TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/071690/0716270.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10KB | 216 lines

                                                                                TRAVEL, Page 72

What A Way To Go


To get back on track, try taking the train this summer

By J.D. REED -- Reported by Lee Griggs on Anchorage-Fairbanks
Express, S.C. Gwynne on the Cardinal and Richard Woodbury on
the Texas Limited


    Psyches unravel. Odysseus and Chevy Chase become role
models. Marriages crack. And the kids? Don't ask. It's
summer-vacation time. The skies are jammed, the interstates
gridlocked. Getting there demands endurance, adrenaline and
maybe a good lawyer. Hardened travelers know the holidays do
not really begin until they arrive at their destinations -- and
the luggage is finally found.

    But these days a growing number of savvy vacationers are
leaving the car in the garage and bypassing the airport. They
are going in style, taking scenic and luxury train trips on
which the fun -- and a bit of fantasy -- begins with the
venerable two-tone cry "All abooo-ard!" Recreational rail
travel is on a roll. Some 4.8 million passengers toured the
country on specialty trains last year, in contrast with 2
million riders ten years ago. The attractions can include
unspoiled panoramas, relaxed atmosphere -- with someone else
in the driver's seat -- comfortable sleeping quarters and
lively service.

    No matter what the setting or the destination, there is a
special drama about a train. The rules of the everyday are
suspended, moments are easily shared. Observes Kenan Lott,
operations manager of the Houston-to-Galveston Texas Limited:
"People get on board thinking that two hours will be too long.
But by the time they get off, they're old friends."

    Mesmerized by the clickety-clack of wheels on track, you
have time to dream. You can find yourself or lose yourself as
the cars rock along. Hollywood has long understood the state
of suspended animation on the tracks. It has used the train to
evoke adventure, mystery and romance in films like Orient
Express and North by Northwest.

    Nostalgia is a great magnet for the iron horse, as is
curiosity for a generation that grew up speeding down the
interstates and making bicoastal parabolas at 30,000 ft. A
train ride is a visceral excursion into history. You can hear,
if you listen carefully, the hiss of escaping steam, the chime
of crystal goblets and the rustle of starched table linens. You
can see, if you open your mind's eye, a lone Navajo saluting
the Super Chief as it pulls into Albuquerque; buffalo racing
alongside the Empire Builder in Montana. On board there are
movie stars and Senators, Vanderbilts and Astors dining on
fresh-caught trout.

    Today that quality is mirrored on some private lines. The
Napa Valley Wine Train, which rolls sedately through some of
the best wine country in the U.S., serves elegant meals
accompanied by wines from the vineyards that it passes,
including Domaine Chandon and Grgich Hills. California-based
Sentimental Rail Journeys offers vacation packages in restored
vintage and Pullman cars that are attached to Amtrak trains,
complete with porters skilled in turn-of-the-century
attentiveness. Sample fare: $565 a person for a four-day San
Francisco excursion. Michigan's Shiawassee Valley Railroad
provides drama at a more modest price: for $55, a traveler on
its Murder Mystery Train can watch a whodunit performed by a
professional theater group as the cars roll from Chesaning to
St. Charles.

    Not all rail rides are luxurious. On Amtrak, the national
line, the amenities are fewer and the service spottier. The
food may be microwaved mediocrity. In the aging coaches, the
decor runs to implausible orange and tepid yellows, the odor
is museum quality. A $274 sleeping compartment on Amtrak's
Cardinal, from Chicago to New York, manages ingeniously -- and
torturously -- to cram sink, toilet, passenger seat, closet,
water cooler, trash can, storage compartment and shoe locker
into a space about 4 ft. by 7 ft.

    But whether the accommodations are cramped or commodious,
on every railway a different America floats past the window.
The paths of trains are like those roads that author William
Least Heat Moon called "blue highways," the forgotten byways
that lead into the heart -- and the soul -- of the country.
Such a trip unreels a documentary about smokestack America that
pans across abandoned factories, stockyards, waste dumps and
prisons. It is also a voyeuristic voyage more real than
Roseanne, crazier than A Current Affair. For the train catches
the nation in its undershirt, unguarded in its backyard after
work, quarreling amid rusting engine blocks, scrawny chickens
and mail-order guitars. But a train trip is more. It provides
a window on majestic nature that is often inaccessible by other
means. That's not Busch Gardens out there in the Alaskan
outback, nor are you riding past the robotic ape at a theme
park. Those are real moose in rut careening toward the train,
real bears, mountains and mud slides on the other side of the
window. Elsewhere, American rails wander beside breathtaking
canyons, mountain ranges and waterfalls. So, wherever you're
headed, climb aboard this summer. The experience will help put
you back on track.


