored Georgetown, then our coach took us to the Colorado Railroad Museum at Golden for the afternoon. We managed to pass Coors Brewery, claimed to be the largest in the world, without stopping for refreshment.

Here there was a tremendous variety of equipment to inspect, much of it relating to the narrow gauge lines which were once so important to Colorado. In the evening we returned to our hotel, passing the historic Denver Mint, the Mile High Stadium where a capacity crowd was in attendance, and the State Capitol with its golden dome gleaming in the sunlight.

Monday's optional excursion saw us in the coach heading south from Denver toward Manitou Springs, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, terminus for the Pikes Peak Cog railway. We had a brief diversion through the vast grounds of the US Air Force Academy, which has a superb setting. On reaching Manitou Springs, disaster struck! At our lunch spot, the coach became stuck when leaving the driveway to enter the roadway, blocking half the road. Despite our driver's best efforts to free the coach, the computerised engine management system took over and would not co-operate, so it was necessary to call a 'wrecker' to tow the coach out. The local constabulary turned up to supervise, but decided there wasn't much he could do, so he parked his patrol car and took his lunch break while watching proceedings. As time was running out, we enlisted the help of the local taxi company to shuttle our party to the Cog Rail station.

Our trip up to the top of Pikes Peak was a very enjoyable and scenic one. Fortunately the weather had cleared somewhat to give us good visibility on our journey. The train conductor gave us a very good commentary, but was disappointed we didn't bring him a Fosters or two. He re-assured us about the safety of the railway with its Swiss-built cars and independent braking systems, but did add that if it got away on the downhill trip that we would stop in Kansas (next state east). On arrival at the top (elevation 14,110 feet) we found snow on the ground, and a brisk breeze blowing. Many of our party found it necessary to sit down for a time here, the thin air makes one feel rather light headed.

On Tuesday morning we visited the Forney Transportation Museum, which has a huge collection of items relating to transport - cars, trains, trolleys and horse-drawn vehicles. The Union Pacific Big Boy loco, weighing in at over 500 tonnes, was certainly very impressive. After visiting the museum, and Denver's grand old Union Station, which sadly now sees only one regular Amtrak train, the California Zephyr, many of us took a trip on the new light rail service.

This trip afforded an interesting view of the extensive freight yards, and we saw the stored cars which are used on the Rio Grande ski train during the winter season.

Wednesday saw us boarding the California Zephyr for our longest train trip. After a rather slow start out of Denver, we climbed the front range of the Rockies through some horseshoe curves, and saw some magnificent scenery before reaching the six mile long Moffatt tunnel. In this tunnel is the highest altitude reached by Amtrak.

A most interesting commentary was given on the history of the line. We passed by snow capped mountains, and through rugged red rock gorges on the journey, and followed the Colorado River for many miles. Rafting and canoeing was very popular on the river, with its many rapids. In the evening we left Colorado and passed into Utah, before stopping at Salt Lake City around midnight (I slept through our stopover). Next day we crossed the Sierra Nevada range through the Donner Pass, once again a very scenic journey. A guide from the California Railroad Museum provided a commentary on this section of the trip.

Our main disappointment on this train was the mediocre standard of service in the dining car, not very friendly or very efficient, particularly with lunch on the last day which took nearly two hours and very little choice left - they had run out of salad and every soft drink except Diet Pepsi! The previous day's wine tasting was also not very appealing - there was only one type of white and one red to taste! The wine was served unchilled, and I think most of our 'cardboard' wines would be of far superior quality!

We arrived in Sacramento mid-afternoon. On walking down the main street in town, I had to severely admonish a couple of our group whom I caught in the local Woolworth store.

On Thursday most of our group took the free optional excursion to Yosemite National Park, for which they used their Amtrak passes. I had to remind them that the equivalent day trip from San Francisco, travelling on the same San Joaquin service, cost around $160. Having seen Yosemite on a previous trip, I stayed in town with a couple of other tour members, and explored the Railroad Museum and Old Sacramento.

As this day was my birthday, we had lunch in style on the old riverboat 'Delta King', and polished off a very acceptable bottle of chilled Sonoma wine (definitely superlative to California Zephyr standards). Late that evening, we headed off for the station, and boarded the Coast Starlight for our trip north to Portland.

Next morning most of us awoke in Oregon, though looking back we viewed the snow-capped peak of Mount Shasta in Northern California. This mountain is used by Amtrak in many of their publicity photos, and was used on the cover of our brochure. We passed through pleasant forest country and lakeside scenery, until reaching the Willamette Pass, where the railroad descends through innumerable curves and no less than 22 tunnels.

In the afternoon we reached Portland, with its superb 1889 station building replete with clock tower. In the platform was the Spanish Talgo train forming the Mount Adams service, with its short, low height carriages and lettering in Spanish. Single axles are shared between cars. Also in the platform was the American Orient Express, which travels around the country with premium service (and premium prices to match!)

In the evening took the light rail into town, we noticed the newer cars had low boarding levels similar to those now in Sydney, making the disabled boarding facilities at the stops redundant. In town we noted a very old fashioned style trolley car, so we waited for it to come along. It was a replica 1911 street car and travels between downtown and the Lloyd Centre, sponsored by the local shops and offering free rides. Portland was most interesting city, with many historic bridges - the light rail runs on the top deck of one lift bridge, with heavy rail on the lower deck.

