"I lost my shoe!" A railfan adventure.

"I lost my shoe."

 Grandpa (pronounced BaaPaa, at least for now) and Jack, all two years and three weeks of him, set out on an epic adventure of questionable sanity.  Just the two of us.  The goal, a first train ride for Jack.  

Jack and his parents were on vacation with us in St. Augustine for the week.  It seemed like the thing to do.

Here was the play.  Drive from St. Augustine down to Deland and ride one stop and back on Sunrail.  Then, maybe if the stars aligned and Amtrak cooperated, watch a couple of Amtrak trains between Deland and Palatka - more or less on the way home.

First, some background.  Jack, like all good babies and toddlers, is fascinated with trains.  Was it him? Or did we feed the habit.  Can't say, but we did start early.

Here he is as a baby.

Infant Jack checking out the engine servicing facility

Some indoctrination by his mother - ice cream and trains at Chamblee.

Some Brio trains. 

Even some help from Uncle Dan.

Atlanta Modurail Club layout at NS building, December 2024

This is just a sampling.  

We often watch train videos of all kinds on my phone and computer.  

This week, the first thing he wanted to do was get the Brio trains out and have me play with him. Every day.  All week.  So game on.

I looked at the Sunrail schedule.  We could catch a 9:40 departure at Deland, ride about 15 minutes to Debary, get off, wait 15 minutes and ride back.  Perfect.  Don't really want to risk trouble with a longer ride or shorter connection.  So, we packed a bag with all the necessary supplies, snacks, diapers, change of clothes, snacks, water and everything mom and grandma thought we'd need, and headed out.  

The plan worked perfectly.  We arrived Deland 15 minutes early, bought our ticket, and boarded.  The train left on time and quickly got up to track speed.  Jack didn't quite know what to make of it but he paid attention to what I was saying as I pointed out the things the train was doing and sights along the way. 

Boarding at Deland

After getting off at Debary

Our train departs Debary

We got off an Debary and the first word out of his mouth - "More!"

On board

About half-way back, he starts exploring on his own.

We arrive back at Deland and he wants "more trains".  Okay!  I check where the Florida Amtrak trains are.  If we drive back through Palatka, we can catch the southbound Silver Meteor and a very late southbound Floridian.  Perfect.  I have no idea where we'll stop but the railroad is more or less parallel and along side US 17 most of the way, so off we go.

We cruise up US 17 about 20 minute or so and find a nice place on the side of the road to wait for the Meteor.  As it gets close, I get him out of his car seat and hold him as the train goes by.  Jack says "Whoa!"

Silver Meteor in Seville FL

We're parked just off the shoulder on the road and I have to take care getting him back into his car seat.  The Floridian is just approaching Palatka, so I decide to get a bit closer and stop in Satsuma which is just south of where the railroad crosses the St John's River shortly after the Palatka station stop.  Off we go!

Now, Jack often takes his shoes off for entertainment or comfort or fun, and this trip is no exception.  We find a place to park in Satsuma and I go to take him out of his car seat.  No shoes. Okay, Jack, where are they?  One is on the floor next to him.  The other one is...by the door?  No.  Under the seat?  No.  On the ground by the door?  No.  Behind the seat?  No.  Next to the other door?  No.  After double checking and triple checking, no shoe. I tell him, "I think we lost your shoe."

The train is coming.  We get out, Jack in one shoe and I carry him trackside.  Jack says, "Whoa!" again.  I think he likes this railfanning stuff.

We get back in the car and I buckle him in.  He says, "I lost my shoe."

We head back to St. Augustine in time for lunch and a nap.  He busies himself looking at a Thomas the Tank Engine book.

Later, we are looking at pictures from the day on my phone and every time we see the one with the Floridian, he says "I lost my shoe."  

Every. time. 

Epilogue.  New shoes were ordered and delivered by Zappos.  Where did the shoe go?  My best guess is that while watching the Silver Meteor, one shoe fell off or got knocked off while I was putting him in his car seat.  As it was by the side of the road, I was concentrating on the task at hand and not paying attention to much else.  

Oh, and when looking at the pictures of the train ride, he drags me to the front door and want to go and do it again.  This train thing just might stick.

A Sunny Day on Sunrail

 It's been a while since I've ridden a train other than MARTA.  ...and that's not really a train.  It's a heavy rail transit line.

