Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

As Kayla and I were coming back from grocery shopping late this morning, I spotted a relatively rate beast, railroad-wise.

( An Old Survivor )

The separate Cotton Belt became moot as merger with Union Pacific loomed and Southern Pacific (by then the former Denver & Rio Grande Western, which had merged the larger railroad and adopted its name) became part of the Union Pacific, which could route traffic any way that it pleased.

The locomotive here is in a paint scheme that predates the 1988 DRGW merger/takeover of SP/SSW, so this locomotive has been hanging around on borrowed time (and old paint) for nearly forty years.

When we got home last night from Carson City, we had an unusual visitor on the tracks at Fernley.

( Big BNSF )

I no longer hear railroad talk on the scanner. I assume that the railroads have gone to a closed-circuit repeater system the same way that emergency services locally have done. Therefore, I do not know why this BNSF train stopped here. An hour or so later, they moved on.

So, as I mentioned, in order to get to the eastbound California Zephyr at its origin station of Emeryville, I needed to catch a 4:30 AM bus from San Jose Diridon Station. Light rail doesn't run that early in the morning; otherwise it would be a trivial matter. I had booked a Lyft well in advance and a driver had accepted. After only two hours of sleep (not counting the two-hour nap I had yesterday afternoon), I got cleaned up, dressed, packed, and checked out of the hotel and was out front at 4 AM wondering where my ride was. I checked the Lyft app again and was aghast: I had booked the ride for Monday morning, not today!

Fortunately, the night auditor at the hotel was able to call me a taxi, which arrived very promptly and the driver got me to the station with a few minutes to spare (and the bus was fifteen minutes late anyway). Unfortunately, that cost me twice what the Lyft would have cost. I was, however, able to cancel the Lyft request for Monday morning, so I'm not out anything else.

The bus that showed up is less a connection to the Capitol Corridor and more a connection from the Southern California Amtrak service. However, this worked in my favor. Despite the official Amtrak booking being a bus from San Jose to Oakland, then a ride one stop on the Capitol Corridor to Emeryville, it turns out that after collecting those of us who were waiting at San Jose, the bus goes first to San Francisco to deliver people connecting from the Pacific Surfliner, then goes to Emeryville, then Oakland. Amtrak does not appear to prohibit "short stopping," so I got off at Emeryville, that being where I wanted to be anyway. I checked my bag for the Zephyr and took advantage of having more than two hours before my train to walk to Denny's for breakfast.

( Photos and Further Details of the Trip )

After collecting me from the station, Lisa drove us to Raley's for some groceries, then took us home.

It was a good trip, but I can't sleep on buses, and not much on trains while sitting up, either, so I need to work on catching up on lost sleep tonight.

Whenever possible, I try to go out on the porch when I hear a train coming, especially when the train doesn't sound typical. This morning, I got a surprise.

( Destination: Canada )

According to what I found online, expect to see this equipment operating on the Via Rail corridor (Windsor-Toronto-Montreal-Quebec City) soon.

Lisa tells me that some people told her that we'd regret moving here, because it would be nothing but Union Pacific locomotives and container freights. How little they knew.

91 days after Lisa and I left Reno on the eastbound California Zephyr, she arrived on the westbound CZ, traveling via New Mexico.

( Clickbait, Isn't it? )

I had my back to Lisa's car when she got off the train and thus she was able to sneak up behind me and surprise me. We waited for the crowd to disperse and then took the elevator upstairs and got Lisa, her luggage, and of course Kuma Bear into the Astro. We stopped for groceries at Raley's and I did a couple of other small errands before heading home.

When we got home, I helped Lisa unload things. She will be staying in her travel trailer as it will help her decompress and recover from this three-month-long trip. I went back to work at the Day Jobbe. It took me quite a while to recover, and I was only gone about one-third of the time Lisa was.

Today is Lisa's final full day in Chicago. She's still very tired and very much wanting to be home. Today she double-checked the route from the hotel to Union Station (there's apparently a lot of road construction in the area). The people with the crying baby and the screaming kids appear to have left, so she was able to get some sleep.