Next afternoon we took the following day's Coast Starlight to Seattle, around a four hour journey. I must say that this train was always very pleasant to travel on, quite a contrast in the crew's attitude to their passengers from the California Zephyr's surly dining car staff. We successfully arranged a late dinner for our group. No doubt this would have been far too much trouble on the Zephyr, and they would have run out of food so near the end of the journey. Our approach to Seattle's station was rather unusual, we passed the platforms, heading into a tunnel, then backed out over a set of points into the platform.

The historic station building once had a beautiful interior, but unsympathetic modifications including a false ceiling have disfigured it. The good news is that the intricately detailed plasterwork remains above the false ceiling in quite fair condition, and restoration of the interior to its former glory is soon to commence.

The included tour next morning took us to the monorail, which we boarded for the brief journey to the Seattle Centre, site of the 1962 World's Fair. The monorail manages a speed of 55 mph, as it only travels about a mile, journey time is very short. The Space Needle offered tremendous views over the city and Puget Sound.

From here we walked down to the waterfront, where we boarded the street car for our journey to the other end of town. The waterfront street car is operated by five ex-Melbourne W2 Class trams. Immaculately restored, these cars have been modified for platform operation by enclosing one side, and fitting sliding doors on the other. They carry MMTB logos and 'Welcome Aboard' signage, retain their original numbers and are painted in the original colour scheme. Other modifications include speedometers, trolley retrievers (now hidden under the fenders) and air horns.

Also of interest in Seattle is the metro tunnel, which has a number of stations underground and light rail tracks laid through it. It is not yet used by light rail vehicles, but an intensive trolley bus operation is maintained, using high-capacity articulated vehicles. On display in one of the stations is a cable wheel, unearthed during excavations, a relic of the city's former cable car system.

An interesting and humorous conducted tour of underground Seattle was enjoyed by us in the afternoon. Seattle in the early days had a lot of problems with its sewerage systems, and the overcoming of these early difficulties was achieved by building the streets at a higher level so that an effective drainage system could be achieved. Some of the original building foundations and levels may still be inspected in the historic Pioneer Square area.

Next morning we boarded the Mt Baker International train for our final journey north on an Amtrak service. This train, only recently established, is operated by a Talgo train set imported from Spain. I must confess that I am puzzled by Amtrak's introduction of this type of train for the service. It does not achieve a very high speed on this track and does not offer a particularly comfortable ride, with its mono-axle suspension on a track with many rail joints. Perhaps with a continually-welded track its ride would be more acceptable. Amtrak seems determined to keep the Talgo design alive, as it is now building these cars locally to replace the imported cars, but I doubt that passengers will flock to it in droves unless the ride can be improved. The train did have one redeeming feature - the toilets were of ample size, unlike those in the the Superliner cars - for such huge cars I cannot see why such cramped and claustrophobic aircraft-style loos are used, with barely enough room to close the door.

We reached Vancouver's Pacific Central (former Canadian National) station slightly ahead of time, after a rather unusual procedure where the train reversed direction and backed into the platform. The platform had a 'cage' structure on one side, as it was necessary to channel the passengers through customs and immigration facilities before officially entering Canada. The platform certainly would have been more welcoming if it had a roof overhead, as Vancouver's notoriously wet weather greeted us this morning.

That afternoon, we took a stroll down to the historic area of Vancouver called Gastown. This area now contains restaurants and souvenir shops, and features a steam clock, reputed to be the only one of its type in the world. It emits all sorts of noises every quarter hour.

From here we walked around to Vancouver's beautifully-restored Waterfront station, formerly the Canadian Pacific terminal. It now serves newly introduced Westcoaster commuter trains operated with double deck cars hauled by diesel locos, once again on a push-pull basis, and is the terminus for the Skytrain local services.

We all purchased tickets for Skytrain and rode a few stops through the underground section through the Dunsmuir Street Tunnel. Skytrain was introduced for Expo 86, and is powered by linear motors, the trains are driverless and fully automated. The tunnel section is interesting, the single line tunnel became redundant with the demise of Canadian Pacific passenger services. When Skytrain was introduced, the tunnel was adapted for this new use by building a floor halfway up, so that trains could travel through it on two levels, one for each direction.

Our excursion to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, on Vancouver Island was accomplished by using Pacific Coach Lines which has a through service from downtown Vancouver to Victoria. The coach service has priority on the ferry, it is first on and first off, before all other vehicles.

The new ferries are very large and comfortable, with a high standard food service on board. It takes about 3 1/2 hours each way, and the atmosphere of Victoria is decidedly very British, with its old world architecture, the double deck buses, and shops selling clothing and other items imported from UK. The countryside on Vancouver Island is also very reminiscent of Britain, with its green fields and hedgerows.

Our final optional tour was to the ski resort of Whistler Mountain, travelling by BC Rail's Cariboo Prospector service, leaving North Vancouver at the early hour of 7am. Unfortunately heavy rain somewhat obscured the delightful views of Howe Sound, which is somewhat reminiscent of a Norwegian fjiord, but a hot breakfast was served to our passengers who were dry and comfortable in the RDC (rail diesel car) service. Return to Vancouver was by a Maverick Coach Lines service, the weather was a little brighter for the return journey.

Remainder of the afternoon was free, so we enjoyed a final dinner that night at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Gastown.

On our final day, the weather was again unfavourable. We had to get to the airport for our return flight down the coast to San Francisco. As we headed south, the weather cleared and we were fortunate to gain clear views of the snow-capped Mt Shasta which we had earlier seen from the train, and we had beautiful views over San Francisco Bay on our approach, clearly seeing the city and the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.

The long flight home commenced late that evening, losing a day (Saturday) crossing the International Date Line, and we arrived home early Sunday morning.

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