Traveling Outside of Time
During the ensuing dark period that followed the mid-2002 cuts, all Amtrak trains served exactly the same limited menu, a situation remedied when an Amtrak exec found himself traveling for 12 days on three separate trains and eating from the same menu every night. Now the trains operate on four cycles, with four different groups of entrees split across the national system.
For the passengers, eating onboard is more than cuisine – although decent food is important – it is a social occasion. In the 64-seat dining car, with its 16 tables of four, the rule is “community seating.” That means the dining car steward seats you wherever there is an open seat.
At lunch the first day, I find myself seated next to a lively, artsy 75-year-old woman from Taos and across from a blonder-than-blond San Diego couple, he a medical insurance salesman with harrowing malpractice tales to tell. In under seven minutes Willie and his crew of two have the meals up, and we’re eating. With more than 200 passengers onboard and only one dining car to serve them, efficiency is a must. But somehow we don’t feel harried. It may be our server’s good humor or her Carolina drawl. It may be the cheesecake that comes for dessert, drizzled with either chocolate or cherry sauce. Or it may be the serenity of the tableau streaming by the window, mile after mile of perfect, deserted Pacific coast line. This section of coast halfway between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo is part of Vandenberg Airforce base. It is inaccessible to automobiles. This is a view you cannot get from your car window.