The train from Chicago to Reno leaves Chicago at 2 PM. Lisa thus can check out at her leisure tomorrow morning and head to Union Station, where she can hang out in the comfortable and spacious Metropolitan Lounge until it's time to board. After that, she should be able to relax as it will be only a couple more days before she is home.

To my great relief, Chris and Lisa were able to ride the train to Bergen and are in their hotel there for tonight, going out tomorrow on the ferry to Denmark.

They boarded the 08:25 out of Oslo (times CEDT). From what I was able to gather online, the line wasn't yet open, but apparently by the time they got there, the infrastructure company was able to get it open and they didn't have to ride a bus bridge.

According to the story from Bane NOR (in Norwegian: Google Translate version here, possibly), a fire in a snowshed broke out last Monday, and

After the fire in the snow cover on Monday, we unfortunately had to replace all sleepers, rails and all signal cables in an area of ​​approx. 200 meters. The entire catenary system had to be rebuilt, and we have also installed new foundations for the masts of the catenary system...

I've exchanged messages with Chris and Lisa, but I've not yet been able to speak to Lisa. I called the hotel, but attempts to reach Reception just ring for a while and then hang up. I'll keep trying.

It was a close-run thing, but I got my personal computer (with the video editing software) back in time to put together the October Railway Legends, Myths, and Stories. Our original plan had been for me to edit it while we were traveling, but the problem with the computer that turned out to be caused by the swollen battery put paid to that and I had to wait until I got home and got the machine repaired. Here's a story about our visit to the North Dakota Railroad Museum in Mandan, North Dakota, with a bit at the end about stopping by the park in Bismark where the state's Merci Car is on display.



Those of you who follow me regularly here may remember me writing about this while we were on our way to Winnipeg for NASFiC.

This morning I found that I could sign in to the Best Western hotel website. The problem I was having yesterday appears to have been a transient problem with my VPN software. (I'm using my work computer because the personal machine is broken, and the Day Jobbe requires running that VPN for security.) I found a room in the SureStay Reno Airport for less than $120/night plus tax and I booked it.

I took my final COVID test today: all clear. Not that I've had any symptoms, but I saw no reason to take any of the tests I brought with me home.

Having put in extra hours this week, I clocked out after the "morning" meeting (1530 BST) and packed up the computers. I'd packed my luggage this morning. It's a good thing I have that extra checked bag, because not only is my main bag running 22.1 kg, but the smaller bag (my WFC 2021 duffle) is stuffed full as well. How I managed to pick up so much more stuff during this trip, I do not know.

( Train Time )

We're spending tonight at the Cardiff Hilton (a pretty nice room) and will have a look around Cardiff tomorrow before taking the train (probably the same kind of equipment as we rode today) down to London.

I once again will not be able to post photos of today's trip because it takes so long for the pictures and video to upload from my phone to Flickr.

Monday was a holiday (US Labor Day) for me, but it of course is not a holiday in the UK. Today's excursion was a train trip from Carmarthen to Swansea, on a Transport for Wales Class 197 2-car DMU. These are reasonably comfortable trains, and I sat back and enjoyed the trip down the Towy estuary and along the Welsh coast, crossing the River Loughor and into Swansea.

From the station, we walked to the Swansea Indoor Market, where I had a serving of cockles, which I had never had before. It was interesting, and they were good with pepper and vinegar.

We walked down to the waterfront and visited the National Waterfront Museum and would have visited the Swansea Tram Museum, but the latter is closed on Monday. I did learn about the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, the world's first passenger horsecar railway service.

After a nice lunch at Gigi Gao's Favorite Chinese Restaurant along the waterfront, we decided to (sort of) recreate the trip that the Swansea and Mumbles line once covered by taking a bus up to Mumbles. There we walked up to Oystermouth Castle, but we did not have time to actually go into the castle before we needed to start working our way back for the return bus.

We made it back to Swansea station with time to spare and the ride back to Carmarthen gave us the contrasting view of the sea at high tide, as it had been at low tide when we came the other way and while we rode the bus.

This may sound like we did not do anything, but we walked around and I got to see a whole lot of things. Everything is new to me here, and I enjoyed myself. I don't have to spend the whole day trying to check off lots of museums or tourist attractions to have a good time.

Photos to come when they are online.