____________________________________________________________
COLORADO

    Blocks away from the depot in Durango, Colo., there is an
odor of history: coal smoke. At the station, a panting steam
engine hooked up to bright orange coaches with open vestibules
welcomes you to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad,
a huffing, puffing legend from frontier America and a sight
that would thrill Butch and Sundance. At its peak in gold-rush
days, the D.S.N.G.R. carried prospectors, cardsharps and camp
followers the 46 miles between Durango and Silverton, Colo.
Most of the mines played out long ago, but one remains,
producing 2,000 oz. of gold a month. Today the D.S.N.G.R. is
perhaps the nation's most popular tourist line. More than
200,000 people swung aboard last year for the 3 1/4-hr.,
gravity-defying 2,768-ft. climb to Silverton.

    The steam-powered haul is a dizzying experience. In some
places the train hugs the canyon wall next to a 400-ft. drop
straight down into the roaring Animas River. The round-trip
fare is $37.15 in coach. A ride in an 1880 parlor car with bar
costs $63.85, and a lavish private car can be rented for
$1,086.20. The D.S.N.G.R.'s 1878 Nomad  is the oldest operating
private car in the world. Presidents William Howard Taft and
Gerald Ford and other notables have used its brass bed and
plush chairs. Alas, tiny Silverton is less authentic than the
ride. After a chili dog at High Noon Hamburgers or a stop at
one of the ersatz frontier shops, it's back on board for the
real thing.

____________________________________________________________
    ALASKA

    Railroads are Alaska's lifelines. Some 70% of the population
lives near the single track that stretches 470 miles north from
Seward, on the coast, to Fairbanks, deep in the interior. Along
the way: some of North America's most dramatic wilderness. From
May to late September the blue-and-yellow engines of the
Anchorage-Fairbanks Express traverse a 356-mile route, pulling
the railroad's own cars, plus the more luxurious domed cars of
private lines. One-way fare for the 11 1/2-hr. trip: $98, or
up to $140 for a seat in a private tour car.

    Just north of Anchorage the line winds through the Matanuska
Valley, where 19 hours of sunlight a day produce turnips the
size of soccer balls and carrots almost as big as baseball
bats. The favorite destination is Denali National Park, which
is about the size of New Jersey, and home to grizzlies and
Mount McKinley, North America's tallest peak (20,320 ft.).
Since daylight goes virtually round the clock, passengers can
ride in both directions within two days and not miss a thing.

____________________________________________________________
    VIRGINIA

    Other Amtrak expresses make the Chicago-New York run in 17
hours. The languorous Cardinal takes 27. But it does so through
the most beautiful and inaccessible landscapes in the Eastern
states. After departing the Windy City at 7:05 p.m., riders
awaken the next day to catch the sun glinting gloriously off
the Ohio River in rural Kentucky. Several hours later, the
Cardinal winds along West Virginia's tempestuous New River. For
slow, stately miles, walls of green mountains rise from the
rushing waters.

    The area was once a boom zone, but most of the mining towns
have disappeared into the foliage. Smartly dressed vacationers
disembark at the quaint station in White Sulphur Springs, site
of the famed Greenbrier hotel. Then it's on to the rolling
farmland of Virginia. Hours after the eye has adjusted to the
timeless bucolic greenery comes the shock of the new: the
marble tombs of Washington and the metal towers of Manhattan.

____________________________________________________________
    TEXAS

    Riders on the Texas Limited don't shell out $27.50 for the
scenery. The vistas on the 2-hr., 50-mile trip from Houston to
the coastal resort of Galveston consist mainly of hardpan and
warehouses. What passengers most like to see is the
bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-45, which parallels the track.
While beach-bound motorists sweat, Limited riders are clicking
along, cool and happy.

    The short-haul line began last year, the brainchild of
former Santa Fe brakeman Franklin Denson, who wisely provides
decor more dramatic than the landscape. Some of the Limited's
faithfully restored cars, from the 1930s and '40s, boast brass
lamps, mahogany paneling and luxurious settees. The motion is
also authentic: first-time riders may be caught off-balance by
the lurching. But for others, that's part of the charm. Gushes
Jimmie Dean, 65, who came out of retirement to resume work as
a dining-car waiter: "The ride is a little like buying a fire
truck for a child: instant love."