Departures: Life of a railroad timetable

Sometimes it arrives at 6 p.m. Sometimes it arrives at 8 p.m. The last time I rode it, the California Zephyr arrived in Emeryville around Inconvenience” is what Amtrak says instead of “We’re sitting on this siding, waiting for another freight train to go by. Conductors apologize for it, when they aren’t knocking on the lavatory doors, checking for stowaways. Inside the front cover is a map of the United States, crisscrossed with red rail lines that look like arteries even though it’s been a while since trains counted as the lifeblood of getting around. Through the window, the moon waltzed across the desert, keeping pace with the Southwest Chief and the headlights of passing automobiles where the fathers were busy driving instead of snoring. The song lyrics say that all along the southbound odyssey the train pulls out of Kankakee. On the bottom, almost as an afterthought, the timetable says “Scenic Highlights” and then lists “High Sierra, Rocky Mountains, Moffat Tunnel.” What the rider sees in the blackened window is a reflection of his own grungy self, which is rarely scenic halfway through a two-day train trip. The great Chronicle reporter Art Hoppe hiked 4 miles through the snow to the trapped train and didn’t care much for the scenic highlights. “This dispatch is being written by the light of an emergency lantern in the dark, damp interior of the train,” he wrote. A train timetable is a best-case scenario in a script full of alternate endings. The Amtrak timetable says the westbound segment from Chicago to Napierville takes 34 minutes. Either that or Amtrak is padding the schedule to allow a chronically late train to have a snowball’s chance at arriving at its last stop on time. Things printed on paper are an endangered species, especially things offered free of charge. Gas stations stopped handing out highway maps decades ago. According to the timetable, it’s one minute to midnight.