Go East, Young Man! (part 4)

Just before dark a northbound finally crept by and I nailed it as it made the turn at the top of the departure yard, my pack now a bit lighter than when I arrived. I watched a nice sunset out the boxcar doors, then retired to a stack of cardboard deposited by the last inhabitant. Since the northern end of the Sacramento Valley isn't exactly renowned for its scenic splendor, I drifted off to sleep early, knowing that soon I'd be on "train time" with sleep being available only a little here and a little there.

Even though I was technically behind schedule, I felt pretty good as we were speeding along with few, if any, stops for other trains, and I had a smooth riding boxcar with both doors open on either side, so there was plenty of fresh air. Luck seemed to be with me as we made a quick crew change in Dunsmuir and an even quicker one in Klamath Falls, but a slow trip up the east side of the Cascades for some reason and I knew that I'd never make my connection with the BN train I wanted in Portland. We did, however, virtually fly down the west side, and I was surprised when we got to Eugene before sunset — maybe I'll get my train after all. A mercifully quick crew change with no switching and we were off to Portland. I seized on the occasion to catch some sleep in advance of what might be an active night getting over to the Lake Yard and catching out before daylight.

At the first hint of slowing down to enter the Brooklyn Yard, I bailed out and walked over to the street that borders the yard to see if any busses might come by soon, but the posted schedule was so worn and tattered that I couldn't read anything, and I began the long walk up to the north end of Portland and the Lake Yard. I don't remember anything of interest that occurred during this ordeal, except that I felt that after this trip I would limit myself to one days ration of wine at a time...

Finally reaching the lower end of the yard I saw that the track usually occupied by hotshots leaving town going north was empty, just as I feared, but I headed over to a shanty to see if anything else was called before morning. To my delight, after I asked if ^#2 had left yet, knowing full well that it had, the clerk answered "Yeah, the first section is gone, but they're pulling up the second section right now". Trying to contain my excitement, I thanked him and headed out to find a dark spot to hang out in. Sure enough, apparently there were more cars that didn't make it up to the departure yard before the ramp cutoff, so they were running another train of piggybacks behind the ^#2 train, which I immediately dubbed the "^#2½ train".

The train pulled out, I jumped on, we hung a right on the other side of the interstate bridge, and I was finally headed east on Burlington Northern. There were only about 20 cars on my train and we made seriously fast time to Pasco and Spokane, but I knew that there was a junker behind us that would still get me over the Rockies before dark, so I bailed in Spokane and waited for ^#10, which, at that time, was the highest priority eastbound manifest freight. Starting to get a little nervous as the day wore on and still no train, I felt that the tradeoff was warranted as I would sleep better on the back of a grainer than I would on a piggyback. Soon the next eastbound pulled in and I was on it when it left. The timing was perfect as we drifted down the east side of the Rockies into Browning at sundown and I was spared the bleakness of eastern Montana by a long and restfull wine-induced sleep.

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