We were called before the train had been reversed onto the platform, I think mainly as the red cap attendants needed several journeys to get passengers who needed assistance to the train. It arrived 30 minutes before departure, and I quickly settled into my roomette, upstairs in carriage 0430, one of two sleepers on the train. You might think of long-distance trains as enormous, but this one consists of just two sleepers, two coach cars, a baggage car, a dining car, and a sightseeing lounge car. On some routes, extra carriages get taken on and off, but this is the core of every Amtrak long-distance train set.

Once I had a dinner reservation made I unpacked my small bag and set the room up how I’m used to doing, in a way that I know where things are in the dark and the more confined space once the bed is made up from the two seats. I actually hang my bags up, leaving more floor space and I also have a way of stacking devices between the table and the window. This is another one of the slightly older sleepers, so it has an ‘open’ closet cupboard making it feel slightly more spacious inside the roomette. Elsewhere you only really notice its age in the toilets, which are a bit worn out.

The observation car, or ‘sightseeing lounge’ has two different configurations downstairs, but is pretty much the same up top. One version LA to ABQ has a bar-style service counter, the other from ABQ to CHI is a self-service one, with a cashier area.

The food and drink offering is the same. The attendants down here have to ‘sell’ their wares to the coach customers, whereas food is included in the dining car to those in the sleeper coaches. This means a bit too much activity on the intercom with discounted deals and frequent opening and closing announcements.

Coach customers are welcome to come into the dining car, and can pay the prices on the menu.

Overnight California gives way to Arizona, and the cowboy country I wake up to is strangely familiar from all those western movies. But nothing prepares me for the big sky and little fluffy clouds. I surprise myself and get up for an early breakfast, even though we have changed a time zone overnight, back to mountain time. Time zones on Amtrak trains can be tricky if you have a dining car reservation around the time of the change – clarification is needed. Before long we are in New Mexico. It’s cold at night here, and snow lies in shaded areas.

In the late morning, I get off the train in Albuquerque for a planned side trip and get back on the same carriage 3 days later. My off the rails experience were to do with research for my next book, which I’m really getting immersed in at the moment. You will have to wait to see what I got up to!

Back on board in time for lunch, the train gets refueled before setting off east. I meet a man in a white biohazard suit on the lower deck, and he’s clearly trying to fix a plumbing problem in the limited time we have left at the stop. He runs out of time and leaves us with just one of the thee toilets in working order. The shower is fine though, and there are more toilets than needed for the number of people in the adjacent sleeper.

I munch on a Ceasar salad for lunch and discuss all things Amtrak with my fellow passengers. I love the afternoons on a long-distance Amtrak route, I often take a nap after lunch and then spend the rest of the afternoon watching the sun get lower which can make for some good photographs. We reach Colorado in the early evening and its time to freshen up for dinner. I book a community seat at a table for 7.30 pm, about the time we reach La Junta for a crew change. But there is something else going on here. The Engineer says there will be an ‘equipment change’ and the power will go out. What he doesn’t tell us is how long this will take, so I sit alone at a table in the dining car sipping a couple of glasses of wine in the darkness for two hours, when new locos are finally added back on. My steak is a late-night feast, and well worth the wait.

Over breakfast, the really nice lady who serves in the dining car introduces me to the man who fixed the train last night. Its something to do with pumps and flooding, but I avoid technical questions. I eat my usual three-egg omelet with cheddar cheese and mushrooms and enjoy the views of the Kansas prairie.

On the platform at Kansas City I chat with one of the Amish travelers who points out that we have acquired a couple more locos, now four in total as well as some other carriages, the mighty Chief must be quite a sight, but I can’t get far enough to photograph it and the attendant warns me to stay close as we are shortening stops to make up time.

I have lunch with a couple of high school girls on a class trip to Washington. I good chance to ask questions about the latest mobile phones – mine is eight years old. I also get to try out the new Amtrak BBQ pork wings, which are great. More on this in an Amtrak menu post.

We catch up nearly an hour crossing Missouri and into Ilinois. The rail towns are pretty and they all seem to have museums with steam engines trackside. Tempting, but no time to do anything more than a cursory photograph. Eventually, we pull into Chicago Union Station at 4.20 pm. The Chief has covered 2265 miles in around 44 hours. All in all a great run, even though the toilets didn’t work and a two-hour wait for my steak on the run from Albuquerque. It’s all about the staff on a train like this, and the crew on the Chief have been totally first class.

