Flashback: Peru

One more Peru image that never got posted: the train platform when we arrived back in Ollantaytambo after having been to Machu Picchu.

Bath

I spent the afternoon in Bath today—it was supposed to be a day, but the British Railway system had other ideas. It's theoretically only an hour from Oxford to Bath by train, but you have to change trains halfway there, and because the first train was a few minutes late we missed the connection to the second train, and had to wait on the platform at Didcot Parkway (an English name if I ever heard one) for an hour and a half.

And this was after having to stand on the very crowded train from Oxford, although I had a reserved seat in a different car. People were crammed in so tight that it was impossible to move, much less change cars, and I was half-bent over some suitcases in a corner trying very hard not to have a panic attack from claustrophobia. I did have a seat for most of the ride on the second train, but my knees and back have yet to forgive me for that first cramped half hour. So, our plan to arrive in Bath at 10:30, visit the Roman Baths for a few hours, have a nice lunch at a famous fish and chips place, and spend the afternoon visiting the Abbey and the Jane Austen Centre, turned into arriving at twelve, having tea and a scone for lunch before visiting the baths, and walking around the city for an hour before getting on the train back to Oxford.

And it was worth it. Bath is a lovely city, very different from London or Oxford, and worth seeing even for a few hours. But next time—and I hope there will be a next time—I'll try to visit when it's not the height of tourist season and spend a couple of days so I don't have to rush.

Saturday reflections

Continuing with cleaning out the old folders: the Depot Rink Train Shed in Minneapolis, two summers ago.

It's not just the convoys

Some of the many fishing boats working the canal.

Back to Ollantaytambo

The pictures from the train leaving Machu Picchu turned out much better than the first set. So here are some more looks at the stunning sere mountains on the way back to Ollantaytambo.

The Inca Trail

There is of course another option if you don't want to take the train—you can spend four days hiking the Inca Trail. The trail starts outside of Ollantaytambo, and the train stopped there to let trekkers disembark. (There is also a one-day option now; you can get off the train closer to Machu Picchu and do a seven-hour hike. We all joked that we wished we'd known about that option before we decided to take the train.)

The picture on the left shows the sherpas who carry all the food and equipment for the hike, and the hikers are on the right.

The Machu Picchu Express

The ninety-minute train ride from Ollantaytambo follows the Urubamba River through spectacular scenery. All of these pictures were taken through the train windows so aren't as clear as they could be, but you can see how the mountains change as you move into the high jungle.

Moynihan Train Hall, inside

 

Moynihan Train Hall

The old Pennsylvania Station vanished many years before I arrived in New York. The Beaux-Arts building was considered a masterpiece, but the decline of train travel and all that unused airspace above the station led to its being demolished in 1963, with a new Madison Square Garden and some nondescript office towers being built over a much smaller, completely charmless train station.

Our late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to be a shoeshine boy in Penn Station during the Depression, and he proposed turning part of the old Main Post Office building across Eighth Avenue into an annex of the station. That has finally been completed, and the new Moynihan Train Hall opened in January. When, of course, we were in the middle of one of the pandemic's many surges and I wasn't going anywhere I didn't have to.

I finally got to see it on my birthday, stopping in to take a few pictures on my way home from breakfast. I've always loved the Post Office building -- it was designed by McKim, Mead and White, the architects of the original Penn Station, and still has the old Post Office motto above the Corinthian columns: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. 

The retail spaces aren't open yet; with so many people still working from home, I'm not sure when they will be. But there were people there checking the schedules and dashing for their trains through the glass-roofed atrium. Not too many people -- I wasn't tempted to flee -- but enough to make it feel like New York, like home, full of the familiar hustle and hurry that is so much a part of life here. That maybe is coming back a little. That maybe can come back a little. 

Monday flashback: Frankfurt

I found some more pictures from Frankfurt that I never went through -- not surprising that I forgot about them, since I was only there for a day, and I went on to Brussels and Ghent and Rwanda on that trip and took a thousand more photos.

I love this picture of the train station. I'm always a sucker for arches and ironwork.

