Amtrak Autumn Express 2015

By Jonah Soolman
“If I can’t ride it, I’m not interested,” is how a fellow rider on Amtrak’s 2015 Autumn Express explained the scope of his interest in trains yesterday. He was differentiating himself from other train enthusiasts who took particular interest in the tanker cars parked in the rail yard through which we were riding.
Us train aficionados may all like trains, but the facets of railroad that appeal to each of us widely vary. Unlike many of my fellow riders, I know virtually nothing about engines, railroad politics, or who owns which tracks, and my knowledge of rail history is extremely limited. I enjoy riding trains and like thinking about the places that can be explored through rail travel. That’s all. This preamble is important, as other riders could tell you many more details and stories from yesterday’s Autumn Express, while the following is solely what I experienced through my layman eyes.

Back in 2010, I participated in a bicycle race that began in Westfield, Massachusetts, headed north to Jacksonville, Vermont, and then finished back in Westfield. My favorite part of the event was traveling the stretch of Route 2 from Charlemont to Shelburne Falls. The Deerfield River, a wide, shallow, and rocky swath of water, parallels the road the entire stretch. On the south side of the river, I spotted train tracks. Those rails stuck in my mind, and over the years I occasionally remembered them and imagined what it would be like to ride them. When Amtrak revealed that their 2015 Autumn Express would give me the chance to do it for real, I jumped at the opportunity.

The Express’s point of origin was the Albany-Rensselaer Amtrak station in New York. The departure time was set for 8:00 AM so I arrived at 6:45 AM thinking that I would be at the front of line and have my pick of seats. Nope. Diehards were already there and had been for quite some time. Despite the excitement, everybody was calm and followed the staff’s directives to be safe and proceed slowly down the rain-slicked steps to the train once the gate opened.

The front of the train as it turned north out of Albany-Rensselaer
—The train was nearly a quarter mile long and comprised of 11 cars and two engines. Once I got down to the train, I headed to one of the cars up front and got a window seat on the train’s left. Most of the seats had filled in by the time we departed the station, and more boarded at the train’s only other stop in Schenectady, but the train was not sold out. Later, the conductor said they had 497 people on the train, compared to 550 people on the previous day’s run of the Express.

The two-sided points of interest guide given to all passengers
—“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?” I wondered. Then other riders began complaining to the conductor about the building heat in our car. When I returned from visiting the souvenir store at the front of the train, I stepped back into our cabin and realized just how abnormally hot our car was compared to the rest of the train. The air conditioning was not working, the conductor said. The crew attempted to fix it, but they were unable to and said that the train needed to be serviced from the outside. The heat rose. Passengers shed layers of clothing and continued to complain. The crew briefly opened the exterior door to get some air flow, but then shut it. The scent of pickles from the Amtrak-provided lunches mixed with the stench of sweat. The cabin’s smell was a cross between a deli and a high school locker room. I sent Jonathan Higgins a profanity-laced text message.

No idea where this is. I just thought it looked cool.
—Trying to put the ventilation issues aside, I turned my attention back out the window, as we were nearing the Hoosac Tunnel, the Express’s main attraction. Even though I lived in western Massachusetts for years, I never even heard of this 4.75-mile tunnel running under a mountain from North Adams to Florida until Jonathan told me about it last year. Fellow passengers eagerly awaited the underground journey and aimed their cameras out the window as we approached the tunnel’s west entrance.

The west entrance to the Hoosac Tunnel. Not everybody is a good photographer.
—Shortly after entering the tunnel, however, everything was pitch black and cameras were useless. We could not see anything except a deep, deep darkness. Solitary red signals at two different points in the tunnel were only visible to riders on the train’s left. After seeing riders press their own flashlights against the windows in an effort to view the tunnel’s walls, I did the same. The light cast the dimmest of shadows, but was enough for me to discover that some of the walls are made of brick, which was news to me.

