Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Days of Rails and Fresh Brook Trout

By Bob Aldrich

John Baggerly's March 26 "Pictures From the Past" column about the ferries that used to cross San Francisco Bay stirred memories of times back in the 1930s when I traveled by rail with my mother from our home in eastern Nebraska to California.

I remember taking the ferry from Oakland across to San Francisco on a foggy morning, the lapping of waves, the sharp cries of gulls and the fishy smells that were novel to a prairie boy. This, of course, had to be before the Trans-Bay Bridge was completed in 1936.

Overall, we made half a dozen rail journeys to the West Coast. I know that ferry ride was not on our first rail trip west, as on that occasion, we took the train to Los Angeles rather than San Francisco. The year of that first rail trip must have been 1932, because it was at a cousin's home in L.A., that we heard of the kidnaping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the sensational news story of that era.

Memory dims as to exact times, but I know my writer mother and I traveled at least twice on the Union Pacific Challenger, the Overland Route, getting aboard at the Omaha Union Station for a trip of two days and two nights. After rambling through Nebraska and Wyoming, the Challenger arrived at Ogden, Utah, where Pullman cars bound for San Francisco were detached. There was a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake and then the deserts of Utah and Nevada; much of these, if I remember, glided by at night.

(Our very first trip west had been in the family Buick, with brother Chuck, who had just earned his license, driving on winding mountain roads, through deserts that seemed endless. We probably got some of our kicks on Route 66.)

There were two trips west on the California Zephyr with its dome cars that permitted expansive views of the passing scenery. On one trip, we stayed overnight at the Brown Palace in Denver for a tour of the city before reboarding. A feature of the Zephyr's trip was a stop at the Royal Gorge of the Colorado River, where passengers disembarked to enjoy the spectacular sights. The Zephyr was operated by three railroad lines, the Burlington from Chicago to Denver, the Denver & Rio Grande as far as Salt Lake City; then the Western Pacific ran it to L.A.'s Spanish-style Union Station.

Once, for some reason, Mom and I rode the Missouri Pacific from Lincoln to Kansas City, Mo., and boarded the Santa Fe Chief for Los Angeles. (This was shortly after the "Kansas City massacre," when gangsters were slaughtered at the K. C. station, an event that filled me with some awe.) "The Great Southwest Route" took us through Arizona and New Mexico and to San Bernardino and L.A. The Chief was quite a fancy streamliner, and the Santa Fe ran a still fancier one, the Super Chief, favored by movie stars and other celebrities.

"Streamliners" were pretty much a publicity gimmick for the railroads, about the time diesels were replacing steam locomotives. Allegedly built for faster speed, in the main their sleek style was grist for the rail lines' PR departments.

I was nutty about trains at that age, so rail travel was the spur of much excitement. I liked to sit in the rear observation car and watch as the brakemen got out at those mysterious stops with their flags or lanterns. After a minute or two there'd be a distant rumble, and another train with higher priority would roar by. Then we'd pull out of the siding while semaphores switched from red to green.

Three of my mother's brothers had been railroad men. The only one I knew was Uncle Bob of Chickasha, Okla., brakeman and conductor for 50 years on the old St. Louis and San Francisco ("the Frisco") in Oklahoma and Texas. After Uncle Bob retired, I sat with him under an orange tree at his home on Redondo Boulevard in L.A., while he spun fascinating tales of railroading in the days before his freights had Westinghouse air brakes.

He walked the tops of icy boxcars in winter and tightened brake wheels with a chunk of wood. He told of terrible wrecks, and of the time as a young brakeman when his train overflowed with "Sooners" in the famed Oklahoma Land Rush of April 22, 1889. He spoke of writing poetry on lonely star-filled nights in the cupola of his caboose. Bob Streeter was the "poet laureate" of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and published his poems in their magazine.

Youngsters of today, so familiar with planes and rockets, will never know the thrill of standing by a depot track as a monstrous steam locomotive chuffs to a stop, bell clanging, panting great clouds of white steam. Or (unless Amtrak survives) the joy of having dinner in the dining car and ordering the fresh-baked brook trout, while waiters in their crisp white uniforms balance heavy trays on the tips of their fingers, miraculously keeping their footing.

Getting dressed in an upper berth was a job. The Pullman Company conveniently provided a little hammock to store your clothes at night. But it took a contortionist's skill to accomplish dressing in the morning. You pushed a buzzer and waited for the porter to bring a footstool so you could climb down.

I'd make my way to the men's lounge and compete with some traveling salesmen for space at a steamy mirror. Afterward came breakfast (fresh omelet with little pig sausages) and a seat in the lounge car as ranches, orchards and little towns rolled past. Every few minutes came the Doppler effect of a grade-crossing bell: DING DING ding dig dig dnnnnnnnnnng.

In more mature years I took the Pennsylvania Railroad from Chicago to New York and the Baltimore & Ohio to Washington, and I rode the New York Central's 20th Century, the train where Cary Grant meets Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest. But it's the western trains I remember.

I can't recall who said it, but I concur with the sentiment: "There isn't a train I wouldn't take, no matter where it's going."

Bob Aldrich is a columnist and feature writer for the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

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