Sami's Train Memories - Chicago

 We lived in Newfoundland for less than two years. Next, we moved to Chicago. It had a whole new set of wonderful landmarks to explore; museums, libraries, parks, swimming pools, and amusement parks. The city’s elevated train (know as the EL), ran right behind our second story apartment. Its rattling, thundering song became part of the background of my life. We didn’t have a car, but got around by EL. That wonderful train ran above ground most of the time, but occasionally the tracks dove beneath the streets. Without warning the train car would go pitch-black and the train noise would become deafening. I always took those opportunities to sing at the top of my lungs. It fascinated me that no one could hear me because the train’s loud noise drowned everything out. I tried not to get caught singing when the train raced back above ground.

 

The summer I was eight my family went on the magnificent California Zephyr train from Chicago to visit my grandmother in Cambria, on the California coast. Chicago’s Union Train Station was huge. We walked through the “to the train” doors and looked for our track. We were surrounded by loud trains, some growling as they idled, and some clanging and screeching as they slowly moved on the tracks. The harsh sounds of metal against metal sent chills up my spine. I dodged jets of vapor and steam shooting at me from under the trains.

 

 

My parents dressed in their Sunday best; my mother in hat and gloves and my father in a dark suit and tie. My sister, brother and I were less formal, because we were going to explore! My five-person family booked four seats and turned one set of them backwards, so the two sets of seats faced each other, forming our little “home” for the journey.

After boarding, and as soon as our parents let us, my sister, brother and I took off to see everything the train had to offer. It seemed mandatory to us to go as far forward as we could, and then backward until we could look out the window at the tail-end of the train. As we walked down the aisles of the coach cars we would try to stay balanced as the train swayed. The corridors moved to one side and got narrower in the sleeping cars. We explored the club car, the dining car, the vista dome car, and the sophisticated-looking observation car. We checked out all of the bathrooms. Going from car to car was exciting. In the vestibule, where the cars were coupled together, I looked down and saw the train tracks and ground whizzing beneath me. Between the cars you felt every jolt of the train. It was windy and chilly. We would stand, one at a time, with one foot on one car’s rotating connecting platform and the other foot on the platform of the adjacent car. As the train rounded corners, the movement of the car would turn your two feet in different directions. I hung on to the handrails, because here you felt the immense power of the train. It was scary. Racing back to our seats, we checked out “our” water fountain, each getting a drink using the little paper cone-shaped cups.

In the evening, mom and dad would make beds on the reclined seats with the train’s blankets and pillows. We would wash up and change into our pajamas in the bathroom’s lounge. Our parents would tuck us in. Then they went off to the club car to drink, smoke cigarettes, and share conversations with fellow passengers. I was in heaven, falling to sleep to the song of the wheels and the tracks. I was unaware when mom and dad returned to our seats. They must have had to squeeze in and sleep the best they could.

When we awoke, we would get brushed and dressed and then go to the dining car for breakfast. The tables were set with linen and monogrammed flatware. We watched the scenery as we ate. My favorite thing on the menu was the already-segmented grapefruit with a maraschino cherry in the middle. It seemed so elegant!

We experienced everything the Zepyer had to offer. We stayed a day in Salt Lake City seeing the sights and the movie Singing In The Rain before we continued on to San Francisco. We had some time to wait for the for the Coast Daylight, so we road a ferry back and forth across the bay, almost making us late for our south-bound train. Once we boarded this new train. It also had to be explored and made our own.

At Grandmother’s my sister, brother and I spent entire days exploring the tidal pools along Cambria’s beach.  The trip back home was on the great Super Chief. I soaked up everything; the train’s décor, the kid’s menu, the different shape of the little paper cups at the water cooler. The vacation ended when we stepped off our air conditioned, rolling hotel at Chicago’s Dearborn Station into the heavy, hot, moist blanket of summertime Chicago air.

When Don and I talk about our childhood train experiences, it is clear that he was and is fascinated by the technical aspects of trains. However, I rarely remember anything except the sights, sounds and flavors of my experiences. It is only now that I see, with the help of Google, that the train in Newfoundland was a narrow gauge, steam train, and that the Super Chief was part of the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe system. All the same, we both find trains exciting and wonderful.