The “Sunset Limited”
Wanna Get Away? Traveling by Rail through West Texas May Be the Ticket By The Hon. Philip Berquist
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Honorary Consul of the Republic of Croatia for Texas
Berquist relaxing after dinner The dining car
y generation, the Boomers, saw the end of traditional rail travel. Yes, it still exists with AMTRAK, but aviation knocked the dickens out of rail. My first train trips were solo. At the age of 14 I returned from visiting my brother, Paul, and his family in Colorado Springs via the Burlington Northern. All the way to Chicago, where I switched stations to the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) to Grand Rapids. I did this the next year as well. In my senior year of high school, our class took the C&O to Washington, D.C. and back. That was the last regular train service that I took in the US. I should also mention that I spent one college summer as a “track man” laying and maintaining tracks for C&O in Grand Rapids. I maintain my battle scar, a painful back pain, to this day. I have taken advantage of rail travel many times in Europe - England, France, the Alps, even the Soviet Union and Russia (two different trips). Also through East Germany to get to and from West Berlin in the old days of the Cold War as. G.I. Now, I am taking AMTRAK, again to visit my brother, Paul, living in Tucson, Arizona. Why, well, why not? I have the time, and it takes a lot of time to get to Tucson from Houston and I wanted to experience the trip on the “extreme cheap.” One way to Tucson on the “Sunset Limited” which runs three times a week from New Orleans to Los Angeles. I am leaving on a Monday evening, hopefully at 6:55pm and arriving at 7:45pm the next night in Tucson. The fare is $125 for coach but as a Senior, my cost is reduced to $108. The same reduced fare is available for veterans. I will return on Southwest Airlines. 18 | HEIGHTS | July + August 2020
