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Hopefully this will end up being an interesting thread!
On my many Amtrak adventures I have meet some "interesting" people in the lounge and dining areas (one of the many reasons Amtrak is SO much better than sitting in a cramped and unfriendly airline seat!!)
So who were some of the coolest and creepiest people you've met?
Coolest:
1. This 88-year-old gentleman in the dining car who I had breakfast with on the CZ near Omaha one morning. He was british and he ended up fighting in World War 2. He was involved in D-Day and actually lost most of his hearing back in 1944 working with artilery. What a brave man!
2. This cartoonist/characturist from Chicago who I also met on the CZ. For a living he did portaits of people. We ended up staying in the dining car almost an hour past our breakfast time and he did charactures of me (and everyone else at the table) using the paper that Amtrak provides to cover the tables. It was awesome! I have mine framed and hanging up in my basement.
3. Wow, a tri-fecta for the CZ now I come to think about it. On this trip we were about 7 hours late coming into Chicago and they ended up serving a "special dinner" for us sleeping car paseenger of leftovers of whatever they had. It was cool and ended up talking to the lounge car guy for a couple of hours. He ended up giving me a tour of the Transition Sleeper (first time I had been in one!) and even let me peek in the baggage car ahead of it.
Ok, creepiest people:
1. On the Texas Eagle (421) combined with the Sunset Limited (1) going through El Paso. These border patrol officers got on the train and started running through the train (coach and sleepers) with these drug dogs. They said they got a report some Mexicans hoped on the train at Del Rio and were trying to stow away until Los Angeles in a bathroom.
2. CZ in Colorado... I was talking to a nice family from South Dakota in the lounge car for a couple of hours. Once they left, there were 3 very very very scuzzy-looking guys (maybe in their Mid-30's) sitting behind them who kept going on and on for a good half-hour about how they wish they had a sleeper so they could... *ahem*... well, you get the picture... with the family's 15-year-old daughter. Uck!!
Maybe I should start writing a book called "Lounge Car confessions"!
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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I can't say I've met any creepy people on trains. I met a few who looked creepy but turned out to be very nice. One of these was Misty, a girl with orange hair. She was traveling home to visit her family. Her husband was in the military and she absolutely despised the area they were living in at the time. She was very homesick.
Coolest: 1. It was late 1974, or maybe early 1975. I was 15 and traveling alone when I met a black woman who turned out to be a vice officer, the kind who pretends to be a prostitute.
2. Robert and Suzanne, two bluegrass musicians (banjo and guitar) who entertained us in the Parlour Car from Albany to Klamath Falls. I actually stayed in touch with them for a few months afterwards. It was Robert who gave me the inspiration I needed to finally take up the banjo, something I've wanted to do for years.
3. This was in the diner, not the lounge. I had dinner with a casting director from the German film industry. He traveled to Hollywood a lot, but it was his first trip on an American train. He got a 15 day pass and rode coach on the Starlight, Empire Builder and California Zephyr. He said "I never ride in sleepers, you don't meet anybody there. I ride coach because that's where all the crazy people are." I think by "crazy" he meant fun.
Gilbert B Norman Member # 1541
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Looks like a Paul Theroux book is about to be written.
A commendable topic to which I plan to make a contribution later.
City of Miami Member # 2922
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A couple of summers ago on the southbound Southwest Chief a young man of eight years with flashing black eyes utterly charmed me in the lounge car for several hours. He was talkative, interesting, not shy a bit, and completely able to hold his own with someone 50 years his senior. His father was also in the car paying him no attention and I grandually gleaned that he lived with Dad in Wisconsin and was being taken to be deposited with Mom in San Antonio. My heart broke; it just broke open to him and his pain.
dilly Member # 1427
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1) On the Southwest Chief, I shared a dining car table with 70-something rancher, who came complete with a bolo tie and black Stetson hat. It was the first time he'd been outside of Colorado since the Korean War, and he was on his way to Los Angeles to attend the funeral of the army buddy who'd "once saved my life." He told me about horses and wildfires. He said he was sorry he'd led such a solitary life and advised me to never get old. The dining car eventually closed, but we sat there talking for another two hours. And the crew never stopped refilling our cups with fresh coffee.
2) On the Lake Shore Limited, also in the dining car, I met a sad mother and her three children. She was a recent widow, their Indiana farm had just gone into foreclosure, and they were headed east to stay with the woman's sister. Needless to say, they weren't enjoying the trip. And none of the kids finished their breakfast (the mother went without). I picked up the tab for all of them anyway, and wished them good luck.
