Passenger Trains > All aboard: Riding the rails to Eugene

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All aboard: Riding the rails to Eugene
H&N photos by Jill Aho
Trevor Jardine and Suzii Galvan, both 18, played the card game Speed to pass the time on the Amtrak to Washington state. Jardine was moving to live in Bellevue, Wash., with Galvan, who flew down to California to meet him. Both were able to take the train back for the cost of Galvan’s one-way plane ticket.
BY JILL AHO
H&N Staff Writer
Sunday, October 11, 2009 12:21 AM PDT
This is my first trip on the train,” I tell the ticket agent at the Klamath Falls Amtrak station. I purchased my ticket online and printed out a barcode but as I dig through my bag, I realize I may have forgotten it.

“I don’t need that, do I?” I ask.

“No, just your ID.”

About 10 people are milling about inside the Amtrak station on Spring Street. A man dressed in a velour Donna Karen New York running suit can’t decide whether to wait inside or outside. Once outside, he can be seen through the station windows bobbing up and down and jogging alongside the train.






As the minutes tick by, and the train’s departure time creeps closer, I begin to get nervous. There are still people inside the train station, but I begin to wonder: Have I missed something?

I step outside, and the car in front of me says “sleeping car.” I’m pretty sure that’s not the one I want to get on. Then I see the ticket agent come out to smoke a cigarette.

“Where I am supposed to get on?”

“You’re still waiting to get on?”

The last three cars are reserved for coach passengers. I am the last one to board.

•••

As train rolls north through Klamath Falls, the town quickly recedes. I have a roundtrip ticket to Eugene, where I will spend two nights before heading home.

The car I am on has plenty of room, so I sit by myself and stare out the window as Upper Klamath Lake rolls by. It is like seeing the landscape again for the first time, and I am mesmerized by the mottled sea of greens and browns.

I recognize a few birds — ducks, geese and pelicans — on the lake and the marshy shores. The view is incredible, much better than what can be seen traveling by car on Highway 97.

A few hours in, they are talking like old friends



Two men sitting across from one another and behind me are chatting about the landscape. At first I think they are traveling together, but I later learn they met on the train and discovered some common interests.

Ken Goyer, a 65-year-old Eugene resident, is returning from a trip to Van Nuys, Calif., where he picked up equipment for hand drilling wells. He is the director of a non-profit called Aid Africa, which assists Ugandan people by building cook stoves, providing clean drinking water, caring for the sick and doing reforestation with fruit trees.

Goyer says with the cost of fuel and an overnight stay in a hotel, the train was a more economical way to travel.

“It gives me time to think and time to reflect, and saves me money,” he says.

Goyer doesn’t take the train often, maybe once every other year.

“One of the problems with the train is you have to have nothing else to do because it can be very late,” he says. When he boarded in Van Nuys, the train was 3 1/2 hours late. It was on time in Klamath Falls.

“It comes when it comes. It arrives when it arrives,” he says.

Goyer appreciates Amtrak’s generous luggage policy. The well-drilling equipment was likely to raise eyebrows at an airport, he says. Items in his stowed baggage included pipes and saws, which were too heavy for airline travel.

Joel Kramer, a 21-year-old University of Washington student, got on the train in San Diego and was headed back to Seattle after stopping in Davis, Calif. The train is helping him move back to school, and he says making stops like the one in Davis is easy to do.

He thinks the train isn’t more popular because people simply haven’t tried it.

“They aren’t accustomed to it. They should give it a go,” he says. “For me, it’s an easier way to visit my family. When you have time, it really changes the pace. It’s actually a nice relief of responsibility.”

The men recommend I go check out the lounge car, saying the views are good, and it’s a nice social atmosphere.

I taught her to play, now she always wins

In the lounge car, a young couple plays cards at one of several tables. Trevor Jardine, 18, of Galt, Calif., and Suzii Galvan, 18, of Bellevue, Wash., are passing the time with an animated game of Speed.