I’ve got used to watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’ on the television in the Amtrak lounge before catching trains at this time of the day. I’m getting good at it. The Sunset Limited is running half an hour late, so time to watch the whole show. It’s a friendly place, and everything is straightforward here.

I’m greeted by Melinda on the platform outside carriage 0130, which turns out to be an older design than I have seen before. It looks similar to the more common Superliner, but the toilets, switches and roomette design is slightly different. However, it’s biggest shortcoming is that although there are controls, the aircon system is either on jungle or iceberg setting, and no one in the carriage can agree which is better. The most obvious way to tell its an older coach is that it does not have an enclosed cupboard with coathangers in the roomette.

I make the last sitting in the dining car, which is run by the dream team, Eggi on announcements, seating and jokes, and John serving the food and wisecracks. Lovely people and it made the journey great fun. Next door in the sightseeing lounge, another John runs the cafe car.

I hopped off at a late-night stop in San Antonio, which I discovered to be full of dodgy people. Law and order here is down to armed guards on the platform. I had to answer a string of questions to get anywhere back near our train and wasn’t allowed to move freely to take my usual nightly photo of the engine.

When I wake early the next morning to Eggi whispering ‘waffles, coffee, pancakes’ on the intercom. I’m greeted by the sight of great plains, and glimpses of the Rio Grande over breakfast. Each meal on this train involves meeting three new people at the table, and you never know who you might sit next to. All but one of my fellow diners were really interesting, but you will have to read the book to find out what I did!

I hoped off in Alpine, Texas for some fresh air and almost had a heart attack when the train double-stopped. This is a procedure when on shorter platforms the train stops twice, moving forward a 100m or so. But the feeling of seeing the train slowly roll away from you isn’t for the faint-hearted!

We reached El Paso in the afternoon, and the infamous wall and the lawless Mexican town of Juarez over the border were right by the side of the line. As we set off, something was wrong back in the sightseeing lounge – we had left one passenger behind, but his partner and luggage were still on board. The sentiment amongst passengers here was mixed. The golden words are ‘always stay close to the train’, but you had to feel for him. Apparently he didn’t like flying, but now he would have to take a flight to Phoenix as the next train wasn’t for another three days.

We rumbled out of Texas after 20 hours crossing one state, and into Arizona to a train wide communal ‘yeee-haaa’. I have to say at this point I was in rail nirvana, and happily spent the afternoon taking photos of the amazing landscape and doing some writing.

A beer to watch the sunset, another fine meal in the dining car and bed after a stop in Tucson. Sleep came very easy, and I woke to the announcement we would be in LA in less than 10 minutes at 05.18 Pacific time ‘on the bumper’. See how I’m learning to speak Amtrak!

Union Station is quiet and well ordered, the only problem is there are no taxis at this time of the morning. But the team in the Amtrak lounge somehow got me one and sneaked it round the station to a secret lounge door. I have a long weekend in LA before getting back on the rails. Next stop hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque.

I might have misled you in my last post by saying I was going to San Francisco today. I am actually going there, but to be more specific, my train is not. The Coast Starlight is a daily service between L.A. and Seattle. This takes about 36 hours. My plan is to get off after 11 hours at Oakland and then travel by bus to San Francisco. It should take less than an hour once I’m off the train.

At about 09.40 the train backs into Union Station on platform 10B, supervised by a man in dungarees that I’m convinced was once in “The Dukes of Hazzard” (the early 1980’s version). This train runs with allocated specific seats, and I’m up top in coach 14, seat 4, then seat 57, and seat 55 as I find one I like better. If you are thinking of taking this train the best views by far are out of the left hand side (towards the ocean). Eva, the carriage attendant, is seemingly tolerant of my seat moves and keeps track of me on her paper based passenger seating plan. Many seats are “occupied” but yet empty on trains like this one. This is because people prefer to sit in the observation car or the bar, and stay there for hours. Amtrak tried to get rid of observation cars, but their passengers revolted and they were reinstated.

Today the Starlight is made up of two locomotives, a baggage car, two sleepers, two observation cars, a dining car and two regular coaches. I’m right at the back in the last coach – no roomette for me on this journey, as I’m getting off at about 21.00. It’s very comfortable here in coach. The seats are business class sized and there is more leg room than I need. Well designed tables pull out and every seat has a 120 volt plug. Perfect.

Before long the café is open (underneath the observation car) and reservations are being taken for lunch in the dining car. There is some comedy value in this, as the diner supervisor announces the progress of bookings over the P.A. “Garcia, party of four, your table is ready”.. then cancels anyone who is a moment late “Garcia, bad luck, you’re now on the waitlist”..