Inside Hoosac Tunnel
—Although I could not see very much, the trip through the tunnel was still a moving experience, as it made me think about the nearly 200 workers who lost their lives building it, and what an achievement of engineering and manpower it was to design and construct such an ambitious structure at a time when technology was so crude. In that sense, riding through the tunnel had a similar feel to this summer’s trip up the cog railway.
Once we were through the tunnel, we rode along the Deerfield River and I looked across the water at the road where I raced my bike and imagined my five-years-younger self glancing back at the spot I now occupied and hoping that someday I would get a chance to be here. This section of the route carried a personal meaning that was probably unique to me.

The Deerfield River in Charlemont
—After the awe and sentimentality receded, my attention returned to the heat and smell. Without any key points of interest to occupy me, I could not take the lack of air flow any longer and had to do something. I walked the entire length of the train before finally finding an open window seat at the rear of the last cabin. One of the conductors was eating lunch nearby so I asked him if I could switch to this seat and he told me it was fine. The air was cool and scentless, but my serenity was short lived, as the woman across the aisle told me that I had taken her husband’s seat. Ugh.
After having experienced the high life, how could I possibly return to my seat in the sauna car? I told her I understood and would leave as soon as her husband returned, but for the time being I stayed there because I did not know where else to go. Shortly thereafter, he did return so I got up to leave. No, he said, stay. Confused and feeling guilty, I could not take this man’s seat, but he insisted. Turned out that he liked standing most of the trip anyway, as it allowed him to peer out the windows on both sides of the train as well as the rear. It was a win-win situation, and over the next four hours I thanked him numerous times for his generosity.

Sheburne Falls
—This kind gentleman and the other riders around me seemed particularly interested in talking with one particular passenger who seemed especially cordial and knowledgeable about the railroad. It took me a while to put two and two together, but eventually I learned his name and discovered that he works for Amtrak and is extremely high up within the company. Upon seeing my iPhone, he became concerned that I was recording him (I wasn’t; I was only taking photos out the window). Nothing he was saying seemed like sensitive information to me, but out of respect for him and his concern, I will not mention his name or the specifics of what he said.

What I will say though is that he was very welcoming and seemed to genuinely appreciate everybody who had come out for the ride and wanted to make sure that we were all having a good time. The train’s rear door window was a particularly popular vantage point for photographers, and this man made sure that everybody who wanted to look out that window or take a picture got a chance. He asked me where I was from, and hours later still remembered the name of my obscure Massachusetts hometown. Not only that, but this DC-based employee who works on a national level was able to have an in-depth discussion about the tracks running through my town as if he was my neighbor.

Trolley museum in Shelburne Falls
—Turns out that he was not the only high-ranking Amtrak employee on the Autumn Express that day. In fact, the last car on the train was the place to be and was filled with Amtrak employees, their families, and the most diehard of train aficionados. And me. As out of place as I was, they were all so friendly and I will always remember what a welcoming community they comprise.

At the train’s turnaround point in the East Deerfield yard, the crew got outside and fixed the electrical issues that caused the air conditioning problems. One employee explained the temperature woes to me. While the two engines up front were more modern, the passenger cabins themselves were built in the 1970s and use outdated technology. Once the heat comes on, it can only be shut off from the outside, he said. The air conditioning works in a similar way; once it is triggered, it cannot be shut off. Everybody thinks café cars are cold because they do not want passengers to linger, he said, but that is not actually true. The truth is that the café equipment generates heat, which turns out the air conditioner, which remains on for the entire trip.

East Deerfield rail yard
—As we began our return trip back to Albany-Rensselaer, I watched rail fans outside who were filming and photographing our train as it passed. Some of them I recognized, as they had been driving to various points along the route all day and stopping to watch us before hopping back in the car and catching up with us again. One man in particular caught my attention because I had spotted him in the crowd in every state through which we traveled.

Rail fans watching our train outside the Hoosac Tunnel
—Upon reaching our destination, everybody I overheard was extremely satisfied with the ride and felt it was well worth whatever time and expense they had endured to participate. Having only come from the Boston area, I was a relative local. Others had come from other regions and even other countries, with one couple having come from Australia just for this ride. Despite the temperature issues, I, too, had a great time and feel very lucky that I had a chance to finally ride down those Charlemont tracks and experience the Autumn Express as a whole.

Somewhere in the Massachusetts countryside