Chapter 12: Death Train

March 15th, 1995, 4:30 PM CT; Mile 90; 14 miles east of Princeton, IL

Jillian was amazed by the Sightseer lounge and its incredible view of everything around it. The floor-to-ceiling windows and curved roof skylights were what George had described, but they were absolutely breathtaking in person. These cars were, truly, the crowning jewel of not just the Superliners, but Amtrak’s fleet in general. They almost made up for the spartan nature of the rest of the train!

In addition to being unabashed luxury conveyances on which to tour and sightsee the beautiful vistas that their western trains passed through, they were incredibly functional. They replaced the old dome cars that held 20 cramped people in their domes and 40 people in their lower level lounges, with a car that could seat 70 people, most of them in lounge seats, while providing two bars, a cafe, and at one time, even a private piano lounge.

Moreover, their floor-to-ceiling windows meant they could survey not only the scenery above the roof of the car, but below the car as well. While they were currently passing through the massive open expanses of the Great Plains, George had told her that the scenery between Denver and Salt Lake City was absolutely spectacular, and the scenery between Las Vegas and Los Angeles was nothing to scoff at, either. She couldn’t wait to sit in one of the swiveling chairs and watch all that pass by through the enormous windows.

“Wow,” Jill said, “That’s all I can say.”

“I know how you feel,” George admitted, “But keep in mind that these trains don’t hold a candle to the best trains that ran before Amtrak itself. My dad told me stories about the Super Chief that he ran and how it survived past Amtrak. Amtrak called the coach section of the train the El Capitan and the sleeper section the Super Chief, and he told me that when the load permitted, they’d be ran in separate sections.”

“Even in the early days,” he continued, “They’d be pulled by FP45’s, the best engines in Santa Fe’s fleet. They’d have the El Capitan with four to eight Hi-level coaches, the ‘Top-of-the-Cap’ lounge- sorta a precursor to the Sightseer- and the huge, six-axle, Hi-level Diner. Sometimes coupled to the rear, and sometimes run separately, was the Super Chief, with a Slumbercoach, five to eight sleeping cars, a dining car, and the ‘Pleasure Dome’ lounge with its ‘Turquoise Room,’ a private dining room.”

“They served first class meals, by Fred Harvey, and before Amtrak there would even be an observation car on the back. The food on the train would rival the finest restaurants. Actually, Fred Harvey’s land-side restaurants were highly reputed for the excellent quality of the food, and the ones on the trains were their equal.”

“Well, that sounds pretty amazing,” Jill said, “But compared to flying, this seems almost like it is today’s equivalent of higher-level luxury transportation.”

“At its best, Amtrak can come surprisingly close,” George admitted, “But at its lower end performances it’s a shadow of that. Still, compared to the increasing inhumanity of transportation today, Amtrak is almost the equivalent. In today’s world of travel, Amtrak is to other forms of transportation what the great name trains were in their day.”

“Why do people travel any other way?” Jill asked, in wonderment.

“They are on the misconception that trains take too much time,” he said, “People these days have forgotten that the point of life is to enjoy it. Spending several hours trapped in an uncomfortable tin can high off the ground being served bad food, if you are served anything at all, is seen as being a better use of time then enjoying yourself on the train for several days, but I myself can’t see things that way.”

“Me either,” Jill averred with conviction, “But you have to realize that for a lot of people, their time is extremely limited. I want to ask you, though, how come Amtrak doesn’t use these cars on the Broadway Limited?”

“It runs out of New York City. These trains don’t fit under the electric catenary on the Northeast Corridor in many places,” he said, “And even if they did, they couldn’t fit into the Hudson River tunnels into Penn Station.”

They sat in silence for a good long time, before Jill asked another question.

“Couldn’t they just expand the tunnels?” she asked.

“Maybe an ordinary tunnel, they could,” he said, “But the Hudson River Tunnels are anything but ordinary.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“At the time it was built, the Broadway was considered largely impossible,” George explained, “It was considered impossible to build tracks over the Jersey salt marshes- Pennsylvania achieved this by elevating the tracks and laying the support posts down in the bedrock.

“But that was considered nothing compared to building a tunnel through the soft silt of the Hudson River. Stable tunneling-earth would have meant putting the tunnels hundreds of feet below the bottom of the already deep river. The grades would have been impossible, not to mention the ventilation for the kind of smoke a steam engine would be putting out, which is what was used at the time.

