As a boy, John Phalen sometimes took the overnight train from Buffalo to Chicago to visit his aunt. "Bedroom B was mine," he tells visitors, who are seated at triangular tables in the same sleeper-lounge car that once carried him along the tracks of the Nickel Plate Road in the 1960s. "I'll never forget that Christmas in 1964 when my brother and I got to ride first class."
We're enthralled. This is our first ride on the Austin & Central Texas Railroad, operated by the Austin Steam Train Association. Lucky us–my husband James and I have seats in the luxury lounge car called City of Chicago. Our car attendant is John Phalen, a long-time volunteer with ASTA who takes our drink orders and tells us to help ourselves to a basket of pastries.
At 10 a.m. sharp, a loud horn blasts, and a man's voice over the loud speaker booms Alllll aboarrrrddddd! Then the 1960 diesel locomotive slowly wheels into motion, and we pull away from the Cedar Park depot, westward bound for Bertram some 20 miles down the tracks.
Since 1992, ASTA volunteers have operated the restored passenger train that runs on the old Austin & Northwestern Railroad, built in 1882 from Austin to Burnet. A few years later, the line was extended to Marble Falls to transport pink granite used in construction of the State Capitol. In 1891, Houston & Texas Central acquired and extended the line to Llano and later to Lampasas.
In 1986, the city of Austin bought the railroad, which is now owned by Capital Metro, the city's transit agency.
Year round, the ASTA offers a variety of excursions. Today, we're on the Bertram Flyer, a three-hour round trip to the Hill Country town. A six-hour jaunt called the Hill Country Flyer takes visitors further down the tracks to Burnet, where they can step off the train and enjoy a two-and-a-half-hour layover. Murder mystery and wine-tasting rides are planned for fall. In October, passengers on the Pumpkin Express can pick pumpkins at the Bertram Depot. During the holidays, Santa and Mrs. Claus will join passengers on the North Pole Express.
The Saturday Evening Express, a nighttime version of the Bertram Flyer, sounds like a fun trip we'd like to take sometime. Or maybe the Capital City Express, a three-hour round trip east to Austin and back to Cedar Park.
Meanwhile, John gives us our safety instructions: Don't hang your head, arms or anything else out the windows. Don't step on yellow-painted caution areas between cars. Stay with young children at all times. And only use the onboard restrooms when the train is moving.
"Otherwise, Texas law says we can put anyone off the train at any place as long as there are no rattlesnakes present," he grins. Seriously? Yes, he nods. (So far, though, no one's been kicked off an ASTA train. Yet.)
Comfortable in our blue cushioned seats, we watch the scenery go by for a while. House tops and back yard fences. Traffic stopped at highway intersections. Cars parked in front of big-box stores. Stretches of ashe juniper, grassy pastures, and barbed wire fences. Views of the San Gabriel River from a trestle bridge. At most, the train travels a leisurely speed of 40 to 45 miles per hour.
Not ones to sit long, James and I get up to explore the other cars, which visitors are encouraged to do. All the cars have been restored by ASTA volunteers to reflect their original era–open-air day coaches to the 1920s and climate-controlled coaches to the 1940s and '50s.
In our car, the City of Chicago (built in 1950), we have our own two-person table in the lounge area. Other riders share two- and four-person tables or relax in five private compartments that once accommodated overnight riders like John.
First, we stroll through the open-air concession car, where visitors can purchase chips, snacks, candy, and drinks, not to mention toy trains, T-shirts, and other souvenirs. Next, we venture into the adjoining Buckeye Lake excursion coach, built in 1949 with a center aisle between rows of two seats (like a bus).
Passengers in the the Silver Pine, a first class coach built in 1948, have cushy seats with foot, leg and head rests. Similar to our car, the sleeper-lounge Eagle Cliff (also built in 1948) offers private compartments or tables with seats in the lounge. The bar's cool soda fountain is original.
Families and couples are seated at tables in the Santa Fe, a first class lounge car with a private party room. In the adjoining Nambe (an adults-only lounge car with an Art Deco decor), no one's occupying the diner-style tables and chairs or private compartment. But most of the booth-style tables in Rippling Stream (another adults-only lounge car) are filled.
Everyone's invited to sit in the open-air P-70 coach (no a/c or heat), which we do for the experience of feeling the breeze. Least expensive of the train's passenger cars, the P-70's seats are roomy and well padded, and the temperature's comfortable even on a hot August day.
In Bertram, we have 15 minutes to step off the train and peek inside the restored 1912 depot, where volunteer Jim Curd, the depot agent, visits with volunteers. After re-boarding, James heads to the "new" front of the train, where he watches the engine turn around and re-connect with the passenger cars for our return trip to Cedar Park.
Later, on the tail end of the train (no caboose today), we pause to stand outside in the last car's vestibule and watch the track roll away from behind us. We're on a straight away, sandwiched between dark green junipers beneath a clear blue sky.
For James, the trip brings back memories of train rides he took as a child to visit family in Mexico City. No doubt, other passengers with similar memories go back in time, too, on board the Austin train. "When I was a little girl, I took the train from Chicago to Florida with my grandmother," I overhear an older woman tell a little girl seated next to her. "I've never forgotten that. I was six or seven."
As a boy, John Phalen also rode the train extensively with his father, then an orthopedic surgeon who lectured in the Northeast. Today, John lives on the Austin end of the railroad we're on, in the same home where he and his wife raised their family.
"I built a look-out stand for my son Paul so he could wave at the trains when they went by," he says. "He ended up working with the same guys he used to wave at. Now he works as superintendent for the Austin Steam Train Association. In fact, he's our conductor today on the train."
Ah, the stories that we bet Paul can tell! Maybe we'll hear those on our next trip on the Austin & Central Texas Railroad.
For more information and reservations, visit www.austinsteamtrain.org or call (512) 477-8468.
