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End of the Line
A beautifully written nostalgia piece.
I was fortunate enough to secure a roomette on the last eastbound City of Los Angeles. My feelings paralleled yours. The UP did honor us last riders by adding 844 from Green River or Rawlins to Cheyanne (Sp?), and of course I spent that part of the trip in the forward dome.
I am spending the last years (?) of my life in Jerusalem. But my first visit was in 1960, and before boarding a Jet to Paris from NY, I had a night in a lower berth in a 12-and-1 “Dollar-Saver-Sleeper” on the New Haven’s Owl from Boston,reminding me of my first overnight ride in a sleeper on the State-of-Maine at age 5, 1938, to Concord, NH
I do enjoy Jerusalem’s Light Rail. Closing my eyes, I can imagine being on a PCC on Woodward Avenue, Market Street, Coney Island Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, Forbes Street, Germantown Avenue or Charles Street.
Correction, although the friends I was visiting, friends from my Fort Bragg Army days, lived in Fayetteville, I exited the Silver Meteor at Southern Pines, where my friends picked me up. Fayetteville is on the ACL main line, Southern Pines on the Seaboard’s. Dan MacMillan eventually did get over his anger at me at having him drive over to Southern Pines to pick me up, when I could have just as easily used either of the Champions directly to Fayetteville. He understood I did not have many opportunities to ride a round-end at 100mph on track specified at 79…