Return of the Train
Apr. 14th, 2020 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeI discovered yesterday when eastbound #6 went by without warning that Amtrak has reinstated the California Zephyr between Emeryville and Denver. This morning, Lisa and I were out front of Fernley House to greet the first westbound #5 of the newly-reinstated service.
I think this was the engineer who we spoke to once when his train was halted at Fernley and who also stopped by and talked to Lisa one day on his day off on a day when I was out of town. Besides tooting to us (and I think waving, but it was hard for me to see while holding the camera), he needed to sound the horn freely while coming through Fernley because of a crew working on the tracks west of us.
I don't think there will be a lot of passengers for a while, but it may be necessary for Amtrak to run trains simply to maintain their trackage rights, lest Union Pacific claim that they've abandoned them and start tearing up platforms the way they did on the route of the Pioneer (the UP-era City of Portland) to make it more difficult to reinstate service.
I think this was the engineer who we spoke to once when his train was halted at Fernley and who also stopped by and talked to Lisa one day on his day off on a day when I was out of town. Besides tooting to us (and I think waving, but it was hard for me to see while holding the camera), he needed to sound the horn freely while coming through Fernley because of a crew working on the tracks west of us.
I don't think there will be a lot of passengers for a while, but it may be necessary for Amtrak to run trains simply to maintain their trackage rights, lest Union Pacific claim that they've abandoned them and start tearing up platforms the way they did on the route of the Pioneer (the UP-era City of Portland) to make it more difficult to reinstate service.
