Photos of Amtrak route from Sacramento to Washington DC

Clickety-Clack 2: 5000 miles on Amtrak… The ‘Joys’ of Bunk Bed Sleeping

/ Curt Mekemson / 38 Comments
This shows the width of our roomette. My suitcase is perched next to me and against the wall. It had picked up a hitch-hiker: Peggy’s purse. The suitcase had to come down when Peggy climbed up to her bunk bed. Our window is on the other side. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

The last time I slept in a bunk bed I was sharing a one bedroom apartment with two classmates, Cliff and Jerry, at Berkeley in 1964/65. I was on the bottom bunk then, as well. My memory includes one particularly wild night. It was our first weekend back at UC. Cliff had brought home a small wooden barrel of tequila from Mexico where he had spent the summer in a Spanish language immersion program.  For some insane reason, the three of us decided we had a solemn responsibility to drain the barrel to kick off our senior year. It was not our best decision.

Jerry promptly fell asleep and started snoring. Loudly, if I remember correctly. He had the regular bed. I spent 30-minutes staring at myself in the bathroom mirror in a semi-hallucinatory state fascinated by the fact I couldn’t stop drooling. When I returned to bed, Cliff, who had the top bunk, talked unceasingly. He wouldn’t shut up. Since neither Jerry nor I was listening, I assume he was talking to himself. I’d grunt on occasion. Finally, I lifted up my leg and kicked his mattress. Down came Cliff, mattress and all on top of me. After we had untangled ourselves, we laughed until we were hoarse and then put Cliff’s mattress on the floor for the rest of the night. I think he was still talking when I fell asleep. Damn, did we have headaches the next morning!

Fast forward 56 years to now for my second bunk bed experience. This time on Amtrak. Peggy had top honors. Our tiny sleeper was about five feet wide and seven feet long. It started as two comfortable chairs facing each other. Large windows provided great views from our double decker roomette.  There was barely, and I do mean barely, room for our two day packs and two small suitcases. When we were ready for bed, the car attendant came to our room and set it up. Our two chairs became the lower bunk and the top bunk was released from its attachment to the ceiling. The whole process took about three minutes.

Peggy shows off our windows. Reflecting sunlight distorted the view in this case.
Our roomette bunk beds are set up for us and waiting for us to crawl in. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

The bottom line of all this, of course, is how did we sleep. There were three factors. The first was the comfort of the beds. No problem there. The second was their width. Given all of the times that Peggy and I have slept in small backpacking tents, they felt roomy.  The real challenge was adapting to the moving train. First there was the clickety-clack of the wheels passing over the joints in the rails. It was repetitive, however, and soon disappeared into the background. I thought of it as noisemaker to lure me sleep. 

The train’s swaying was another issue altogether. We didn’t have a problem coming across the Sierras. Trains go slowly when they climb and go down mountains. It’s on the flats that the engineers put the pedal to the metal. It’s where they make up for lost time. I can imagine one engineer boasting to another, “I made it across there in an hour!” with the other responding, “Ha, it only took me 59 minutes.” For the most part, the swaying is like the clickety-clack. You get used to it. But there were instances when I was reminded of being on a ship during a really bad storm or hitting heavy turbulence in a jet. There were three particularly bad situations: when the train was traveling over rough tracks, when it went over a poorly maintained road crossing, and when it went around a corner faster than it should. 

During the day, it wasn’t much of a problem, assuming you had something to grab onto if you were out and about. Sleeping was a different issue, as we learned our first night. The attendant had worked his three-minute magic and we had settled down for a long winter’s sleep across Nevada when the train hit some rough track, traveled over a poorly maintained road crossing, and went around a sharp curve— all at the same time— fast. Wham! Peggy was thrown into the netting designed to keep her from rolling off the bed and I was thrown into the side of the train. “That does it!” I head Peggy mumble loudly as she scooted across the bed, climbed down from her bunk, and slipped into mine. Remember how I said the bunk was roomy. That’s for one person. There was simply no room for the two of us. We had to sleep head to toe. I slept with Peggy’s feet and she slept with mine. I’m not sure which of us got the better deal. 