3) On the old Pennsylvanian somewhere between Cleveland and Chicago, in an otherwise empty coach, I met a woman with a black eye who was on the run from her abusive husband, with five under-7 kids in tow. Whenever the train crossed a bridge, she shut her eyes tight in sheer terror and began shaking all over. When I asked her what she was going to do when they reached Chicago, she said, "I don't know."
4) On the Texas Eagle, on the lower level of my sleeping car, I met a blonde, 50-something ex-biker chick (with all the necessary tattoos) who took three showers between Chicago and Dallas -- and spent the rest of the time lounging seductively on her bed in the family room with the door wide open, drinking beer, and wearing nothing but a bath towel. Although I didn't partake of her hospitality, another lower level passenger apparently did at some point during the night. My guess is that things didn't go well, since he sat at a separate dining car table the next morning, very conspicuously ignoring her.
5) On the Empire Builder, while walking through the coaches, I met a mother and her two small children, traveling from Seattle to Chicago. The woman was a dead ringer for the actress Minnie Driver, and I don't think I've ever seen a mother take such pleasure in being with her kids. She smiled, she laughed, she absolutely glowed. The four of us spent the better part of the trip talking and looking out the window. As we were nearing Chicago, the woman's little girl painstakingly wrote something on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. It was her mother's cell phone number, "so you two can keep in touch because you like each other." Unfortunately, Dad was waiting when they got off the train at Union Station. Otherwise. . . .
RRRICH Member # 1418
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Great idea, rtabern!! My list could be volumes and volumes! I have met many "cool" people on trains, plus a few "creepy" ones (plus a few nice young ladies now and then....) The most famous person I ever met on a train was Studs Terkel. This was in 1978 or so, when one of the national political conventions (Democratic I think) was in San Francisco, and Studs was on the train as a journalist interviewing delegates, etc.
On my 2002 trip I met up with a fellow named Richard Don Simms, who was a banjo player from Ft. Worth. We met on the Texas Eagle (see my 2002 travelogue elasewhere on Train Web). He had played in a show in Texas called the "Stock Yard Opry," I believe, and even though he didn't have his banjo in the Sightseer lounge car, he brought a harmonica and was playing for the kids in the car.
Creepy -- oh yes I've met those too!! Many many years ago on the SWC out of L.A. I met up with an older gentlemen, who had obviously been imbibing quite a bit, and he swore I was with the CIA and was "spying" on him.
Then there was the young guy I also met on my 2002 trip who was sitting in the lounge car on the Capitol Ltd obviously trying to pick up a young lady who apparently wanted nothing to do with him. While he was "courting" the young lady, he kept looking at me following my RR maps and taking videos out the window and told me things like "she[meaning his lady friend] wants to know where we are now," or "she wants to know all about my railroad maps," etc. He finally gave up on her, and was later seen by me in the diner complaining to the staff about having to pay for his meal since he was in coach when the sleeper passengers got their meals "free."
And of course once during the 80's (in my younger days), a very strange-looking character was wandering around King Street Station, then boarded the Empire Builder and appeared to be on drugs. He spent hours wandering through the train looking dazed and confused. I was staying up all night one night talking to some women in the dome car (yes, the EB had a dome car at one time!!!), and at Grand Forks, ND, the cops finally caught up with this strange guy and whisked him off the train.
And the list goes on and on and on.............
sojourner Member # 3134
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I have met all sorts of neat people on the train. One of my favorites was the older couple who were traveling all over the US to visit every single state capital. They were going mostly by trains, but renting cars sometimes when necessary. I think for Juneau they took an Alaska cruise. And they were visiting other things on each trip as well, of course. When I met them, they had been to every capital except Honolulu. I don't think they wanted to fly, so maybe they will take a cruise there too.
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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Great stuff here. A lot of real stories here that challenge the idea that train travelers are just land crusiers.
I'm thinkng Mr. Norman's book suggestion might have some merit. A collection of anecdotes from rail travelers. Hmmmm..... Anyone know a book publisher?
TwinStarRocket Member # 2142
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Coolest: Betty and Twig, charming 30something sisters from Michigan on Feb 2001 round trip to Flagstaff. They turned the coach smoking room into a rolling non-stop party, and attracted such an interesting group that even the non-smokers spent the whole ride there. An Amtrak car attendant became part of the crowd, and it somehow also became the alcohol consumption center of the train with no objections. We got a tour of the kitchen, but we couldn't convince them we NEEDED to see the engine.
There was the cross-dresser who had won his ticket money in a best legs contest (he had the photos), the Amish who told dirty jokes, the woman who told our fortunes with bones, a woman from LA who was off to meet her fiancee in person in NY for the first time (met on the web), an ex-astronaut, and a host of other interesting characters that filled every seat and the floor. We exchanged e-mail addresses and were going to have an annual reunion, but I never heard from them again. I even took the same train one year later just in case. Betty never answered my e-mails, and broke my heart.