So, I decided to take ride on Sunrail.

Sunrail is Orlando's commuter line.  They purchased most of the route from CSX in the early 2010s, although CSX retains trackage rights.  They started running in May of 2014 and recently expanded up to Deland. It's only about an hour and 15 minute drive from St. Augustine, so it made for an easy day trip.

The route starts in Deland and runs through downtown Orlando, and then south to Poinciana, about 75 miles, one way.  I planned to do a round trip.

I arrived at Deland in time for the 9:40 departure.  There were ticket machines on the platform and a Sunrail "ambassador" there to help you purchase and validate your ticket.  A Senior round trip the length of the line cost $4.75.

My train arriving from the south at Deland

The standard train consist is an Morrison Knudsen MPI MP32PH-Q which is a 3600 HP, HEP equipped (separate engine generator set to power lights and HVAC on train) rebuilt MARC (Maryland commuter agency) locomotive plus two coaches.  The coaches are Bombardier bi-levels which are used on may commuter trains in North America.  Each coach seats about 140 people.

Changed ends and ready to depart as train #317

The trains run with the locomotive on the north end and a cab car on the south end.  All they have to do at each end of the line is have the engineer walk from one end of the train to the other.  

Most of the station stops on the north side of town had a dozen or two riders get on and off.  The train  seemed to be a quarter to half full most of the time.  

Deland has always been an Amtrak stop.  So, there is a waiting room and and restrooms here.

The new Sunrail platform adjacent to the Amtrak station.

I grabbed the "railfan" seat behind the operator's cab in the cab car.

Meeting a northbound at DeBary

Crossing the St. John's River near Sanford

Approaching Amtrak's Sanford Autotrain terminal

Rush hour service is about every 30 minutes, with hourly service between the rush hours.  Total time to cover the 75 miles is about 110 minutes (1:50).  Top speed is 79 mph with lots of 70 mph curves and some 30 mph running through the heart of Orlando proper.  Most of the route is double track.

Rolling into downtown Orlando

Amtrak's Orlando Station Sunrail shares four stops with Amtrak, Deland, Winter Park, Orlando and Kissimmee, making them a good first/last mile choice for Amtrak passengers.

CSX still has a freight presence in Orlando

Oh...  This happened.  As we're rolling along past a CSX yard with an automotive ramp, a CSX was train yarding, so I start shooting a video.  Look down the track.  A truck thinks the way is clear once the freight train clears and heads across the crossing. He doesn't look for or see our train closing at 80 mph.  He doesn't have a place to go on the other side.  So he stops.  On the crossing.  Uh. oh.   

I'm about ready to bug out to the middle of the coach and stop shooting the video just after I say "Holy crap!"  The truck starts moving.  Everyone exhales as it clears.  

The engineer says he was about 3 seconds from dumping the air.  It would have been too late.  We'd have hit.

Looks more like concrete and steel to me...

End of the line in Poinciana

Factory in Poinciana.  Is this where they make all of it?

Upper level of coach.  Many seats have nice tables between them.

Lots of running at MAS!

Some CSX yard locomotives

Arriving back into Orlando

A rare, pristine box car.

Church Street is a stop.  It was an up and coming downtown hot spot 35 years ago.  Not so sure, now.

Nice looking city-scape.  Not so sure much is happening...

The central bus station for Orlando's Lynx bus network.  Was fairly busy.

MP 750 - from Richmond on the Seaboard Airline Railroad?   Nice landscaping at Deland station.

Train set lays over on stub siding at Deland.

They don't want you on the Amtrak low level platforms unescorted.  A bit much, I think.

Ready for next run to Poinciana.

So, Orlando is a city that grew up on automobiles and freeways at a fierce rate in the past 50 years and now has fierce traffic. They are just starting to get the idea that continued growth and controlling the rate that traffic gets worse depends on frequent, reliable transit.

Sunrail is a good start.  I give them high marks for fast, reliable, comfortable service including good off peak service.  They do a good job of connecting and explaining what's interesting at their station stops.  Many are near small, functional downtown areas with restaurants and shops.   It appears that some high density housing has located near some of these town centers along the line.  More points for handling bicycles - there are adjacent trails and are a decent first/last mile at many stops.

They get points off for not having any weekend service. 

The fares are extremely low and likely why the ridership off peak is pretty good and why the subsidy is rather high.  