Traveling between Chicago and Washington DC we were upgraded to a bedroom. It came with a double-sized bed that was comfortable for the two of us, a sink, and its own bathroom! We didn’t have to use the communal facility. While our bedroom wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, it felt palatial in comparison to our roomette. A small shower even provided a bath assuming you didn’t mind washing off the toilet at the same time. Recommendation: Choose a time to bathe when the train isn’t swaying.

Our bedroom even came with an extra chair. The wide couch became our double bed. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)

We had one other configuration. Amtrak had supposedly upgraded its roomettes with a restroom. We had one returning home on our route between Chicago and LA. The toilet that snuggled up to the bottom bunk, sort of like you might see in a prison cell. It was inches away from my head when I was is bed. That was not okay. To add insult to injury, Amtrak had removed the communal restrooms from the car. We had to go on a three-car hike to find a real bathroom. Our attendant told us that the company had realized the error of its ways and was no longer building the roomette restrooms. What a surprise.

All in all, while I’ve had a bit of fun with this post, we slept in relative comfort, especially if you compare it with trying to sleep on an airplane. Even the coach seats on Amtrak are wide, comfortable, and fold back far enough to create a half-way decent night’s sleep.

My photos of the trip today include our journey from Sacramento to Washington DC, minus, of course, the pictures we took while crossing the Rocky Mountains that I shared in my last post. Enjoy.

It seemed appropriate for our journey to start in Sacramento since it served as the terminus for America’s first Transcontinental Railroad, as shown in this mural in the train station
Leaving Sacramento, we began to work our way up and over the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. These are the foothills near Colfax, about 30 miles away from where I was raised and a thousand feet higher.
Crossing the Sierras provided numerous views of the mountains. The track parallels Interstate 80, our usual route across the mountains. You can see it edging around the side of Red Mountain.
We were also treated to closer looks at the snow. Here it quite beautifully covers rocks. I had been hoping for and expecting more snow. I’d spent several winters sharing a cabin about ten miles from where this photo was taken where the snow was often 10-20 feet deep.
The train comes out of the Sierras at Donner Lake. The Donner Party spent its tragic winter down near the end of the lake. Thus the lake’s name.
After passing though the small town of Truckee, the tracks follow the Truckee River down to Reno. I took this photo shooting up from the river as the sun was setting.
And this one.
The sun sets on the Truckee River, ending our first day of train travel.
We woke up the next morning to some impressive eastern Utah scenery.
It was the type of country that Peggy and I have come to associate with the southern part of the state.
Crossing into Colorado, I snapped a picture of a farm with its long rows of grapes.
I will feature one photo of our Rocky Mountain crossing taken with our iPhone and not included in my last post. (Photo by Peggy Mekemson.)
Having gone to sleep for our second night after crossing the Rocky Mountains, this was more typical of the views we had when we woke up. My great, great, great grandfather James Mekemson and his wife, Mary, plus lots and lots and lots of Mekemsons are buried in eastern Illinois, a few miles away from this tree.
Chicago’s Union Train Station is truly grand. And since Christmas was coming, it had a grand Christmas tree.
Peggy stands in front of the tree for perspective. In addition to the large Christmas balls and small lights, the tree was appropriately decorated with signs from America’s different railways.
We went for a short walk which was supposed to be longer except for the 8 degree F weather. We entertained ourselves by taking shots of skyscrapers reflected in skyscrapers.
Having gone to sleep again outside of Chicago, we woke up in the Appalachian Mountains.
And were treated to views of snow covered trees. We weren’t in the Sierras or Rockies anymore, Dorothy. Grin.
When we passed through Harper’s Ferry we were an hour or so out of Washington. So I’ll end my photos here today.

For my next post, I am going to experiment with a photo essay. (It’s called what do you do with your 80,000 plus photos.) The post after that I’ll feature our Amtrak trip back to the West plus eating on the train, which is all about meeting strangers.