Back Trail
Copyright© 2023 by Zanski
Chapter 27
They rode the Kansas & Arizona Southern Railroad coach from Texas Creek to the junction with the Acheson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad on the northeast edge of Fort Birney. They were eight more hours in coach seats on the Santa Fe local before linking with the AT&SF transcontinental train. There, they enjoyed the relative comforts of first class seating and the use of Pullman car sleeper accommodations. The train also featured one of the newly-styled parlor cars, for the collective use of first class passengers.
Meals were at Fred Harvey restaurants at various stops where the trains had to refuel and take on water. At the Harvey House dining rooms, Malik took notes on some of the service methods and staffing standards that he observed. Among other things, he was impressed with the consistency of the service and quality at the widely-separated sites. He asked questions of the waitresses and even gained access to one of the kitchens to talk to the cooks and scullery help.
Back aboard the train, they raced east across the Great Plains. At one point, the conductor assured them that the train was going as fast as sixty miles an hour on some stretches. He told them they could time the passage of the mile posts to mark their velocity. Gabriela was nearly breathless watching the countryside speed by.
Eventually, they reached Chicago, where they took a two-day break to relax after the demands of more than three days of railroad travel. They went to look at the boundless waters of Lake Michigan and the pounding surf that was driven before the wind. They also had a hansom driver take them past the stockyards. Here, many of the cattle from the Malik and Lestly ranches were slaughtered and butchered for distribution throughout the northeastern states. Both were impressed by the extent of the various packing companies’ stockyards, seemingly extending for miles and cleaved in various places by busy railroad switch lines.
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