Riding Amtrak's "Pioneer" - April, 1985

De-training at Hood River, OR.  This was as far west as I travelled on the Pioneer.  To travel from here to my home in Spokane, I had to catch a lift across the Columbia River and board the eastbound Empire Builder.

 

My freshman year at BYU was winding down, and in talking with my folks, we decided the train would be an acceptable way for me to get home.  I called the 1-800 number for Amtrak and arranged the itinerary, and then I went down to the Rio Grande freight office in Provo to purchase the ticket.

I had accumulated a lot of books and stuff during the year, more than I would be able to take as checked baggage, so I boxed them up and hauled them up to Salt Lake City – probably on a reading day before finals – to send them as express packages on Amtrak.  I drove up there in a friend’s VW Beetle, but the clutch cable failed just as I was coming off the 6^th South exit in SLC.  I pulled into the first available parking lot, found a pay phone to let my friend know what had happened and to call for a taxi to take me the rest of the way to the depot.  My friend assured me it would be OK as his folks lived in SLC and could take care of his car from there.  The taxi took me to the depot to drop off the boxes, and then I walked up to Temple Square, looked around for a while, and took a UTA bus from there back to Provo.

On my “somehow” list, I managed to get my bike shipped up to Spokane as well, and it must have gone with the boxes shipped earlier, but I don’t remember for sure.  Another item I could not take with me was Mom’s little manual typewriter.  That one I asked my friend Laurie to haul up as far as her home in Yakima (or Selah), which I then picked up later that summer.  Maybe I arranged something similar with my bike?

My journey began here, at the D&RGW depot in Provo, UT.  I arrived early on the departure day, and snapped this moody image of a Rio Grande freight while waiting for my train. 

On the departure date, I found my way down to the Provo depot (the real one that got demolished while I was on my mission).  I arrived there plenty early to watch freight trains before catching mine.  But, I soon found out there had been a derailment or something in Colorado, and that my train, the California Zephyr, had been re-routed through Wyoming.  So the first 40 miles of the trip was by bus.  At SLC, the train must have still been running behind schedule, because I seem to remember a fairly long wait at the depot.

Anyway, it was dark when I got on, so there wasn’t much to see.  I have a better appreciation now for the “rare mileage” I earned on that trip in the dark:  north of Ogden on the UP line to McCammon, ID and then across Southern Idaho, including the Boise branch.  Boise was about where the sun came up, and my trip west from Ontario, OR along the Snake River and up the Burnt River canyon at Huntington was in full daylight.

By the time the sun was up, I had traversed most of Southern Idaho.  The first decent photo I could manage was this, of our train preparing to cross the Snake River at Huntington, OR.

I spent some time down in the vestibule of the Superliner cars with the window open, taking in the sights and snapping a few photos.  I have shots of the train crossing the Snake just above Huntington, passing the old cement plant at Lime, and meeting UP freights just west of LaGrande and the BN local train at Pendleton.  My trip along the Columbia Gorge west of Boardman was pretty spectacular too.

From trips along the same route by freeway, I knew to look for this abandoned cement plant at Lime, OR, deep in the Burnt River canyon just west of Huntington.

A Union Pacific crewman gives our train a "roll by" inspection while his freight holds in the siding just west of LaGrande, OR

At the time of my trip, I didn't know that Burlington Northern served Pendleton, OR on its former Northern Pacific line south from Attalia, WA. So, I was a little surprised, pleasantly, to catch some "hometown" Cascade Green as we rolled through.

One question on my mind was what would happen when I got to Hood River, OR.  Per the schedule, the westbound Pioneer did not arrive at Portland until after the eastbound Empire Builder had left.  The reservation agent had informed me that I would need to de-train at Hood River, and then take a taxi across the river to the Bingen/White Salmon station and await the Builder there.  I assumed/hoped a taxi would be available when I got off at Hood River, but this caused me a little anxiety.

Fortunately, there was another BYU student on board, who helped me out.  He was a guy from one of the upstairs floors on my side of Hinckley Hall, so he had even been in my ward.  Still, I’d had no reason to speak to him at all during the school year.  When I saw him on the train, I said something about having seen him before, and we struck up a conversation.  It didn’t take me more than a few minutes to realize he was a lot more “geeky” than me.  He was ultra-smart and highly focused, more so than I had been at school (which isn’t saying much), and he told me the secret to his focus was repeating in his mind a mantra of “six figure income.”  Well, good luck to him with that.

However, when I asked him if he was going all the way to Portland, he actually told me he was getting off at Hood River too, where his dad would pick him up and drive him home to White Salmon.  So, as much as I disliked asking this guy for a favor, I suggested maybe his dad could give me a lift, too, and he agreed to ask.

Phase 2 of my journey began here at the former Spokane, Portland & Seattle depot in Bingen, WA.

Sure enough, once at Hood River, his dad threw my bags in the back of their station wagon (living up to its name) and took me over to the BN depot with no questions asked.  I hope I thanked him enough.  Anyway, now I had about three hours of wait time in the former SP&S Bingen depot, with no one else to bug me and nothing to do but watch BN freights pass the depot.  Darn!  I stood out on the platform most of the time, and left my bags inside while I walked up to the little store to buy some jo-jos and get a soda.  And, there was still enough light left to get a couple decent photos, including one of the depot while it was still active as the Amtrak stop in Bingen.

It was still light for most of my time in Bingen, allowing for photographs of BN freights while I awaited Amtrak.  The third unit in this power consist is GP-38 2075, one of several ordered by the SP&P but delivered in Cascade Green after the BN merger.

The rest of the trip was mostly in darkness.  I had notified my friend James of my arrival plans, and I imagined I may have seen his car pacing the train in from Marshall.  Whether that was him or not, I don't recall, but James was there with my folks at the Spokane station to welcome me home.

Luckily, there was still just enough light in the sky to catch this shot of my eastbound Empire Builder arriving to carry me the rest of the way home.

I did travel on the Pioneer one more time before its demise.  This was an eastbound trip back to BYU at the end of Christmas break.  My folks drove me down to Hinkle, OR on an unusually warm New Year's Day, 1989, and we waited in the car for a little while before the train showed up.  I remember a fairly relaxing trip, but due to the time of year, the trip was in darkness for most of the time and I didn't take any photos.