A Love So Bold by Anon Allsop is one of my favourite stories here on BC. But being English and in England and although having lived in Australia when young, you do not really appreciate the distance that waggon train that Hannah and Gideon travelled with covered to reach the Willamette Valley at the end of the story.
You think you do, but in modern times with air travel and maybe an hour long television documentary cannot really give the feel of the time or distance it took Hannah and Gideon’s little family to make the journey across America.
But recently on YouTube I came across eight videos showing the California Zephyr train journey from Sacramento to Chicago. West to East I know, but being over eight and a half hours long in total it gives a genuine feel of the land and its changing aspect that they travelled over, and of the time it would have taken.
Putting the videos on a usb stick and plugging it into your tv really brings it all alive.
If anyone wants to see the videos, the links are below:
It says video #3, but it is the start of the journey.
Train across USA: #3 California Zephyr sleeper--Sacramento-Sierra Nevada tunnels-Reno 2016-05-10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63o3w9aa75Y&t=633s
Train across USA: #4 California Zephyr sleeper--Reno to Winnemucca Nevada desert sunset 2016-05-10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LH28yFnZO0&t=29s
Train across USA: #5 California Zephyr sleeper-Book Cliffs of Utah to Grand Jct. Colorado 2016-05-11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D81kPWbMxh4&t=49s
Train across USA: #6 California Zephyr sleeper--Grand Jct. to Glenwood Springs, Colorado 2016-05-11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnUesuxk6IY&t=257s
Train across USA: #7 California Zephyr sleeper--Glenwood & whitewater Gore Canyon 2016-05-11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM7glstuFkw&t=122s
Train across USA: #8 California Zephyr sleeper--Down Front Range Big 10 Curve into Denver 2016-05-11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LljIEIH7xU8&t=1s
Train across USA: #9 California Zephyr sleeper class--Denver to high plains sunset 2016-05-11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-bNprEb2v0&t=320s
Train across USA: #10 Amtrak California Zephyr--Across Iowa & the Mississippi to Chicago 2016-05-12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tavCN2trCk&t=83s
Comments
Reminded
This reminded me of something from the "Little House" books when I was young. At the start of "By the Shores of Silver Lake", when they're going to take the train, Laura as the narrator says that trains went awfully fast. "In one hour, they went twenty miles -- as far as a wagon went in a day." Something like that. At that time, I was already under the influence of the books, and thought of that as really fast. In particular, I recalled repeated earlier statements about their wagon going twenty miles every day.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Driving the country ...
I've been over the route from Cleveland to Portland, Oregon by car. We did it in 5 days. From Chicago to mid Wyoming was pretty flat. West of there was mountainous, treed, beautiful and green.