Aboard the Southwest Chief

The Southwest Chief, successor we learn to the legendary Santa Fe Super Chief, is a step up, a significant step up from the Lakeshore Limited. It starts when we check a bag at Union Station in Chicago and are directed to the Metropolitan Lounge, set aside for sleeper car patrons and others of such a distinguished lot. Unlike the general waiting room, the lounge offers comfy chairs and complimentary stuff. Had we arrived on time instead of over three hours late, it would have been a pleasant place to spend a long layover. But soon the Chief’s conductor walked through the lounge scanning tickets. He then led us over a circuitous route to an imposingly large two story train.

Back on the Lakeshore Limited we occupied what Amtrak calls a roomette, emphasis on the ette, a tiny compartment in which, when it wasn’t made up for berths, two people could sit opposite each other knees touching. Boarding the Southwest Chief, porter Joseph Washington lead us to the compartment that would be home for the next coupla days. The prospect was a pleasant one, modest size yet ingeniously comfy.

By early evening we were rolling over the plains, snow covered furrows, roads laid out with a ruler.

We wake up the next morning in southwestern Kansas, still on the plains but now no snow on the ground. This will be a full day so after breakfast in the dining car followed by showers back in our compartment we, suitably enhanced, head to the observation car and stake out seats. The day just gets better and better. In the southeast corner of Colorado the plains become scrubby high desert. The train begins a slow ascent. As we climb we’re enveloped by fog. We breakout into sunlight as we enter New Mexico. Herds of antelope sport in broad green fields. Still we climb. And as we do the scenery becomes ever more spectacular.  Hillocks rise, become pine covered hills that become craggy mountains “That trail you see cut into the side of mountain is the remains of the Santa Fe trail that wagon trains took west in the 1880’s,” the conductor informs us. Higher still, we enter the tall Aspen grandeur of the Carson National Forrest.  

In late afternoon we plunge down to Albuquerque, a major stop for Amtrak. It’s a chance to step out, stretch our legs and toss the stands along the platform selling mostly junk jewelry and ersatz Indian gear. Then “All Aboard” and we depart into the fiery southwestern sunset.

My dislike of the vasty desert is no secret. When driving to southern California there’s just no way to avoid crossing it. There’s no way to avoid crossing the desert on the train either but mercifully the crossing is at night. We sleep through it and awaken in the far flung ‘burbs of LA.