Galvan traveled by commercial airline to meet Jardine at a cost of $170. The two are moving Jardine to Bellevue, and on the train, the cost was $180 for both. Both have taken train trips to other destinations, but Jardine says this is the farthest he has traveled.

“It’s really fun. You get to see a lot more than on a plane. You get to see everything.”

Galvan admits the plane is a faster way to travel. But she believes people don’t talk about taking the train often enough, and she says she hadn’t considered it as an option until Jardine suggested it.

“You can eat here, you can drink here. I was surprised they have arcade games,” Jardine says.

Galvan says she doesn’t think she would take the train by herself, but she found the experience less frightening than the take-off and landing of an airplane.

Hey, it beats taking the bus

Al Parra, 57, also is in the lounge car, in a seat that faces the windows. The lodgepole pine forest skims by as Parra talks about the route from his home in Oregon City to San Francisco.

“I usually drive. This time, I thought I’d take the train,” he says.

Parra, who drives a semi for a living, loves to drive, but the cost of fueling his old pickup and a desire to relax led him to Amtrak.

He likes that he can get up and walk around, that there is food available in both the snack bar and dining car and the views from the lounge car are good.

“The bus is just crowded. I don’t think you can see things like this on the bus,” he says, gesturing to the passing forest. “You’re more on the freeway.”

Parra, who last took a train trip some 20 years ago, says the next time he has a chance for leisurely travel, he’ll be on the train.

It’s about the journey

As the train crosses Willamette Pass and begins its descent into the valley, smoke from large wildfires fills the air and its acrid smell permeates the lounge car.

Steven Lopez, 24, sits at one of the tables, an open copy of Laurie Notaro’s “Autobiography of a Fat Bride” at his elbow. I climb up the stairs after purchasing a $2 can of Pepsi from the lower-level snack car and ask if I can join him.

“If you do, I’ll talk to you,” he warns.

“That’s OK,” I respond, and tell him what he says could end up in print.

Lopez is leaving behind a life as a bar manager in Phoenix, Ariz., for an unknown future in Portland. Having narrowed his belongings to fit in a duffel bag, Lopez is using the time on the train to write a book about his experiences.

“People on trains are a hell of a lot friendlier than people on planes,” he observes.

The food has been well priced, he says, but he had a little trouble sleeping the night before.

“Aside from getting stuck in front of a snorer, which I did last night, it’s been fine.”

Lopez considered taking a plane, but found he could get there by train for half the price.

“I think a lot of people in the U.S. don’t know how to appreciate how nice it is to sit and look out the window and have in-depth and intimate conversations,” he says. “It takes a certain kind of person. For me, this is more about the journey.”



Return trip

The train is on time for my Friday, Sept. 25, return trip aboard the 5:10 p.m. to Klamath Falls.

Despite all I’ve heard, the train has been on time both directions. My boyfriend drops me off at the Amtrak station in Eugene, and walks me to the platform as the train arrives. He later tells me that the five minutes or so he was away from his vehicle was enough time for someone from Diamond Parking to write him a $30 ticket.

He won’t stop talking, but he’s interesting



I get assigned to a seat next to Glenn Jones, a 66-year-old musician who lives on a 35-foot bus. He spends the summers in Eugene and the winters in Yuma, Ariz. Even though I am tired, Jones’ story is interesting. He bought a $39 ticket to Klamath Falls for the experience of riding the train. He says he wants to see what his old house near Dexter Lake looks like from the train.

“I used to watch the train go by all the time,” he says.

As we pass Dexter Lake, he stands and peers out the windows of the coach passenger car into the rushing green of a forest still laden with foliage. The attendant comes around with pillows, and while I am tempted to lean back in my seat, Jones continues talking. I invite him to come along as I venture to the lounge car.