All in all, I really enjoyed the ride, less the "near miss", and will definitely not hesitate to use it again...maybe to the airport with a short Lynx bus ride, to sample a Brightline trip!

Random thoughts and observations

1. I've been hooked on AMC's "Breaking Bad" for a several years now.  The thing that hooked me was trying to figure out how Walter White was going to get back up once he found the bottom of the slippery slope.  The glimmer of hope gets smaller and smaller with each episode.  Walter White is completely rational but amoral.  Everything he does is rationalized in his own mind as the most reasonable alternative.

His sin is pride. He's brilliant, but he thinks smarter = entitled.  It's an easy trap.  CEOs fall often because they start reading and believing their own press releases.  Athletes fall often because they watch their own highlight reels.  Entertainers fall often because they mistake attention for affection. We seem to take great interest in watching others fall from great height, I think because it makes us look better in comparison. Sin is serious business.  There's a chunk of Walter White in all of us, I think.  Good thing there are "mirrors".

2. I like playing tennis.  I'm just not very good at it. No highlight reels for me to watch!  But, I'm not going to quit, either.

3. The business class seats on domestic flights are nicer than coach.

They give you extra snacks and free drinks.  You don't have to worry about bumping your knees when the guy in the seat ahead of you reclines.  You get to check a bag for free.  But, the seat really isn't any nicer or bigger than a regular Amtrak seat (except for the center armrest),

you don't get there any faster, nor are your bags the first ones on the carousel, the upgrade is rather costly and you still have to do the same TSA cha-cha and hokey-pokey.  Is it worth the cost?  Sometimes.

4. Old cars are a pain.  They are a bigger pain if you bought one used.  You might know the title history, but you don't know where they've been, what they've been doing and which glitches are merely "warts" and which are real problems. Some things you can see and feel, but some are hidden.  I think I'm going to stay away from older used cars.  Anyone want a 2001 Mercury Sable?

5. Colorado is a fabulous place, but the mountain pine bark beetle is depressing.  Lots and lots of dead lodge pole pines.

Whole mountainsides.  It seems the problem stems from the mining era.  Huge areas were logged off for mining exploration a century or more ago.  The trees that grew back were mostly lodge pole pines. They are now all 80-120 years old. There has also been a drought lately. And, the winters haven't been cold enough lately to kill many beetles.  Pine bark beetles like lodge pole pines.  They like old trees.  They like distressed trees.  So, dead trees rule the landscape.  The good news is that it appears that a more diverse set of trees are replacing the dead lodge pole forests, so that might set the beetle back a good bit.

6. I know of two "fake Alpine" towns in the US. One is Vail, Colorado.

Vail

The other is Helen, Georgia.

Helen

Actual, real Germany

They are very different.  People are as likely to arrive in Vail by Gulfstream as they are in Helen to arrive by Harely-Davidson.  A meal in Helen costs the same as a snack in Vail.  Vail has skiing.  Helen has river tubing.  What they share is a desire to present an image of something they are not.  Under the "skin", they are both very American in their own way - which is not bad.  So, why the need to pretend?  Are there fake American towns in Germany, Switzerland or Austria?  I think I need to do some in-person investigation!

...with 40 seconds to spare

For my 50th Birthday, Patti got me a nice train ride from Denver to San Francisco on the California Zephyr.  (More about that here)

Seven years and a few months later, it's our 30th wedding anniversary.  We need to go on a nice trip.

Where should we go?

Alaska?  Hawaii?  Bermuda?

All great ideas!

But, for a variety of reasons...oh, okay... Because of time and money constraints, we decided to go to Colorado.  A few days in Rocky Mountain National Park and a couple of days in Vail (it WAS our anniversary, after all.)

The whole trip was fantastic, but that's not what I want to talk about here.  What I want to tell is how I just happened to plan the route between RMNP and Vail to go through Beyer's Canyon on US 40 so that I might sneak in a little railfanning.  There were a few alternate routes between the two places, but none were appreciably faster or more scenic, so I had plausible deniability on my side.

I figured an hour's delay to stop and wait for a train to appear was not too much to ask. I floated my plan to Patti and she thought it was a fine idea....oh, okay...  She said it was okay with here, as long as her iPad was charged up and we didn't get to Vail too late in the day.  "All set!" I thought.

