Zephyr: Tracking a Dream Across America

by Henry Kisor
Hardcover: New York: Times Books (Random House), 1994. ISBN 0-8129-1984-X
Softcover: New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

This is the first of a series of three related reviews on Amtrak travelogue books. The second is on Making Tracks and the third is on Booked on the Morning Train

Zephyr focuses on one train in the Amtrak system — the California Zephyr which makes a 51-hour run from Chicago to Emeryville (San Francisco). Kisor, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, gives the book an unmistakably journalistic touch. He describes the passengers, the route, the sights, and the history of the areas that the train passes through, but most of all, he follows the doings of the people who ride the train week after week &mdash the crew. As a journalist, he took an insider's view of the train's operation, boarding the train with its chief of on-board services as he prepares it for the run, watching the chef prepare culinary delights on a tight schedule in the kitchen of the dining car, even spending time up front with the engineers as they deftly handle the train through miles of memorized route.

To be sure, Kisor is riding the train himself, and occasionally indulges in daydreams, as when he meets a fellow writer and spends a couple of hours jointly concocting a murder mystery set aboard a train. He tells of passenger antics, of the forced camaraderie of the assigned-seating in the diner, of the reactions to the views from the lounge car. he hops off the train for a short stay in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. But the focus always returns to the train and to the people who make it run. The crew recounts some of the passenger stories from the bottomless store of their collective memories, and as they go about their day-to-day chores punching tickets or counting cash or collecting money with Kisor in step, they also tell him about their routines on the train.

Indeed, Zephyr touches on many aspects of train operations from an employee's viewpoint. Kisor tells us of the Amtrak requirement that sleeper attendants shine shoes, a job seen as a derogatory throwback to the Pullman days where porters were all black, paid none or little, relied on wages, and were called "George" by the affluent white passengers. We discover how the dining car steward battles the Amtrak supplies computer to get what the dining car really needs, find out about the attitudes of freight engineers who were bumped off their long-held passenger runs when Amtrak began to staff its trains with its own operating personnel. It's almost like hanging out at a crew base or a union meeting as they talk shop.

Kisor is clearly a railroad enthusiast, and even provides an overview of railroad enthusiasts — the foamers who can tell you which locomotive was introduced in which year, the model railroaders, the collectors of railroadiana, and the group to which he belongs,

"the largest subspecies of American railroad buff — those who probably do not think of themselves as railfans, those who do not give two hoots for arcane technology ... Perhaps we ride for ... sheer tourist joy ... nostalgic reasons, recapturing warm memories of childhood train trips with our parents or grandparents ... for other emotional reasons ... opening new frontiers in our deeper selves."

Adding another interesting angle is the fact of Kisor's deafness. He begins the book with it, and it is just barely present in the background, enough to occasionally cause the reader to wonder, "How did he know that? He's deaf." He doesn't leave us hanging, though, as the author's note at the end explains his methods. He has ridden the train many times, no doubt storing up questions for the next trip, observing patterns. Overall, it's a collection of anecdotes, history, and observations collected into one coherent whole. As the train proceeds east to west and time passes on the 51-hour schedule, Kisor seamlessly weaves in experiences from one so that it feels like one is riding nearly continuously.

An enjoyable account which contains much behind-the-scenes information; one might read it after taking the California Zephyr to get one's questions answered. It's a good railroad book to start with, doesn't overwhelm with arcana, yet is filled with interesting details. And, in true journalistic fashion, it comes with an index.