On the EB last year, Reggie the farmer from Manitoba who spent winters traveling through central America on a few dollars a day, travelling entirely by train and bus with no plan. We exchanged e-mail addresses so I could contact him if I ever took a Canadian train. He wanted to come along.
Also on the EB, Megan from Boston who had discovered on the internet her personality was ideally suited to Seattle. So she was moving, on the train, first time west. All her belongings went on to Seattle as she decided to see Glacier on foot for a few days. I ran into her later, as I was also at Glacier. She walked to a campground in the dark of night, and caught the red busses to see the whole park. Who needs a car, or a plan?
Same trip: Cassie and Colin, young people from the midwest who had each bicycled alone to Seattle and just met on the EB coming back. Cassie was extremely beautiful and had gathered marriage proposals from cowboys as she peddled through Montana. She got off in Havre to use a cash machine and didn't get back in time. When I got home to St.Paul, I checked out the next day's train to see if I could give Cassie Colin's phone number, but I didn't find her. Could have been an interesting adventure for Cassie in Havre with no possesions and wearing a pro-marijuana t-shirt.
There are more stories, many more.
Creepiest? Only observed at a distance, by choice. Most of them take airplanes.
irish1 Member # 222
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back in the 70s i traveled the southwest limited. the lounge attendants name was jessie. great guy. when we got to kansas he said he would not be able to serve us beer anymore because kansas was dry. so before we got to kansas he fixed us up a garbage bag with a case of beer on ice. than in 1984 iwas on the city of new orleans and we were in the lounge and i saw this guy walk in the car and it was jessie. he said he was retired now and just taking it easy. i asked if he had been in any wrecks in his long career and he said just one. he said he was a porter and making up a berth and was looking out the window and saw the lead engine heading into the ditch. he said boy thats a bad feeling when you knows your coming right behind it. its a small world sometimes
rresor Member # 128
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Okay, I've met a few interesting folks in 40 years of train riding. In the early 1970s, I fell in with a group of soldiers in "Le Pub" on the Montrealer. They were passing around a bottle and playing poker, and I joined in. Every so often we'd break to go to a vestibule and share a joint.
The next morning at Cantic, I was hung over and probably smelled like marijuana, and the Canadian customs agent gave me the 5th degree, demanding to know how much money I had and where I was going in Canada. Fortunately, he did finally let me into the country.
Another time, I was on the Portland section of the Empire Builder, eastbound, and got to talking with a Portland transportation planner named Rodney. He was a nice guy, but a bit nerdy, so it was quite amusing to watch him, somewhat later in the evening and after several drinks, try to pick up a (not so young) lady.
As to creepy, I do try to avoid them...but on a westbound trip on the California Zephyr, my wife and I were in a Superliner deluxe room and the room next door was occupied by several men who played poker nonstop all the way to Oakland. We could hear them shuffling the cars.
SunsetLtd Member # 3985
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Coolest 1) Meeting a lady on the starlight back in 2000 that was involved in the Tx Eagle derailment in AR.
Creepest 1)Sitting next to a hippie who hadn't showered in months on the #1, Sunset going to Disneyland in 1999.
O and the border patrol rarely runs the dogs through the Sunset anymore, only in cases of dyer situtations will they run them through the train. That was something rare that you saw there!
PaulB Member # 4258
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I rode Amtrak's Dome up to San Luis Obispo last year. On the way back I was sitting with a guy my age returning from visiting Cal Poly.
Right after we pulled out of SLO, there weren't many people in the dome. So he proceeded to pull out a bong and take hits right in the dome! More people started to come in the dome, so he went downstairs to the cafe (the snack bar wasn't in use-there was a regular dinette in the consist) and finished his bong.
He got off a few stops later, before I could say anything about it to the conductors.
mrhall53 Member # 1580
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Coolest: My wife talked to a National Geographic photographer in the smoking lounge on the CZ (back when they had smoking lounges). He had just come back from China and was headed out to the Four Corners area to shoot some Navajos. He was extremely happy because everyone he talked to spoke English.
On another CZ trip, we talked in the lounge with two young ladies from New Zealand and a young man from Australia. They all could name the top 10 rivers in North America, which they had to learn in school. I could name one river in Australia -- the Darling -- and none in New Zealand.
Creepiest: Also on the CZ, this obviously disturbed woman got on -- well, was put on -- the train in Omaha, bound for Denver. I went down to the smoking lounge (see above), early in the morning, and she was the only other person there. She leaned over and confided to me: "Nuns hate men -- that's why they cut their hearts out." I got the heck out of there.
RRRICH Member # 1418
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Paul B - I think I know what a "bong" is, but have never heard it called that before........
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