I had done some preliminary scouting using "Streetview" in Google Maps.  The road was on the south side of the Canyon and it looked like there were lots of places to pull off to the side of the road in the canyon. So, getting a nicely lit scene seemed possible. This was good. I had also taken a look a the Amtrak timetable and had seen that the California Zephyrs both went through the canyon in the afternoon - the most likely time we would be there.  Also, good.  The afternoon weather in Colorado in the mountains in the summer is sunny. Also, good...Oh, okay...  Sunny with many quixotic thunderstorms - something about hot air rising into cold air over mountains.  In Georgia, we have the hot air part, but no mountains with cold air, but we have lots of thunderstorms just the same.  Why?  I have no idea.  I was hoping for sun, but expecting rain.

We drove into the canyon about 2:15 PM and I started scouting a good spot.  Usually, this is when the train appears and I'm in the wrong spot, with the camera on the wrong setting, and I step out into traffic, or in an ant hill, or off the side of the road and down an embankment, or the sun goes behind a storm cloud.  But, not this time!  I found a really good spot for a westbound.  And, atypical for the weather that time of day, it was actually becoming more sunny as time went on!

Patti and I agreed that 3:15 was the cutoff.  No train by then, then off we go.  C'mon train!

I camped out in my spot and waited.

Here I am waiting..

If I lean a bit to the right, I can get the Colorado River in the scene.

The trouble with Beyer's Canyon is two-fold. One is the line of sight is very short.  The train could be on top of you before you caught a glimpse.  That might not be a problem if you could hear it coming, but that was the second problem.  The highway noise on US 40 drowns out everything as even a car passing by makes a racket that echos off the hard canyon walls.  There was hardly a moment when it was quiet.  I had to make sure my camera didn't go to "sleep" while I waited.  I'd never get it turned back on in time once the train popped out around the curve.

Still, the spot was really nice and the sunlight was improving as time wore on.  15 minutes went by.  Then 30 minutes.  I started getting bored.  I took pictures of the wildflowers nearby.  Colorado is full of wildflowers.

I have no idea what kind of flower this is.

...nor this one

Then, we were up to 45 minutes gone. I was starting to get worried about getting skunked.  I took a picture of the location as if the train was there.  For some reason, this is what I do when I get skunked.  I have lots of train pictures without trains in them.

I decided to check my smart phone's Amtrak app to see when the Zephyrs might come by. No data service.  I checked a few more times, moving the phone around a bit.  Still, zero bars.

While I had the phone out, I took a panorama shot of my location.  Here it is.

I'm a big fan of my Samsung GS3.  This is one reason why.

Now, we were up to 55 minutes gone.  Still no train.  When we rode the California Zephyr in 2006, there were lots of trains on the route.  In fact, just about every passing siding was full of coal.  Where were all the trains?  Maybe those sidings were full because the UP network was backed up elsewhere?  Maybe the coal traffic dried up with the recession? Who knows?  I just knew I'd been there almost an hour and no train.

57 minutes.  58 minutes.  59 minutes! Nuts. Should I call it quits?  What's one more minute?  I'll stick it out for that last minute.  Besides, the sun was out almost fully - the best it had been since I got there.

Twenty seconds later, I hear some commotion behind me.  It's Patti yelling, "It's the Rio Grande heritage unit!"...oh, okay... she actually yelled, "A train is coming!"  I spin around.  Sure enough, the eastbound Zephyr. I was hoping for a westbound, but c'est la vie!

Much to my surprise, Patti has her little Canon "point and shoot" camera out.  She aims it at the train and starts shooting.  Gets a couple pretty decent shots.  Not bad for a first-timer!  She later admits, "I had no idea what I was doing.  I just kept taking pictures!"

Patti's first shot

Her second shot.

In the hour I was waiting, In my boredom, I did frame up a few shots for an eastbound.  Sun angle wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible, either.

Here's what I got.

Rolling by some cool looking weathered rock spires.  I remember these from when I was on the "inside" in 2006

Back to back P42s along the Colorado

A "going away" shot.  I would have preferred a westbound, but I'll take this one!

Forty seconds to go.

I was worth the wait!  On to Vail - with a smile on my face!

P.S. For the record, Patti had gotten out of the car to tell me we should wait another ten minutes, when the train showed up.  I married the right person!