A Roomette With a View on the Coast Starlight

Fortunately the rest of the train trip on Amtrak was lest eventful. In due course we arrived in Martinez, the little surburban town in Contra Costa County, where I disembarked. It was after dark, with an hour layover before my next train, which would arrive from the direction of nearby Oakland and take me all the way to Portland.

The night was warm so I chose to pass the time standing out in the platform, looking out over the lights on the ships in the nearby Carquinez Strait, by which the waters the Sacramento River Delta reach the open waters of the San Francisco Bay.  Along it are many industrial and port facilities. Just on the other side of the mountains to the west, shielded from our view, was the great metropolis.

One could feel the warm wind coming up from the Bay. The air is unlike any other in the world. It feels it like a golden bath---the delta breeze, they call it in Sacramento. I'd felt it years ago.

Several commuter trains came by the train, and then at last the giant Coast Starlight arrived about an hour late, around ten o'clock. It followed the old Southern Pacific route around the mountains.  One could hear the horn ten minutes in advance as it came along the strait in the dark.

Following the instructions in the announcement over the loud speakers, and using the info on my ticket that I'd printed in Fresno, I ran with my backpack down towards the very front of the arriving train. By the time I got there, the train had come to a stop. I found my car by the number beside the door.

The attendant looked at my ticket and let me on board, telling me that my room was upstairs. I used the little step to climb into the door and then went upstairs.

The hallway upstairs was very narrow. The curtains were drawn on all the compartments (the roomettes, as they are called). I found the number for my own and peeked inside the curtains, where I saw a tiny space just big enough for a person-wide berth flush up against the window.

The berth, almost at the level of the window, was already made into a bed for the evening. There were bottles of water and welcome message card by the window. A second upper berth was pushed up and stowed out of the way, as I had purchased the entire compartment with my ticket.

I waited outside the door until the attendant showed up, at which time he gave me a short introduction, demonstrating how to use the button by the headboard of the berth to turn on and off the lights in my compartment, as well as how to press the call button in the morning when I went to breakfast, so he could make up the compartment for daytime use. He asked me what time I wanted to eat in the morning, and gave me a set of options for the restaurant car.

After he left I climbed into the little berth. I had brought my backpack up with me, and when the doors were closed, there was barely room enough to wedge my pack in the space between the berth and door. I hadn't anticipated that type of coziness, so it made it difficult to retrieve things from my backpack. When I tried to get to my toiletries, I wound up spilling the baking soda that I use to brush my teeth all over the little piece of carpet just inside my door.

Once I was settled for the evening, I turned off the lights in my compartment and opened the curtains to look out in the dark, with my head propped up to see out the window for a while.  The train's motion was rather jerky at times. One especially felt this, lying down in the second story of the car like that. At first one had the sensation that the train beginning to tip over, although one got used to it after a while.

While I watched that way, the train came up to the bridge to cross the Carquinez Strait at the mouth of Suisun Bay. One could see the dark water below as we crossed. On the banks were looming light-studded towers of refineries and other other industrial facilities that allow he civilization of America and California keep going.

It felt like a beautiful way to say good-bye to California for now. We were on our way to Sacramento, Chico, and Redding during the wee small hours. Soon was tired enough to draw the curtains and fell asleep for most of the night, waking sporadically, wandering what the attendant would think of the baking soda on the floor. He's probably seen a lot worse, I thought. The train is old.