Golden Gate To Portland Glorious Rail Journey, Published 30 August 1956
Aboard
Shasta Daylight - A the long shadows of evening caress this beatiful
(sic) red and gold streamliner, I am winding up one of the most
romantic rides anybody can have on the North American continent.
Between breakfast and a late supper I am going from palms to pines; I
am making the glorious rail journey from the Golden Gate to the City of
Roses, Portland.
Every inch of this trip is exciting. First I
took the ferry boat this morning across San Francisco Bay, past
Alcatraz, and over to Oakland Mole. There I got aboard the Shasta
Daylight. This streamliner is a gadgeteer's dream. First of all, the
baggage is hoisted aboard on a private elevator. A lift for the luggage
but the passengers have to make it on Shank's Mare. Then the doors have
a fingr (sic) tip touch which opens them magically. There are two
diners back to back connected with a full kitchen car. The head diner
is a coffee shop and cheaper; the rear one is a full 14-table diner
with table cloths and higher prices.
The train first cleared
Oakland, running along shimmering San Francisco Bay, with a full view
of San Quentin where the quail come from. Then the noble, sky-splitting
campanile on University of California's campus, before we plunged
Inland through yellow slopes and quivering eucalyptus till we by passed
Sacramento and headed north to Portland. Though cool inside the train
it was an easy 100 outside, a fact I easily checked when I left our
observation car at Redding and stepped Into Nebuchadnezzar's Seven
Times heated furnace.
It seems to me the real thrill however,
starts at Dunsmuir. Here you are already 2,286 feet above sea level.
You have taken a casual glance at Mount Lassen, only active volanco
left in United States, its cold cone idle up there in the clouds. But
now, as Mount Shasta for your chaperone, you have to cut circles like
Barbara Ann Scott as you tackle the high mountains. For within 43
miles, you have to climb to the summit at Grass Lake, California, at
5,063 feet. In my next column, we'll climb that 2,717 feet.
Up And Over The Peak Aboard Shasta Daylight, Published 31 August 1956
I said that Mount Shasta chaperones the train. It is true
enough. You can look out the window any window any time, any side, and
there is the snow covered Shasta. It is only later on in the afternoon
when you seem to have spent three hours going round it that you find
the north slopes are adorned with live glaciers, and garnished with
small volcanic outlets. The latter you cannot see giving off jets of
live steam and molten sulphur.
For some reason, the train newsie
did not announce the precise location of the Oregon-California border,
but I did see the wayside "customs" station at the border on Highway 99
where all vehicular traffic must stop for a bad mannered and
humiliating inspection.
Then Klamath Falls, a lumbering city 4,105
feet above sea level on beautiful Klamath Lake which must be about 15
miles long. Here the Shasta Daylight makes its longest stop of the
trip, a full 10 minutes, where our thirstly diesels gulp 1.500 gallons
of oil.
On the train goes through the fine firs of Southern
Oregon. It creeps over the Cascade Summit at 4,885 feet altitude, then
roars down toward civilization at Eugene. Here is the University of
Oregon, here once more civilization dutifully assumes the conventional
squares and rectangles of civilization, city wise and country wise.
The
lights come on, night swallows Oregon, and that bright spot you see is
the flood-lit state capital at Salem. Then triumphantly the long 17-car
streamliner makes its last ellipse of the day into Portland. It is a
half hour short of midnight, and between breakfast and now we have
covered 771 miles. The romantic run from the orange groves is all over.
Change here for Canada.
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