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Originally Posted by Clodfobble
How long was the whole cross-country trip, Spuck?
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Hi Snake!
From Orem to the Cape about five days. It was kinda odd because the same train (ours) had to cross and operate over something like ten different company's tracks, which is not normal.
Back from the middle of the Florida panhandle to Los Angeles was about 6 days thru lots of desert.
Normally the car would travel in passenger service (Amtrak) but occasionally in freight. Freight is nerve-wracking and frankly quite dangerous as the couplings are different and the trains are long causing "slack issues". As a long freight climbs a hill the entire train draws out tight and long. As the train crests a hill and starts down the other side you can have all that slack start to comeback on you, especially with a poor engineer. Two inches of slack times 200 couplings can add up to painting a wall with you. Think 'crack-the-whip'.
Bruce; Indeed.. Not many people have done that. In fact a different company outbid us once and on their maiden trip the overweight boosters collapsed a trestle under repair and the escort car and engines when over on their sides and down a hill. That was strange and kind of the end of booster moves and the Shuttle program too.
I've been very fortunate to have had a great many rare opportunities to see and do amazing 'life-long memories' things like this.
Reminds me; two weeks ago three private rail cars were brought to a private rail yard for maintenance in Salinas, CA. (Some of the stuff I do for a living.) The cars were on the back of the Amtrak Coast Starlight that was to stop and back them up and off on a siding for us to grab. It just happened that my buddy and I got to the yard, opened the track gate and walked out to the high rail 2 minutes before the Starlight showed up, we could see it coming. So the Starlight slows to a stop in front of us and the engineer opened the hatch on the Road-Warrior looking engine hops out and comes over to us asking, "is this the place?" I look and about 300 faces are staring out the windows at us. The conductor showed up in a suit next and we all shook hands and introduced ourselves then got to business siding our cars. Anyway I thought it was pretty unique having a long Amtrak going from LA to Seattle essentially stopping for us.