Traveling Outside of Time
Late morning and I am talking with Jerry Griffo, a operations supervisor who sometimes rides this train. He’s good-looking, mid-50s, with a thatch of silvery gray hair, a neat moustache and one of those lively, always-in-motion faces that is not a middle-aged man’s face, not a supervisor’s face, but an aging kid’s face with a kid’s sense of adventure and mischief. Griffo grew up a few blocks from Union Station in what was then an Italian neighborhood, signed on as a car attendant with Amtrak twenty-five years ago and has been on track ever since. He has spent most of the trip chatting up passengers, making witty announcements on the P.A. and generally spreading charm and good cheer throughout the train. He doesn’t have Brian Rosenwald’s clout or independence, but Griffo does share his ex-boss’s sensibilities.
We are sitting at the crew table in the back of the now deserted dining car where he is telling me about his plan to renovate the Coast Starlight’s Kiddie Cars, one of Rosenwald’s particularly brilliant innovations. The Kiddie Car is a coach-baggage car, with the lower level, where baggage used to be stored, converted into a big, open kids’ playroom. There’s carpet on the floor, a kiddie picnic table, toys and games, a VCR and TV screen (with a stash of cartoon videos) and benches for parents along the sides. Parents love the Kiddie car almost as much as the kids. But the real fans are the childless passengers in coach who no longer have to endure little kids running wild in the aisles.