25Aug11: The California Zephyr: Day 3 (Rail Day 9)

During the night we crossed into Nebraska. We arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska around 6:30 in the morning, three hours overdue. From there the California Zephyr normally goes to Omaha, Nebraska, however the Missouri River is still flooded and the line through Omaha currently has a temporary levee built across it, so pretty much all traffic is routed over a single river crossing south of Omaha. Of course this meant we had more freight traffic to wait for before we could proceed east. Shortly after we left Lincoln one of the dining car crew became ill and we had to stop so that she could be taken by ambulance to a hospital. The two ambulances that arrived were from Greenwood and Ashland, Nebraska. We were all concerned that she, I think her name was Cheri or Sherry, was being sent all alone to a hospital hundreds of miles from home. One of the other dining car crew, Mildred (one of two Mildreds working in the dining car) got off the train and stayed with her. That made us feel a little better and we all hope that Cheri (or Sherry) is doing well and home with her family by now. This meant that the dining car was now down two people. Bob and Jim and the new attendant Miguel pitched right in, waiting and busing tables.

When we reached the Missouri River we could see flooding on either hand. Acres and acres of land covered with water with occasional groups of trees and farm buildings standing in the flood. One section of track would have been under water if it hadn't been for the sandbags pile along both sides.

Because of the limited crossings for the Missouri the traffic was very congested. By the time we got to Burlington, Iowa we were almost 10 hours behind schedule. We should have been there at 10:30 in the morning, but didn't get there until almost 9 pm. Then things got bad. We got to within about 15 miles of Galesburg, Illinois and stopped. First there were four west-bound freights we had to wait for. They passed and we moved a mile or so. Then there were a couple of more freights we had to wait for. They passed and we moved a little more. Then there were more freights we had to wait for. At this point it had been 6 hours since we stopped west of Galesburg and we had advanced a total of 5 miles. The last freight we were waiting for either had the locomotive die or the operating crew had their clock run out, which meant they had to stop and wait for a new crew or for their clock to reset in eight hours. By the time that train cleared our operating crew had run out of time and we had to wait another 45 minutes for a new crew. All told we spent 8 hours in one five mile stretch just a few miles east of Galesburg.

None of this information was easy to come by. The conductor had stopped telling the passengers anything at this point. He wasn't telling the crew much either. Yet again it was Jim, whose full name I believe is James Carson, who stepped into the breach. Jim pried information from whatever source he could and passed it on to the passengers. He also convinced the conductor to resume letting us know what was going on. It was really James Carson who held that train together and I hope he will get some recognition from Amtrak for that.

Once the new operating crew was on board BNSF seemed to realize that the California Zephyr had been held up enough and the west-bound freights wait for us to pass. We were so far behind schedule that we had to be served an unplanned dinner. Sleeping car passengers had a choice of one the three least popular entrees (that's what they had left). Coach passengers were served chicken stew which we can only assume was made from what was left.