Clickety-Clack: Losing Out On Some Major RR Scenery

I have some train-track rhythm ingrained in me from childhood.  Most of us nearing the age where we are expected to dodder and babble or at least act like adults probably do.  Not to say there was much train-riding in my youth, but the few encounters I had made a strong impression.  I was intrigued with the technology and agog at my rare encounters with major switching complexes and such and envious of the few peers who were lucky enough to have model trains.  There are two memories I have particularly held onto.

The most vivid, and the only really early memory I have of actually being on a train, involved a ride that took us to Columbia, Missouri, my mother's hometown.  I think this ride originated in Denver, after a plane flight.  My key remembrance is awakening, probably in sleeper facilities, and in a dozy state finding the passing rural landscapes and the rhythmic track noises quite hypnotic.

My second memory is a bit more ephemeral.  A night in a motel was itself a novelty for me at the time (this perhaps late '50's).  As it happened, there was a train track very close behind our unit.  In a state of total comfort, wholly confident that my parents had every contingency under control, I found being semi-awakened a couple times in the night by passing trains quite a special treat.  Not sure the adults enjoyed it in quite the same way!   Nevertheless, I think we stayed at this motel again several years later, with somewhat the same train awakening experience.  There was something awfully romantic about it for me.  In both cases, it seems clear that being awakened from a sound comfortable slumber and then being able to return to sleep caused these experiences to take on rosy fairy tale-like status.

After many years with no experience of riding trains, I have had several opportunities to ride Amtrak from Seattle to Portland and back.  There is reason to chafe at aspects of the schedule, e.g., one northbound train at key commute time is known to never arrive in Portland less than an hour or two late but yet the timetable is not updated.  But it is still fascinating to try this as an alternative to driving, which I have done many times in the last ten years, and flying, which I have also done a few times.  Giving up the wheel and control can be hard for some.  That includes yielding on route, when to stop, and more.  The tradeoff includes freedom to do something else, even doze.  Allowing for parking, airport security, dealing with vehicles, depending on my destination in Portland it can be qualitatively a wash in terms of time, as long as one is staying over.  To do a RT in one day the train will not work.

But I have enjoyed that ride a number of times now, not least because the route is so interestingly different from that of I-5.  Not only do you have the chance to actually savor the scenery without risking an accident, but it is in much of the route very different scenery from what you are (minimally) exposed to on that wide swath of concrete.  I know I am on one outskirt of the bell-curve when it comes to map consultation and wanting to know how things relate to each other in space.  It has still been a surprise to me how little most of my fellow passengers have tended to know, note, or care where this-here actual Train is going.  What a waste.

One of the route bits I find especially intriguing is that after leaving the Tacoma station southbound, the route runs along the south edge of Commencement Bay, through Ruston, infamous Superfund site due to the smelter and heavy metals contamination, then dives excitingly into a tunnel which takes you under Point Defiance and then bursts out on the amazing shore of the Tacoma Narrows, shortly passing below the now double Narrows Bridges.  Wow!  From there the train track hogs the uber-scenic shoreline for miles, as is the case alas for much of the Puget Sound shoreline.  We the People apparently granted these prime alignments way back when to encourage railroad development.  Best to get as much enjoyment out of this sacrilege as we can.  Still, a serious shame to have this be where rail freight is carried.  Don't get me started on the horrifying prospect of mega-coal terminals in our region and the almost-inevitable resulting rail impacts.

That stretch is especially resonant with me because of a very special experience I enjoyed somewhere back around the millennium.  Our daughter got selected as an extra for a movie being largely filmed at Stadium High School in Tacoma, a truly amazing spot on its' own merits, by the way.  And Mara's zeal for this whole venture definitely was contagious, leading me to always have a special place in my heart for everything related to Ten Things I Hate About You, including my limited involvement.

But finding myself the designated chauffeur but not able to actually witness anything, on one occasion I elected to explore the Point Defiance area.  I drove to the park, changed into running togs, and enjoyed a traverse of the public park area, including fascinating logging equipment exhibit.  Somehow I found my way to the beach at the north end of the Narrows reach.  Intrigued, I traveled some beach south and then came upon an interesting Bohemian community that tested my willingness to intrude/trespass.  I did find a way through involving at least a bit of someone's apparent rear deck, but shortly after that concluded that my limits had been reached and I found a way back up the hill to as I recall conventional residential neighborhood that I eventually succeeded in traversing back to Point Defiance.  A great enjoyable personal adventure that I will never be able to replicate..

So I was basically dismayed to learn that plans to re-route Amtrak in this stretch are proceeding apace.  Maybe the average passenger will not notice or care, but this will definitely constitute a "deterioration in service" as far as I am concerned, despite the claimed potential time-savings.  This is an amazing bit of passenger train route to lose out on.  I could probably buy into the program if the idea involved closing down the rail use of the tunnel and shoreline and ceding the right-of-way for full public use.

I recommend you find an excuse to ride this bit of Amtrak while you can, even if you never have ridden Amtrak or any train for that matter, before.  You will be richer for it.