First things first—please do your part and read all the way to the end so you can be thoroughly brainwashed by Chestnut’s famous quote!

Introduction

Because we were waiting in San Antonio, TX for the delayed Texas Eagle, we ended up parked in the Spurs’ hometown for an entire night. At a little after 4 a.m., the work lights outside woke me up. Looking out, I saw that the Texas Eagle coach section that does not continue to LA (and only runs as far as San Antonio) had already been uncoupled and set off right next to us! A few minutes later, the main breaker in our car tripped and we lost power briefly before it came back on. Presumably, Amtrak staff were working at the rear of the train to add cars. As a result, our train grew from 2 locomotives + 5 cars to 2 locomotives + 7 cars.

Day 2 – More Texas:

A little after 5 a.m., with a blast from the lead locomotive’s horn, the Sunset Limited finally departed San Antonio, TX more than three hours late. Doing the math, we had spent a full six hours stopped in San Antonio without moving at all. On the bright side, that meant we slept quite well that night!

After dozing off for a bit more, it was time to get up and have breakfast.

Texas mornings are anything but peaceful—the locomotive horn is the reveille: do re mi~~~

Let’s head to the Sightseer Lounge and enjoy the scenery.

The first stop after leaving the Spurs’ home turf was Del Rio, TX. Just look at the sunshine outside—OMG, what a beautiful sunshine. By this point, you can tell just how late the train was running; we should have passed through here before sunrise!

An 18-wheeler trailer covered in graffiti.

Compared with yesterday’s wetlands, this had already turned into dry prairie scenery, and from here on out the landscape would get even drier.

Not long after leaving Del Rio, you come to the famous Pecos River High Bridge.

A little road winds off into the distance…

Suddenly the train began to slow down. I wanted to pull out my phone and check the map to see where we were, but there was no signal at all. So I shot a quick video to see what I could catch. To my surprise, after crossing this grade crossing, the train quietly pulled into a station—Sanderson, TX, a place that looked incredibly desolate.

As a bonus, we also met a Union Pacific freight train at the station—two birds with one stone!

By noon, it was time to head back to the dining car for lunch! Doesn’t the little Fafa on the table make it feel extra cozy?

After lunch, the train made another stop—Alpine, TX.

Apparently this city’s highlights can pretty much be summed up by the mural on this wall. And in the lower-left corner, there’s even an Amtrak P42DC locomotive painted in—touching, really!

As a side note, the Holland Hotel in the right rear of the photo is a well-known local landmark, and its Google Map reviews are all over the place. Broadly speaking: railfans mostly give it five stars, because trains pass by often enough that there’s no risk of “unhappiness from not seeing trains”; non-railfans give it one star, because the train horns drive them crazy.

After leaving the station, the line was surrounded by this kind of scenery—drier and drier, with hardly any substantial vegetation left.

This one came and went so fast that by the time I grabbed my camera, it was already gone. This was Prada Marfa—a piece of installation art by Prada out in the desert!

As the sun was getting ready to set, the train approached El Paso, TX. By this point, there was finally a bit of Chaparral on the ground.

In the far western tip of Texas—the “kicked-out foot” shape on the map—Hudspeth and El Paso Counties use Mountain Time. So when you notice your phone’s clock suddenly “turning back,” you know you’re getting close to El Paso.

By the way, one stretch of track near Hudspeth County runs so close to Mexico that my phone actually received a text message saying—welcome to Mexico!

Anyway, the train finally pulled in more than three hours late. Tough break for the passengers who had been waiting here. This major border city on the U.S.-Mexico frontier, El Paso, TX, literally means “the pass” in Spanish.

That said, for many people, El Paso is memorable because a lot of old Rebate offers used to require mailing things there. Even the annual 1099 tax forms for AMEX Referral seem to come shooting out from here!

The station building at El Paso.

Inside the waiting room.

And when we came out of the waiting room, it was actually raining… well then…

In the photo, you can clearly see that our train had already picked up additional cars and was now a seven-car consist. The grimy car on the right, looking thoroughly battle-worn, was the sleeping car that had come all the way from Chicago and was added in San Antonio in the early morning. The car ahead of it was the coach from Chicago as well, with a car number starting with 21.

We pulled out of the station, and from here you could catch a glimpse of Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican border city just across a single iron fence.

Not long after that, we reached the closest point to Mexico on this trip—our route was less than 15m from the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

I was thinking to myself: wouldn’t it be pretty easy to climb over from Mexico into the U.S. here? Then the next photo gave me the answer.

Right by the drainage ditch stood a bored-looking Border Patrol officer. The funniest part? He was a railfan too, standing there with his phone out filming the train. Fair enough—this place sees fewer than one passenger train a day!

That said, I do have one friendly reminder for him: sir, might want to check whether the left rear tire is a little low on pressure?

Day 2 - New Mexico:

Since El Paso is already at the far western edge of Texas, we entered New Mexico not long after departure. Our first stop in the state was Deming, NM. Since it was such a tiny station, we stopped for less than two minutes before heading right back out.

Our second and final stop in New Mexico was Lordsburg, NM.

