What are smoke stops?

Smoke stop

You cannot smoke on any Amtrak train, but some people, including some Amtrak employees, are smokers. And some of Amtrak's routes last multiple days. So every so often on the longer routes, there are stops that are longer than the others, so people can get out of the train and walk around and, yes, smoke. Always stay within earshot of the train, in case there is something wrong with your watch or you heard the wrong time to come back.

There is one exception to the rule that you should never be out of earshot of the train station. That is if the train is early. The longer routes have extra time built into their schedules in case something goes wrong. But some routes, such as the Southwest Chief, are running on improved track and with improved overall operations and they have fewer delays than they used to. The trains will not leave a stop early, so passengers sometimes get to explore places like Albuquerque. You should be back in the station area ten to fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure or when the conductor has told you to be back, whichever is earlier.

Do not ever get off the train at a regular stop. Ever. They will leave you behind. (By the way, this is true in France, and Korea, and Japan and every other country that has trains.)

Glenwood Springs, CO

Of Interest: The Hot Springs Pool, scenic location

Lodging: hotel next to the station, other hotels within walking distance

Glenwood Springs is famouns for its outdoor hot springs and its beautiful location in the Rocky Mountains. The station is on 7th Street, which is where Glenwood Spring began. The historic Hotel Denver is right next to the station. There has been a hotel on this spot since 1915 with the present hotel dating from 1938.

Most of the town has since moved to the other side of the river. It sounds like walking over an interstate would be inherently dangerous, but the bridge is pedestrian friendly. Close to the other side is the Hot Springs Pool, the most famous hot springs in Colorado. It is actually two pools. The larger is two blocks long, and its water is 90 degrees. The smaller is 104 degrees.

Glenwood Springs is six and a half hours from Denver and nine hours to Salt Lake City via Amtrak's California Zephyr. All trains arrive and depart in the early afternoon.

Grand Junction, CO

Of Interest: downtown Grand Junction

Lodging: two within walking distance, two by shuttle bus

Tourist Office: no, but there is a map on the wall and a shop selling local products

I went through Grand Junction recently on a trip from California to Denver. Grand Junction is a smoke stop, so I had a little time. I spent about half at the local products shop and half walking around the station area. The road that the station in on is at an angle to downtown, so you have to walk five-ten minutes directly toward the downtown area before you can see anything. From the station it looks like a typical midwestern town, except you don't get to most midwestern towns by going through some of the most beautiful valleys in the world.

According to its website, downtown Grand Junction is notable for its galleries, outdoor sculpture, and restaurants with patio seating. According to hotels.com, there is a convention center downtown, and two hotels within walking distance of the station. (Hotels.com is really inconsistent about the cities that list the Amtrak station as a landmark. It is good that Grand Junction's station is listed, it would be better if stations were considered landmarks in all the cities that have a significant number of hotels near their stations.) There are also two hotels that will send shuttles to the station. Both are near the interstate (I-70), so I wouldn't recommend them. But it is unlikely that anyone would get stuck without a place to stay.

In the station building itself, there is a restaurant and a local products shop. Excellent fruit is grown in the local valleys, and I bought some apricot jam. Readers of my Asian site will know that I am a sucker for good jam. There are a wide variety of food products, both locally made and snacks for the journey. There are also books and postcards of the local area, including a guide to the California Zephyr, the train that passes through this town.

A train in each direction (east/west) arrives once during the day. Both Denver and Salt Lake City are about eight hours away in opposite directions. The Zephyr continues on to either Chicago or the San Francisco Bay area, obviously depending on the direction that you are going.

Denver City Council Meeting Today

Today at 5:30 pm there is going to be a public meeting on Denver's plans to guarantee a federal loan to the DUSPA. This plan keeps costing more and more, and transit keeps getting less and less. The tracks are not going to be fixed, light rail is going to be farther away, and there is not going to be enough room for all if transit use increases (which it has been.) The people running this project are property developers, not folks with backgrounds in transportation.

I am going to go and state my opposition. Denver should guarantee transit, not private development. ColoRail is bringing several people. Hopefully, we can get to our goal of 30 people.

First local post

Conor O'Neil's Traditional Irish Pub in downtown Boulder give a lunch discount to anyone with an ecopass. I should find out if they give discounts for other bus passes. The food and atmosphere are pretty good. The service is slow, but friendly.

This is local post as I am now in Boulder. No trains, and there are not going to be as Boulder Station is probably going to be in east Boulder. But the pub is near the downtown bus station and all transit is good and social.

(Meet a new person, ride a bus today.)

Emeryville, California

Of Interest: rail gateway to the Bay Area
Hotels: yes, expensive

Tourist Office: no

The Emeryville Amtrak station is the main station serving San Francisco with Amtrak buses to and from that city. There are also local buses to one of the BART stations which is actually a quicker way to get to San Francisco.

I think the station is next to an interstate exit. There are several chain hotels within walking distance, all lined up along a single road. To get to this area, you have to walk across the tracks. Because of the size of the parking lots, the walk from one end of the hotel strip to the other is probably quite a hike. Most of the hotels are fairly expensive.

Emeryville is the terminus for the California Zephyr which heads to Chicago. The train passes through Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Omaha. It is one of the most beautiful routes in the Amtrak system, but also one of the slowest and least reliable.

The Coast Starlight, San Joaquin, and Capitol Corridor all pass through Emeryville. By all these routes, Oakland is ten minutes away. The Capitol Corridor is the most frequent service. San Jose is an hour and fifteen minutes in one direction while Sacramento is an hour away in the other. The San Joaquin also passes through several times a day, although not all San Joaquin trains go through Emeryville. It takes an hour and a half to go to Stockton, four hours to get to Fresno, and six hours to get to the other end at Bakersfield.

The Coast Starlight is a long-distance train that passes through once a day in each direction. It goes south to Los Angeles (eleven hours) and north to Portland (eighteen hours) and Washington (twenty-three hours). Like many long-distance routes, the ride is stunning, often right next to the ocean.

Introduction

This is going to be a blog about traveling by train in the US. I find that there is a lot of information about being on the train, but not a lot of information about what you are likely to find when you get off the train. Therefore this blog is going to focus on practical information such as walkability of the station area, access to local public transportation, access to downtowns, etc.

The first posts are based on trips taken in the western part of the US during 2007 and 2008. Hopefully, I will eventually cover all of the US and even Canada and Mexico. Amtrak stations will form the spine of this blog, but local rail systems will get attention too. I find that local light rail systems can help a newcomer get oriented to local public transport systems, including buses.

(This post is a rewrite of the first post from my Wordpress blog.)