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A 32-year-old Complaint Letter From an Unhappy Passenger on the "Desert Wind"
Author: D. B. Arthur
Date: 11-04-2024 - 23:35
Since there was a recent discussion thread about the DESERT WIND, I remembered I recently came across a 32-year-old complaint letter directed at me when I was going through some storage boxes the other day.
The woman who wrote the letter wasn't exactly a "spring chicken" and she's probably dead by now, but I've sanitized and redacted certain things to shield her identity anyway. There is her one-page letter, my two-page response and a related statement that was written by Train Chief Carl Bunn, who is probably also no longer with us. Carl was a big African-American man who had the build of a football linebacker. As part of his railroad career, he told me he used to work as a waiter on Union Pacfic's dome dining cars. They probably had him work the lower level because he was so tall he probably would have bumped his head on the ceiling in the dome.
I was fortunate to work with people who had pre-Amtrak experience and they had some interesting stories. Most of them are now dead. I doubt that there's anyone in the on-board services crafts (attendants for the food service, coach and sleeping cars) still working at Amtrak who have pre-Amtrak work histories on their resumes. Hard to believe, but Amtrak has been around for Fifty-three years.
Working the DESERT WIND was a lot of fun, and there was one job cycle that I liked where we would work # 36 from L.A. to Vegas on Mondays and Wednesdays, # 35 from Vegas to L.A. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on Friday we would make a round trip from L.A. to Santa Barbara on Trains 14 and 11, the COAST STARLIGHT. Some of my co-workers would work the job for a while and then bid off because they discovered they were throwing away too much of their take-home pay at the gambling tables and slots in Vegas. More than a few times there would be a mechanical problem or some other issue with the diner and we would have to call ahead to the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Barstow to get boxed meals for everyone. The sleeping car passengers weren't too happy with the substituted fare but, for many of the coach passengers, it was as if you handed them the Crown jewels.
Here's a funny story about a conductor on the Vegas run that I posted on Trainorders. You might have to cut and paste the link to your browser for it to work:
[www.trainorders.com]
A lot of the passengers enjoyed seeing Afton Canyon and weren't even aware of its existence, as Interstate 15 is miles away from there. Several times on # 35 coming into L.A., the passengers could look down into the bottom of the Los Angeles River between Redondo and Mission and see people completely naked, lathered down with soap and bathing in the river. What a memorable experience for people visiting Los Angeles for the first time.
On February 9, 1989 I was the Assistant Conductor on # 35 from Vegas to L.A. and we managed to get past a red signal at Lenwood, CA. That's a story I'll save for another time.
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The woman who wrote the letter wasn't exactly a "spring chicken" and she's probably dead by now, but I've sanitized and redacted certain things to shield her identity anyway. There is her one-page letter, my two-page response and a related statement that was written by Train Chief Carl Bunn, who is probably also no longer with us. Carl was a big African-American man who had the build of a football linebacker. As part of his railroad career, he told me he used to work as a waiter on Union Pacfic's dome dining cars. They probably had him work the lower level because he was so tall he probably would have bumped his head on the ceiling in the dome.
I was fortunate to work with people who had pre-Amtrak experience and they had some interesting stories. Most of them are now dead. I doubt that there's anyone in the on-board services crafts (attendants for the food service, coach and sleeping cars) still working at Amtrak who have pre-Amtrak work histories on their resumes. Hard to believe, but Amtrak has been around for Fifty-three years.
Working the DESERT WIND was a lot of fun, and there was one job cycle that I liked where we would work # 36 from L.A. to Vegas on Mondays and Wednesdays, # 35 from Vegas to L.A. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on Friday we would make a round trip from L.A. to Santa Barbara on Trains 14 and 11, the COAST STARLIGHT. Some of my co-workers would work the job for a while and then bid off because they discovered they were throwing away too much of their take-home pay at the gambling tables and slots in Vegas. More than a few times there would be a mechanical problem or some other issue with the diner and we would have to call ahead to the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Barstow to get boxed meals for everyone. The sleeping car passengers weren't too happy with the substituted fare but, for many of the coach passengers, it was as if you handed them the Crown jewels.
Here's a funny story about a conductor on the Vegas run that I posted on Trainorders. You might have to cut and paste the link to your browser for it to work:
[www.trainorders.com]
A lot of the passengers enjoyed seeing Afton Canyon and weren't even aware of its existence, as Interstate 15 is miles away from there. Several times on # 35 coming into L.A., the passengers could look down into the bottom of the Los Angeles River between Redondo and Mission and see people completely naked, lathered down with soap and bathing in the river. What a memorable experience for people visiting Los Angeles for the first time.
On February 9, 1989 I was the Assistant Conductor on # 35 from Vegas to L.A. and we managed to get past a red signal at Lenwood, CA. That's a story I'll save for another time.
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A 32-year-old Complaint Letter From an Unhappy Passenger on the "Desert Wind"