By Robert Riche

While a glorious red sun was setting behind California’s San Gabriel Mountains, the American Orient Express (AOE), pulled by two tandem-linked Amtrak engines, began its transcontinental journey from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.

The train trip that runs west to east once a year re-creates the romance and nostalgia of the great Streamliner era of the 1940s and ’50s with some 16 restored rail carriages once the pride of the New York Central, Union Pacific and other American railroads.

The train is the the brainchild of Henry Hillman Jr., an Oregon entrepreneur whose idea it was to introduce the romance of Europe’s Venice-Simplon Orient-Express to the United States.

The American train was inaugurated in 1997, each carriage reconditioned for modern travel with updated heating, plumbing, electrical and safety features, and redecorated at a cost of one million dollars each.

Our transcontinental trip commenced in February, with 100 passengers and a staff of 42, including porters for each of the sleeping carriages, eight chefs, white-tie dining car waiters, bartenders, three tour guides, lecturers, mechanics and hotel and beverage managers.

We left Los Angeles in the late afternoon, and were soon having cocktails in the lounge car as we climbed through the Cajon Pass. A pianist played popular tunes while fresh hors d’oeuvres of caviar, shrimp, foie gras pate and other delicacies were served.

At 7 p.m. it was time for dinner, featuring the first of many regional specialties…rack of Colorado lamb with roasted garlic and thyme juice accompanied by a bottle of Italian Barolo ’97.

By 10 p.m. we were more than ready to retire to our private Parlor Suite for a good night’s rest.

The next morning the train turned north at Williams, AZ, onto the Grand Canyon spur line through the high desert country at an altitude of 7,000 feet, traveling north through Ponderosa pine country.

At the gateway to Grand Canyon National Park, we transferred to motorcoaches for a short ride to the Yavapai Observation Station and Tower on the western rim of the canyon.

The spectacular six-million-year-old Grand Canyon averages 10 miles wide from rim to rim, encompassing 277 miles of the Colorado River and adjacent uplands. The river averages 35 feet deep, with some places up to 100 feet.

We were given the option of trekking along the mile-and-a-half paved path along the western rim or remaining in the motorcoach to be taken to various observation points.

Our rendezvous point was the famed El Tovar Hotel, completed in 1905, constructed by Hopi Indians of logs shipped from Oregon, and operated today by the National Park System. Roaring fireplaces welcomed us, and after a luncheon in the vast log-beamed dining room, we were ready to board the train again.

That night the train crossed the Continental Divide and headed toward Albuquerque, NM, situated on the Rio Grande River.

In the morning, we took a motorcoach north to Santa Fe, traveling the so-called Turqoise Trail, a valley once extensively mined for its treasured turquoise and situated between the Cerillo Mountain Range to the west and the Sange de Cristo foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Santa Fe became a major trading post between the Indians and the Spaniards. The two cultures existed side-by-side in reasonable harmony until 1680, when the various Pueblos revolted against the harsh demands and religious authority imposed by the Spaniards, driving them out and keeping them out for 16 years.

Today, Santa Fe is an upscale vacation and retirement community, its appearance strictly adhering to the early pueblo style. Its downtown area centers around a plaza and the Spanish Cathedral of St. Francis, and is devoted largely to expensive crafts and clothing shops, art galleries and restaurants.

During stop-offs from the train, special arrangements were made to address the interests of different groups of passengers. Those of us who chose to visit the Pecos National Historical Park were able to view the remains of a Pecos Indian pueblo, in the center of which are the ruins of a church erected by the early Spanish Franciscans. Some 300,000 40-pound adobe bricks were used in its construction. When the Spanish were driven out, the church was toppled, and today only its adobe walls remain.

Our next destination was Texas. The state is some 800 miles wide, and the AOE travels a full day across the high plains country on tracks paralleling the old Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad.

The train continued through Lubbock, its oil pumpjacks perpetually in motion. With lectures scheduled in the lounge and afternoon tea served with delicate pastries, the day passed quickly.

