Railrunning

The new commuter train service between Albuquerque and Santa Fe started this week and they offer free special weekend rides the first three weeks. We decided to take the train down to Albuquerque Saturday afternoon, have dinner with friends and catch the last train back to Santa Fe. We arrived at the Railyard and circled looking for parking among the crowds of holiday shoppers. We finally found a spot and walked over to the train depot. There were quite a few people waiting for the train. The train pulled up about ten minutes late and sat there for another 5 minutes before the doors opened to let the passengers off. Quite a few passengers stayed on the train though as they were just riding up and back. Jake and I managed to find seats across the aisle from eachother on the upper level of the train, but quite a few people had to stand or sit in the aisles.

It was remarkable how many people along the route stopped their cars to take pictures of the train and how many people stood at intersections and in backyards waving at the train.

Our respective seat companions turned out to be quite knowledgeable about trains. The guy across from Jake works for the Railrunner and the guy across from me worked for thirty years for a rail service that ran from Belen to Clovis. Jake's guy pointed out a former train wreck, old signs left from when there used to be rail service and an old cement plant that had burned and been partially reconstructed. My guy talked about railway jargon (a slow train is called a dog and if there transients are spotted on it, you tell the conductor "that dog's got fleas".). And both talked about the new rail line construction techniques and how bad signal problems can be. They now build railways with 1/4 mile long sections of rails that are brought in by train and the ties are made of cement. The RailRunner has been plagued with signal problems since its inaugural run.

When we got to Albuquerque we walked uphill on Central Avenue from the station to the University of New Mexico. There we stopped for a cup of tea and then called our friends to pick us up for dinner. They live in a more northerly part of Albuquerque and are doing a beautiful job of renovating their suburban home. Tom was in Jake's woodworking class and I got to see his table. His wife Christine is an artist who works with clay and the sculptures of faces and torsos she sculpts are really well done, full of personality.

They drove us to the Los Ranchos station and there we waited, and waited, for the last train. Several other people were also waiting. We called the Railrunner office and there was no answer. The emergency call button at the station said no one was available. So after 45 minutes we gave up, called our friends Tom and Leah to beg for shelter, and Tom and Christine drove us to their house.

Sunday morning there was no word in the paper about what happened to the train. I guess it was just delayed more than an hour. But Tom fixed us a great breakfast and we took a walk around the neighborhood before catching the 11:30 train back to Santa Fe. That train was also crowded, but we got seats together on the upper level. We were sitting across from a 4th grader from Belen who was on the train with his family. They were on the other side of the aisle down a row. He was getting bored after 2 hours on the train one way so we talked to him some. Somehow the topic of women leaders came up and he declared that the Bible says women can't be leaders. Jake asked whether he ate pork, and he said of course, so Jake pointed out that the Bible also says not to eat pork. He didn't believe that though, so even after pointing out that Germany, England, Chile and Argentina all had (currently or in the past) women leaders, he still was determined that the US couldn't have a woman leader because his mom said the bible said so. Jake was very refrained at any further disillusionment.

We finally got back to Santa Fe around 2pm after which we had to drive across town to pick up the cats (another foster parent had had to pick them up from Petco since I couldn't get back in time!). Then home to shower and change to go to a Christmas open house at a friend of Jake's from his Spanish class. Fortunately they had great food at their party that made up for a lack of lunch and served as dinner!