The Sunset Limited- Los Angeles to Palm Springs

Wednesday, January 6, 2010, 2:35pm. Los Angeles, CA: The Sunset limited rolls out of the magnificent Union Station, which has got to be one of the most impressive and grand terminals in the United States. The train room and train corridor are spaces which have been lovingly preserved just the way they were in the 1930's at the height of their grandeur. As you walk through the waiting room you can just feel the regiments of movie stars, grand people, he ordinary Joe's, the thousands of brave men heading off to the War(s) and the fewer number who were able to make the long walk back through the impressive foyer on their ways home and to new lives. This is a waiting room and train hall where by the act of walking through them makes you feel the excitement of adventure which waits down the long corridor where the platforms branch left and right.

Part of the expense to preserve this great building comes from renting it out for weddings, movies and special events. It is a creative way to maintain a grand building such as this and we hope the idea is transported to other parts of the country before any more of these historic structures are lost.

For information on the Sunset Limited click here; Technical information about the Sunset Limited

 

Sunset limiteds 3 day trek across the AmericanSouthest

Amtraks Informatiion, Route Guide and Schedule about the Sunset Limited;Amtrak, Sunset Limited informnation

We find our coach and right on time the Southwest Limited blows her whistle and begins to roll out of Union Station for the every-other day run across the Southwestern border of the United States. As we head South and East out of LA the first views are of hard-scrabble neighborhoods where life is mean and often short, small manufacturing and fabrication facilities sometimes stuffed 15 to the building via for location on odd shaped lots. In a few minutes these tough neighborhoods give way to tree lined avenues stretching deep across South LA. The neighborhoods give way to larger manufacturing facilities where we get pulled onto a siding track to wait for a freight train to crawl into the LA railroad yards. Again we are reminded that these rails are all about freight and we are barely tolerated, step children at someone else's dinner party.

The suburbs of Pamona and Ontario glide by with their neat industrial parks and office complexes. Our side kick as we roll through the flatlands of Orange County are the peaks of the mountains in the East. Around 4:00pm the dining car steward comes bounding through our observation car yelling what sounds like , Dinerentshun, Dinerentshun.” Then we realize he was mumbling “Dinner reservations.” No takers from us as our trip lasts a mere three hours and our destination, Palm Springs, is famous for its restaurants.

Homeless people under the viaducts remind us of one of this regions biggest challenges. The weather is so good it is a magnet for homeless people from all over the country... if they can get here. We try to remember which flood viaduct was used in which movie. We recognize the one used in the Terminator, and the one from the the Italian Job but the rest were anonymous.

As we get further out of Los Angeles we enter the Rolling hills of Loma Linda scoured clean after the fires as evidenced by the solitary mansion sitting on a mountain top here and there. As we enter the Palm Springs Valley, we are surrounded by hundreds of wind generators stretching along the tracks along both sides of the valley which is beautiful and rhythmic and attests to how one state's commitment to alternative power is making a solid impact on the amount of fossil fuels used for power generation. Equally important in Palm Springs is the use of solar power for generating hot water and power is growing rapidly

Right on time we arrive in Palm Springs with our good friend, Ron waiting for us on the station platform and we are ready experience a couple of days of warmth in the Southern California sun.