Category Archives: trains

PORTUGAL AT CHRISTMASTIME

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Gary Garth McCann

We spent Christmas break in three wonderful, historic towns in Portugal, with a final stop in that country in Lisbon. Pictured below are Evora, Coimbra, and Geamareas. [ The top photo is of Rossio plaza, Lisbon, from tourazores.com. The next … Continue reading →

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THEY DON’T TALK ON THEIR CELL PHONES, BUT THEY DON’T DANCE ON THE PLATFORMS, EITHER.

Posted on August 23, 2018 by Gary Garth McCann

On French trains passengers must move into the vestibule, where the restrooms are, to talk on their cell phones. They do this without exception, without fault. So mannerly, so polite the French. They don’t, however, dance on the platform, as … Continue reading →

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Italy: Vernazza in Cinque Terre, the Amalfi Coast, Naples, and How We Got Around

Posted on August 17, 2017 by Gary Garth McCann
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In the Amtrak Southwest Chief dining car

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Gary Garth McCann

En route from California at Christmas Todd and I were seated in the diner across from a young couple. He wore a snug gray sweater-type shirt that showed off the curves of his biceps and pecs–and he was muscular to … Continue reading →

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Andreas Feininger “Coney Island,” 1949, Time Machines and Dining Cars

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Gary Garth McCann

Time and place, the two dimensions in which we travel. Except for the very large fact that as gay people, Todd and I would very much have needed to hide the nature of our relationship in the late ‘forties, early … Continue reading →

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Union Pacific Station, Cheyenne, Wyoming: “Lady, if all your things were on that train, you should’ve been on it, too.”

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Gary Garth McCann

You don’t have to do much reading between the lines to see what was going on. In the late ’40s my Aunt Lacy and “a gal” she met were having highballs in the club car with some soldiers on the … Continue reading →

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What train travel was like on the streamliners of the 1950s and 60s

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Gary Garth McCann

I’m gradually scanning my railroad memorabilia collection online  at streamlinermemories.com  The dome lounge, below, ran on several of Santa Fe’s streamliners. Photo/drawing from a Santa Fe Railroad brochure published in 1960.

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Ronald Reagan advertising the Union Pacific Domeliner City of Los Angeles

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Gary Garth McCann

Before he was governor, before he was president, actor Ronald Reagan appeared in these Union Pacific Railroad ads in the National Geographic in the mid-1950s. The Domeliner City of Los Angeles is the same train that was featured in the I Love … Continue reading →

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Humor in a flute: the difficulty of defining “flute” or “fluted” for someone new to the English language

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

On a recent stay with a friend who teaches at the University of Arizona, she told Todd and me that a foreign visitor to the university who was mastering English quite nicely asked what “fluted” meant. My friend and her … Continue reading →

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Amtrak California Zephyr in the Rockies: a picture for cooling off in July

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

Click to enlarge the photo. The track cuts across a mountainside, snow above and snow below. Todd and  I have ridden the Zephyr numerous times, winter and summer. It’s one of the world’s spectacular train rides, through the heart of the … Continue reading →

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