The Train Trip

Peter Y. Woo, 8/4/2000

  For 6 months in 1998, we learned how to live in a 400 sq. ft. apartment with skill and comfort. (Only because it is at Silvermine Bay). Now for 2 days, we learned how to live successfully in a 7 by 4.5 ft. "sleeper". (A sleeper is not a person. It is a room, on a train.) They say it is even more comfortable than some trains in Europe, but Canada is better. I wish I had been on a sleeper (Wor Poo) in China, then I can compare. Every cubic foot is well utilized. The train is about 11 ft. wide, including 4" thick walls. The center aisle is 22" wide, so each sleeper is 51" wide. After closing the door and closing the curtains, you have only 1' by 3' floor space to stand on. The 2 chairs are 33" wide. There is space under them to store things. The ceiling above the window when pulled down becomes the top bunk bed 5' high and 28" wide (better than before) and 24" below the ceiling. So I can climb into it, even make a U-turn on it, and turn on a lamp and read. There are little pockets on the sides to put my pen, watch, eyeglass, etc. The two "steps" to the bunk bed are 18 and 30 inches tall, like two shelves, under which you can store things, and the 30 inch step also serves as armrest of the chair. At night, the little table can be folded into the wall under the window, and the two facing chairs can slide down to become the lower bunk bed.

  I also notice trains hardly jerk backwards or forwards. It lists from side to side, sometimes violently, due to the tracks being uneven or making a turn. So when Lucy pulled the "emergency stop" rope on the train, causing the food to go into the laps of Fred and Ethel Merse, it never could have happened. Box cars aisles are connected on the top floors only. We have to walk each meal to the dining car for 3 meals, chatting with different people each time, (usually retired couples, or newcomers from Europe), or rest awhile at the lounge car with windows up to the ceiling. There is a shower room and several toilets downstairs, like those on airplanes. Blessed are the Asians, whose width at the widest point of their bodies are only 18 inches. Back from Asia, in a Sizzler Restaurant in Calif. I noticed a woman whose waist line should be more than 100 inches, with a width of 36 inches or so. She will have a hard time riding a bus in Hong Kong, or even enjoying Amtrak.

  At San Antonio, the train stopped at 3 a.m. It stopped a long time, and finally I ventured out of the train to see how it was at the station. I asked the officer "how much time do I have, before the train starts?" He said "2 minutes". The thought of even a possibility that the train would leave with me waving and yelling on the ground is so scary, that I dashed back back to my box car, and enjoyed its cool air with a new appreciation. Imagine how scary it is if the Rapture comes tonight, and your friends and family members are carried away to the Place that is Fairer than Day, and you are left behind, together with the 5 foolish maidens.

  At first we were disappointed that our sleeper was on the ground floor, not on the top deck. Looking outside my window, people on the platform were just at our eye level. I am amazed how well the Amtrak station at Los Angeles is designed. We first waited in a long queue, each with a pushcart filled with luggages, before gate F, for the Sunset Express train. Then an officer came, and led us walk through a long underground tunnel, just like in an airport, on both sides of which are side tunnels going up towards Platform 2, Platform 4, etc., where different trains are parked on tracks perpendicular to and above our tunnel. And when we got to our platform, it was quite different from the movies, where a train spouting out steam from its wheels rushed slowly in, sirens honking, policemen and soldiers boots kicking at the concrete, and a cold snow storm was blowing at the coats and collars of the lovers that just could not say good bye.

  Well, in Los Angeles it is different, but still rather romantic. Two trains were parked on both sides of the 2' high platform, and one does not see much of the wheels. No steam spouting or sirens hooting, or crowds hustling. The platform has a roof 2 stories high, just enough to cover even a few inches of the train, from rain, while the two trains look like two long seemless walls of an endless tunnel. The atmosphere was golden orange from all the sodium lamps. I saw two elderly parents and other older folks, their profiles being enhanced by these lamps, just like in old movies. One old woman was chatting with her son. They were so loving, reminding me of Zhu ZiChing's immortal essay, "Bei Ying (backshadow)". Later on I discovered it was the old couple that got on the train at the last minute, not the young man. The mother bequeathed on him her half-smoken cigarette. Another black girl was on the platform. When the train started, she ran along, waving goodbye and waving kisses (I so imagined) towards her mother (I guess) on the train. It was just like the old movies.