Fast friends and a bottle of wine

In seats facing the passing landscape, train travel veteran Leanna Brooks, 24, talks with rookie David Penilton, 52, both of Portland.

Brooks, who is headed to Fresno, Calif., says she took her first train ride when she was about 9 years old. “It’s very relaxing,” she says. “The lounge car’s always great, the people you meet.”

Brooks recalls a late night on the train when she was about 13. Unable to sleep, she wandered to the lounge car at 2 a.m., she says.

“There was this guy playing guitar. Another guy had a banjo. He said, ‘Do you want to jam?’ Now I play guitar. It was a good inspiration for me.”

Penilton has only traveled by train one time before.

He didn’t recall it being a good experience. Penilton, president of Hub World Travel, says he travels so often he sleeps in his own bed maybe 50 or 60 nights each year. He’s working on a convention coming to Portland that will talk about tourism and travel, even though he says his train ride to Sacramento, Calif., had nothing to do with that promotion.

“What an experience,” he says. “Compared to flying, there’s more interface with people. On the train, you have every walk of life.”

He says the value is good, especially when the comfort of the ride and the ability to work are factored in. He is disappointed, though, that the train had a wine tasting for its sleeping car passengers that coach passengers were not invited to join, and says he would have liked the option of paying a little extra to be a part of that, too. Coach passengers can participate in wine tastings on some trains.

Brooks adds she likes that trains don’t require passengers to strip down in security in order to get on.

Brooks and Penilton made a dinner reservation in the dining car and their time is called. They invite Jones and me to join them, but we decline since neither one of us is hungry.

Jones is enjoying himself. He goes to the snack bar on the first level of the lounge car and purchases a bottle of Napa Valley wine for each of us, and we sit in the lounge car as evening descends. The crowd — which nearly filled the car when we first arrived — begins to thin as passengers head off to dinner or to return to their seats.

Small children are hard to handle

Nearby, Kylene Henson, 21, of Vancouver, Wash., shares a “Cup O’ Noodles” with her small children.

Henson, 3-year-old Aaliyah and 9-month-old Robert are heading to Redding, Calif.

Aaliyah is having a great time as the train passes through a series of tunnels, screeching that she is scared, then saying she wants to go through another tunnel.

“I know on my way back, I’m going by plane,” Henson says.

The train ride has proven too long for her young children. She says Aaliyah has been doing pretty well, and would recommend to other parents that 4 or 5 might be appropriate ages to take children on the train.

“A couple of times she’s told me she wanted to go home,” Henson says. “He’s way too young and wants to run around.”

Henson said she planned ahead by bringing snacks and toys, even though she found she didn’t bring enough food.

“I brought (Robert’s) car seat so I can buckle him in,” she says.

•••

I return to a seat next to Jones to sip more wine. He chatters on about travel, telling me stories of trips to Civil War sites and the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas.

“Walk the streets and you can feel the fiber of the country,” he says.



There’s a celebrity on here

Jones says he is going back to the coach car. I bid him farewell and slip into a seat across from Jason Fontanoz, a 30-year-old actor from San Francisco. He is returning from Albany, on his longest train ride to date.

“I’d consider a longer one if I could get more amenities,” he says. “Sometimes I’d like to plug my laptop in or sleep in peace.”

Fontanoz says he considered getting a sleeping car on this trip because on the trip north, he found his seat too uncomfortable for sleeping.

“The cost was a tremendous amount more,” he says. He says train travel is like the bus or plane, except there is food and you can move around.

Jones returns with his camera on video mode and narrates as he films Fontanoz and me talking. I tell him he’s like a new dad with a new camera who follows his family around documenting the mundane. He laughs and heads down to talk to someone else on camera.

The train begins to slow as we approach Klamath Falls. Not due in until 9:50 p.m., we arrive 20 minutes early.

Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series looking at the ins and outs of Amtrak travel in and out of Klamath Falls. The first three installments ran June 7, July 5 and Aug. 30.