After a couple of hours we stop at Santa Barbara and I have time to get off and stretch my legs. Eva tells me that I don’t have time for a swim (the water looks good) so I wait in the sun on the spotless platform with the posh station building. I must come back here one day.

I think I might have picked up a good American habit. I’m talking to absolutely everybody, and it feels quite normal. Last night I got chatting to a bus driver and before I got off he gave me a high five. I don’t think I have ever done a high five in public before, and certainly not with a public transport employee.

The rest of the journey is fairly uneventful until I head for a beer in the observation car. I’m quickly embroiled in debate with lots of people sat around me, and after a few minutes I wonder if I’m to be the new English Jerry Springer. I have a concept for a talk show, filmed in a train carriage – a quirky Englishman hosts and moderates debate between a very mixed bunch of Americans. Tonight’s debates for my fist show include taxes, native Americans, tobacco, guns and liberalism. Fortunately I’m rescued by some fellow Brits I’m dining with before things get out of hand. Two of my chat show guests are close to war, and I suspect that one of them might be carrying a concealed weapon.

As the sun goes down outside the views are of a mixture of crops – pumpkins, turf (miles of it) and oil. I’m supposed to be getting off at about 21.30 – in Amtrak terms this is to “de-train”. Generally I don’t like long day train journeys, but this one has been great – not just the amazing scenery, the great people, but the space on a train like this make 11 hours a real pleasure.

I shall write a further wrap up, but this is the end of my U.S. train based adventure – one I would commend to you. I hope you have enjoyed my blog – let me know what you thought. If you have a spare moment, please do join my mail list if you would like to stay in touch.

I return to the station after a quick dinner to discover that tonight the train is just ten minutes behind schedule, so I ready myself on the platform. This is the first time that I have seen a Superliner (the double deck long distance trains) approach in the dark. It looks pretty special. First you hear it, the rumble, the tooting and the sound of nearby level crossings closing. Then you see the lights and its monsterous scale. Finally, you get to see just how shiny it is – every light in the station reflects off the silvery sides and bounces back at you.

A chap called Art will be my conductor tonight. He shows me upstairs where I’m in roomette number three. My bed is already made up, but it’s too early for bed, so I remove the bed roll, store it in the top bunk and pull the seats back up. With a glass of wine in one hand, I complete my usual procedure of downloading and editing the photographs that I have taken during the day. Then I start to charge up all my devices ready for tomorrow morning. I’m getting good this, and have even now worked out how to send my pictures wirelessly from my camera to my iPad, then after editing, to airdrop them onto my Macbook. There is no IT department at Matthew Woodward Adventure!

A glance of my watch and I remember that we are already on Pacific time, so I remake my bed. Sleep comes easily, and I wake the next morning to hear Art encouraging passengers to visit the dining car for breakfast at 06.00. I’m skipping this culinary treat and will grab something in L.A.

The landscape has changed overnight. Passing through the outskirts of the city Los Angeles the houses are low and Spanish styled. Palm trees grow in their gardens. As we get into the downtown area the empty concrete canals remind me straightaway of two Hollywood films. The classic alien ant film “Them”, and more recently, “Terminator II” – the scene where Arnie escapes from the T1000 killer cyborg made of liquid poly metal on his Harley with John Connor.

Union Station is much calmer than I had anticipated, and although there are plenty of vagrants wandering about, it looks fairly safe to me. There are no obvious gangs waiting in the concourse looking to recruit passengers or indeed any angry people shooting at each other. A couple of friendly cops observe what people are up to, ready to deal with any problems. “To protect and to serve”.

This has been my final Amtrak overnight journey. I have very much enjoyed travelling on the Superliners. Not only are the Roomettes great for one person, there is a real sense of space with several places to enjoy the journey – the cabin, the dining car, the observation car, and even the café. The food has also been quite reasonable, and the company great. Americans love to socialise on train journeys. Amtrak may not always be on time, but they are comfortable and fun.

I’m off to Long Beach now for a quick stay on the Queen Mary. This is a reminder that I have finally reached the Pacific Ocean. Just sixteen days ago I was looking out at the Atlantic from a boat in New York harbour. I have therefore successfully completed my U.S coast to coast rail challenge. But my train adventure isn’t over yet though. Tomorrow I’m getting on to a day train to San Francisco. It’s called “The Coast Starlight”, not as I keep telling people at the bar, “The Starlight Express”!