“Pennsylvania’s solution was two-fold and ingenious,” he continued, “Typical Pennsy ‘we can do it’ attitude and thinking. The first thing was that the entire tunnel was to be electrified. Steam engines would be attached outside the tunnel- although that didn’t last too long. Pennsylvania electrified the line to Washington, their subsidiary Long Island Rail Road electrified to Jamaica and Babylon shortly afterward, and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford electrified to New Haven.

“The second thing was pure ingenuity,” he continued, “Instead of tunneling deep, they built a pair of metal tubes, and essentially had them float within the river’s silt. They actually raise and lower with the river’s tides. The Hudson River Tunnels are, in reality, two metal pipes running from Jersey City to New York. Expanding them is impossible.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Jill said.

“They weren’t the largest private railroad in the world for nothing,” he pointed out, “And they deserved the name ‘Standard Railroad Of The World.’ Pennsy overbuilt and overdid everything. They built much of their own equipment. Their main electric passenger locomotive was the GG-1, and they went into service in 1934.

“They were considered the most beautiful engines ever built,” he continued, “And justifiably so. They produced 4650 bhp, unheard of for the time, and were incredible pieces of engineering. They also proved incredibly durable; they were finally taken out of service by NJ Transit, the last revenue run being by 4879 on October 28th, 1983. Actually, one of the last ones to retire, 4876, crashed into Washington Union Station on January 15th, 1953. It fell into what is now the food court. In order to get it out, they had to cut it in half, and they ended up welding it back together. Yet when it retired in 1983, 30 years after that crash, it was 44 years old!”

“Wow,” said Jill, “This is all very interesting, but I can think of something I’d rather do right now then talk about trains.”

“What’s that?” George asked.

Jill reached down and petted his inner thigh, brushing against him. “You’ll see.”

With that she got up and walked in the direction of their sleeping car. Jill had gotten her fill of excessive railroad jargon, and the wide open nothingness of the Great Plains. She was horny, was getting hornier, and was no longer really willing to just put up with it. Time for George to follow her into the bedroom...

March 15th, 1995, 6:15 PM CT; O’Hare International Airport; Chicago, IL

Lance was extremely frustrated, and therefore, extremely angry.

First of all, Krista and Justin didn’t care to go to Salt Lake City. That was very selfish of them; they were all in hot water if this stuff got out. He could have really used their help searching for his Jilly baby. They were ungrateful and lazy, and it pissed them off that Krista was his sister to begin with. She had always been a useless slut in his opinion, even when they were younger. She had always refused to play with him and have sex with him then, and their parents wouldn’t let him force her.

Second, Amtrak was extremely unhelpful with telling him what train his niece was on, nor what her destination was. That agent, Margaret, was entirely uncooperative- she seemed to almost be laughing at him. Especially since he described the douchebag who had taken his Jilly doll from him. She knew, but she wasn’t going to tell him. He could tell from the way the bitch had a little smirk on her face. She was just doing this to spite him, he knew it.

When he tried to get pointed, and insist that she tell him where his Jilly was, a couple of cops, identifying themselves as members of the Amtrak Police Department, came up and asked him his business. Uniformed thugs working for the fascist government, really. He thought it ludicrous that he couldn’t insist on information from a worthless female clerk. While he explained, he could have sworn he saw a look pass between them and Margaret. As soon as that happened, they seemed anxious to escort him out of the station, which they did. Goddamned pigs.

However, when he leafed through the timetable again, he noticed that a train that went to Los Angeles left at the same time as the California Zephyr, and made the same stops at the same times up to Salt Lake City. When he asked someone who looked like they knew the place, he found out that up to Salt Lake City, they were the same train. That didn’t make any sense in itself, but it suddenly made sense as to why they left on the California Zephyr instead of the Southwest Chief.

That crafty bastard, Lance thought, he took a different train to throw me off!

He called the number listed in the time table and made a reservation for the 16th’s Desert Wind out of Salt Lake City. He would have preferred a first class accommodation, but they insisted they were all sold out. He took coach, after cursing out the agent thoroughly. The train company was government controlled, so they clearly weren’t competent enough to understand that he, Lance, deserved first class accommodations more than the average passenger.

He then grabbed a cab and raced to O’Hare.

He talked to United Airlines, and all their planes were sold out into Salt Lake today and tomorrow. Same damned thing with American Airlines. He ended up at Delta’s, and at first it seemed that all qualifying flights were sold out. Then the agent, who was tolerating his excessive abuse with incredible decorum, figured that the quickest way to get rid of him was put him on a plane, asked him why he needed to be there at that time.

“I need to catch a fucking train, which fucking gets the fuck in there at 11:36!” Lance yelled.

“We have a flight that will get you there at 11:15, and there is one first clas-” she started.