From the train

The train ride from Montreal to Quebec was four hours through leafless forests, icy rivers, and farms with fields of brown stubble poking through the snow.

Most of the pictures I took came out blurry from the train motion and the foggy windows, but I like the retro feel, as though they were taken with a Kodak Instamatic back in the Sixties and have been yellowing in a family photo album ever since.

Spiraling

On the last afternoon of the trip, we crossed back into British Columbia into Yoho National Park. It was raining so the visuals were not as mesmerizing but we got to at least see a cloud behind which the strange and wonderful fossils of the Burgess Shale were found above Emerald Lake, and learn more about the building of the railroad across Canada. 

This train near Kicking Horse Pass appears to be making an improbably sharp turn, but there's actually a very large spiral tunnel between the two sections of the train; the lower part is entering the tunnel and the cars above are emerging. (You can see a few more cars through the trees at the bottom of the picture -- this is one of those mile-long freight trains.)

The original track had been the steepest stretch of railroad track in North America, and there were frequent accidents. The solution was to dig two spiral tunnels through the mountains -- basically making a giant figure 8 of track, longer but not nearly as steep. Since they did this in 1909, without modern technology, it's a remarkable feat of engineering.

We'd stopped by the overlook on our way to Emerald Lake, learned the history, and admired one of the tunnel entrances through the downpour. As we approached the pass on our way back, there was a train approaching and our driver did a U-turn in the middle of the highway to get us back to the overlook just before the train emerged from the top of the tunnel. So here's one train times three in a single picture.

Two more views

You can see a freight train in the valley in the picture on the left.

Urban poetry

Leaving Vancouver on the Rocky Mountaineer.

Glacial green

One more view from the Rocky Mountaineer -- a preview of coming attractions glimpsed through the trees.

The beautiful emeralds and teals of mountain lakes is caused by rock flour, or glacial flour. I got to dip my finger in a sample; it's a very fine powder the consistency of baking flour or talcum and though it's a dull muddy gray in color, when the particles are suspended in water and the light reflects off them you get these amazing colors.

Two waterfalls

In two very different landscapes.

The photo of the unnamed waterfall on the left was taken the first day on the Rocky Mountaineer, in the sere desert mountains. And on the right is another picture of Pyramid Falls. Everyone on the train, and the Rocky Mountaineer website, called it that but when I first looked it up online, I found an entry in Wikipedia for Pyramid Creek Falls, which seems to be the same waterfall -- difficult to see except from the train tracks, and trains slow down so their passengers can get a good look at it. As ours did.

Whatever it's called, it's beautiful.

Bighorns

Some of the bighorn sheep we saw outside of Kamloops.

The Thompson River

The Thompson River was clear and blue, running through brown desert mountains.

Following two rivers

The route from Vancouver to Kamloops follows two rivers, the Fraser and the Thompson. This is the Fraser, sludgy with silt and reminding me of a Frappuccino.

The Rocky Mountaineer

I always loved the idea of traveling on the Orient Express in the heyday of glamorous train travel, with porters and dining cars and private cabins. The Rocky Mountaineer was not quite on that level, but it was probably the most luxurious train trip I will ever experience. We rode in big comfy leather seats under a glass dome on the top level of the train car, except when we were eating breakfast or lunch in the dining room below or standing outside on the vestibule (which I was amused to see the website describe as an “exclusive outdoor viewing platform”) to get some fresh air or take pictures.

We didn't even have to touch our luggage; we left our suitcases in our hotel rooms when we left in the morning and they were waiting for us in our new rooms that evening, after a day spent reading a little, rocking in the vestibule with my fellow passengers, and just staring out the windows for hours.

Quite a few hours. The first day we spent more than 12 hours getting from Vancouver to Kamloops; the second day was a little shorter, with fewer long delays waiting for freight trains to pass, but still another very long day. And no matter how comfortable the ride, there's a certain point when I just want to get there already, and start wishing I could just get off and walk.

But I'd always wanted to travel by train through the Canadian Rockies and now I have. I wouldn't go out of my way to do it again -- I think I'd rather take the journey by car, with more stops -- but I wouldn't turn down the opportunity, either.