IMAGES: GETTY; ALAMY
North of Los Angeles, the old tracks speed us out of Star City.
The high-rises fade away into thickly vegetated canyons and creeks, the San Fernando Valley and Burbank glinting in blazing sun. In the train observation car — a living room on rails — we seem to be moving almost silently. But I’m aware of a dizzying vision of America ahead, feeling what poet Walt Whitman perhaps sensed when praising this way of travel. ‘Type of the modern! Emblem of motion and power! Pulse of the continent!’ he wrote in To a Locomotive in Winter, his ode to US train travel. There are probably several interpretations of this — but, to me, it seems to mean that while American freedom came from the revolution, it was the railroads that laid the foundations for the American dream. Operated by Amtrak, the Coast Starlight has been running
from Los Angeles to Seattle in its present form for 50 years. Rail buffs may ride the route for its full 35-hour, 1,377-mile duration, but mine is the journey of the part-time trainspotter. My destination is northern California and Sacramento — one of the most historic railroad cities in the US. The first long-distance locomotive on the Pacific coast was
called the Coast Daylight and it commenced service in 1937 — yet rolled only as far north as San Francisco. The pre-war streamliner that ran the route was described by the local press as the ‘most beautiful passenger train in the world’. Its rush, roar and shrill steam whistle are now footnotes in railroad history. But I remain convinced there’s no better way to see California — if not the whole of the US — than from a train carriage window, while the silver-liveried engine speeds beneath big skies of bright, cobalt blue. By the time we reach Santa Barbara, the California of the
mind’s eye has arrived — albeit in fleeting glimpses. A heron takes flight over rippling Pacific waves. A lone surfer channels the spirit of surf rock bands of the 1960s on Arroyo Quemada Beach. Seaweed swirls in the shallows. Hundreds of pelicans pose. On a good day, a humpback whale might breach skywards. Offshore, in the Southern California Bight, lie the islands of
San Miguel, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz — their names reflecting the whims of British explorer George Vancouver, who had a Spanish map in his pocket while exploring the coast in the late 18th century. Their original inhabitants were the Indigenous Chumash people and the landscapes are as wild now as they were thousands of years ago. The beach-curled islands can be reached only by concessionaire boats, then explored on foot or by kayak. The most significant benefit, perhaps, is keeping all those who visit in close contact with the untouched nature left behind by the Native Americans. The train trundles on. Ours is now a journey north towards
San Luis Obispo, whose ‘SLO CAL’ label evokes both the county’s initials and the area’s laid-back lifestyle. We sneak onto a part of the coast where roads don’t reach. The train hugs the beach, its tracks almost touching the shore, then skirts through dunes matted with swaying wild rye and purple needlegrass. A bridge carries us across an estuary marbled with sand and I wish for an unscheduled stop, so I can leap into the sparkling ocean. “Just look at those colours,” says a fellow passenger. “I should
have brought some popcorn,” adds her companion. This deserted stretch is part of America that people rarely see.
44
NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/TRAVEL
Clockwise from left: The Amtrak Coast Starlight has been operating in its current form for 50 years; Castoro Cellars, an organic, family-owned vineyard; The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California Previous pages: Palos Verdes Lunada Bay
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252