For those seeking a bit of solitude, there was a library stocked with volumes pertaining to the train’s itinerary, plus books on railroading, ancient and modern, and of course, a good supply of mystery stories.

Traveling across Texas was the real thing—rail travel as it used to be, the experience of the train itself being the day’s destination.

The next morning we left the train for an overnight in San Antonio, the first of six mission outposts established along the San Antonio River by San Franciscan priests. We checked into the colonial-style, five-star Mansion del Rio Hotel for a day and night of sightseeing and “partying.”

After a grand Tex-Mex buffet luncheon at the hotel, it was only a few steps to the famous River Walk for a barge trip along the winding three-mile water extension of the San Antonio River that is the centerpiece of the downtown’s leisure life.

The barge tour ended only a few short steps from the legendary Alamo. More than just a central building, it is a compound surrounded by lovely gardens and support buildings, and local actors provide a fascinating running account of the final battle between the defenders and the army of Mexico’s Santa Anna.

Then it was time to party. We were bused to the 25-acre Northwind Ranch for a true Texas barbecue with country-western music. Right outside the dining hall was the rodeo ring, with professional riders competing for the big purse.

It was all Texas fun that night, and more than readied us for a good night’s sleep at the hotel before the next day’s train journey to New Orleans.

The AOE pulled into the New Orleans station the very morning after Mardi Gras. With a giant hangover, the city was pulling itself together, sweeping the streets of debris and attempting to go about its business. We were given a tour of the French Quarter (Vieux Carre), then crossed Canal Street to tour the elegant Garden District.

There was time after that to investigate some of the better antique shops on Royal Street, to wander over to the Mississippi River levee and watch the riverboats, and to sit down at the famous Cafe du Monde and sample a sugar-covered beignet doughnut (dunked, of course, in a cup of chicory-flavored coffee). Lunch was served at the famed Court of Two Sisters with stupendous selections of Creole (Spanish, not hot) and Cajun (French refugee, burning lips) dishes.

Meanwhile, the train was taking on fresh supplies for dinner that night, featuring fresh catfish, fried with pecans. There also were crab cakes and New Orleans Duck Cumberland, a staple of the old AT&S Railroad.

The next day, having traveled across Mississippi and Alabama, the train approached Savannah, the site perhaps of everything most Southern. Savannah was America’s first planned city, laid out by the English in 1733 in a series of 21 parkland squares, known today as the Landmark Historic District. A tour of the district in an open-sided trolley passed under ancient oaks draped in Spanish moss and surround by stately Southern mansions built in the 18th and early 19th centuries. This is the South of Gone With The Wind.

A highlight of the visit to the city was a progressive Southern dinner, starting with mint juleps (strong stuff and sweet) served on the verandah of the house that was the setting for the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Approaching the end of the journey now, the train headed toward nearby Charleston, SC. Like Savannah, Charleston is famous for its Southern charm of the 1700s and 1800s. But the architecture is different, reflecting the influence of the early influx of French Huguenots.

Many of the old homes are built of stuccoed brick, entrances flush with the sidewalk and facing cobbled streets made of quarry stone brought to this country as ship ballast during the early cotton, rice and tobacco trading days. We were loaded into horse and buggies for a tour of the upscale French-influenced neighborhood south of Broad Street.

The city is sited on a peninsula bounded by the Ashley and Cooper rivers that empty into the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the most beautiful gardens in the world are located here, and we were privileged to be transported to the 500-acre Magnolia Plantation. The 1900 Baedeker book states that in the whole of the United States there were only three natural wonders worthy of two stars—the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and the Magnolia Gardens.

A cocktail reception and farewell dinner was served on the train that night as we headed for our final destination, Washington, DC.

Traveling for 10 days with 100 passengers, we found it easy to discover congenial companions and even to make friendships that would last beyond the trip.

This train—unique to U.S. rail travel today—brings back a nostalgia for the past, perhaps a bit of sadness that modern railroads have given up so much that not so very long ago was leisurely and precious to us.

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