From: "Philip Merryman" <phil_merryman@hotmail.com>

Date: Wed May 08, 2002 08:20:26 PM Etc/GMT

Subject: Starlight Express

Hi from LA!

This is only a sleepover between trains. I know many of you will be shocked that I haven't gone to: Hollywood, Universal Studios, the beach, Long Beach, etc, etc. but LA is such a big place and without your own transport getting around on you own is not easy. I am in a hotel in Chinatown which is only a couple of blocks from the station, all the above places are 6, 10 and 25 miles from here! You need couple of weeks to see LA alone! So I decided to leave it for another time.

The train from Seattle down the West coast to LA is called "The Coast Starlight". Yesterday's run was one of the most spectacular sections. It was an early start to get the bus from SF to meet the train at Oakland at 08.45 and it would take 12 hours to get to LA, so a full day on the train.

Once clear of the Oakland and bay area sprawl it headed through pleasant arable farmland with crops ranging from cabbages to vinyards. About half way it enters some mountains. These are rolling green hills rather than jagged rocks, but big nevertheless. At one point you could see down into the valley below to the freeway and another railway with a freight train. The track then completed a big curve and you could see the locomotives at the front enter a tunnel. The line continued to twist and turn and far below in the valley was another track crossing a steel trestle bridge. That line then followed ours along the bottom of the valley as we descended and looked like a branch line which would join up with ours. Our track then went round an almost complete circle (more than 270 degrees!) and joined up with the other line! It was not a branch at all but the same track!

Further on the line runs right along the Pacific coast. It was a clear sunny day so many excellent views of the ocean and beaches. There were drilling rigs off shore, boats, surfers, etc, etc. We left the coast and headed inland at dusk, arriving in LA almost half an hour EARLY!!! LA Union Station is a spectacular building and is one of the photo opportunities of LA in its own right. A combination of Art Deco with a Spanish influence.

On the train in my carriage in the seats across the aisle were two girls, 14 years old twins, who were on their way from Oakland to Santa Barbara to stay with friends. They were Jehovahs Witnesses, but apart from sharing a couple of leaflets, they were really just a couple of excited teenagers going to see friends. They had so many bags of presents, overnight stuff, blankets pillows, etc. that they almost disappeared beneath this lot when they were in the seats. On the seats in front of me were a retired couple doing a big loop from Florida, up through Canada, back down the West coast and back home on the trains. They girls talked to this couple for much of the journey. They really were so looking forward to their few days with their frionds. They asked lots of us in the train where we were going, where we were from, etc, etc. They just loved talking to people. Also, they said that they were home taught, and for children of that age they were certainly very eloquent.

Arriving in LA luckily about 4 other people off the train had booked into the same hotel so we had a shared taxi-minibus. Next morning I saw that the foyer of the hotel has a post office. Having shipped a load of souvenirs home from Seattle I then did my usual trick of immediately buying a load more! So this morning has been another packaging and posting session. While in the post office the clerk and one of the locals were discussing the shootings they were caught up in like the English discuss the weather!!! Welome to LA!

So thats it. Again you are fully up to date. Next stop: Grand Canyon!!

Cheers

Phil