At night this place felt like a ghost town... According to one of the experts in our group chat, this has the cheapest Hilton points redemption in the entire U.S., at just 10,000 points. Any brave volunteers want to try it?

By then it was dinner time, so we headed to the dining car for our “last supper.”

The bokeh from the EF 35mm F2.0 IS USM was about what you’d expect. I’m sure someone would complain that it lacked that famous Leica look.

Lizi said: can you eat Leica look?

Time flies, and the years take their toll—along with some of the hair on Lizi’s head... A strangely melancholy moment.

What cures sadness? Good food, of course. Tu ordered the steak, and I went with the chicken.

For dessert, Tu had the chocolate cake and Lizi picked the carrot cake.

Day 2 - Arizona:

The train didn’t spend very long in New Mexico before crossing into Arizona. Our first stop in Arizona was Benson, AZ.

WaFd Bank—what kind of bank is that? First time I’d ever seen it.

There’s a mountain section between Benson and Tucson, and riding through it was painful. At one point we were crawling along at just 40km/h. Even the speed restrictions on the Baoji-Chengdu Railway and Chengdu-Kunming Railway aren’t that low, right?

Once we cleared the winding mountain trackage, we hit a straightaway. Then you could hear the engineer notch up the throttle, the locomotive’s diesel engine roaring as our speed shot all the way up to 130km/h.

But not long after that, we hit the brakes hard for the next station stop. At 10:30 p.m., the train finally reached the last major station before the end of the journey: the famous “too young, too simple” Tucson, AZ.

As usual, here’s the standard Amtrak station sign, with the dining car staff hard at work cleaning up trash in the background.

Tucson station actually had surprisingly strong passenger traffic. Makes sense, though—this train is probably one of the most cost-effective ways for people in Tucson to get to Los Angeles.

There’s also a preserved piece here: Southern Pacific steam locomotive No. 1673.

One more thing: under the eaves next to No. 1673, there’s a camera belonging to the Virtual Railfan YouTube channel. You can wave at it, then go on YouTube and admire your own glorious image there, with about a 15-20 second delay.

The locomotive had to refuel in Tucson; otherwise it wouldn’t have enough range to make it to Los Angeles.

In fact, the locomotive refueled twice during the trip. The first time was in San Antonio—I just didn’t get a photo of it.

Day 3 - California:

After getting off for some fresh air in Tucson, we went back onboard, washed up, and called it a night. Just like that, another day was over. By the time I woke up the next morning, the train had already passed Palm Springs.

Our first stop after daybreak was Ontario, CA.

With only about half an hour left before Los Angeles, something big went wrong... When we reached Pomona, CA, the locomotive’s main breaker for head-end power tripped. The immediate result was that none of us could flush the toilets anymore.

The Amtrak crew spent five minutes trying to fix it, but it just wouldn’t work. At that point, with so little distance left, they basically decided to forget it and just drag the train into Los Angeles.

We blasted straight through El Monte without stopping!

Passing LATC - Union Pacific Los Angeles Transportation Center.

Crossing the Los Angeles River and passing the tower at Mission Junction.

In the end, after arriving 3.5 hours late, Sunset Limited train No. 1 completed the full trip in a total of 49 hours.

One last shot of our road locomotive. Thanks to GE P42DC Nos. 54+194 for hauling us 3200km without a locomotive failure. The main breaker tripping right at the very end can be ignored; at least we never had a power problem that forced us to call for a freight locomotive rescue.

We went through the underground passage to the Baggage Claim carousel to pick up our luggage.

Out of the station and back home!

Summary

And with that, Lizi's year-end Christmas grand trip of 2021 came to an end.

Appendix: Lizi's Classic Brainwashing Quotes

1. (When you haven't achieved your goal yet) Be patient and wear down the other side! Learn from the turtle: when it's time to pull your head in, pull it in!
2. (When you've achieved your goal and I'm being sneaky) Grab it and run! Don't waste time grinding with the other side; once you've achieved your objective, get out fast!
3. (Don't ask too many questions.) If the system recognizes it, that's all that matters.
4. You actually trust customer service? What good is it if customer service is just talking nonsense? Does the system code recognize it? If the system doesn't recognize it later, then when you go back to customer service, they'll definitely give you a completely different story and try every excuse to brush you off. When Lizi talks big, at least I can post all these screenshots here for everyone to see; when customer service talks big, what can they give you?
5. What can you do to me? What you can do on me?
6. A lot of the time, the root of the problem is that you didn't hit hard enough, so the problem came back! Haven't you heard the Yang Family Generals story? If Yang Qilang had just killed Pan Renmei at the city gate, would all that later chaos have happened? The easiest way is to solve the problem directly with the equivalent of using a nuclear bomb to blow up a bunker!
7. The moment the other side makes a mistake, seize it and counterattack in one wave to finish them off (don't give your opponent or the referee any opportunity) — like during the Cultural Revolution, stomp him under billions of feet so he can never make a comeback!
8. Just unleash the ultimate move directly!
9. When you're confused, please use the sinister proof-by-contradiction method — Belly black counter-evidence!
10. Never forget your original intention! Don't forget why you started playing the points game in the first place! Don't let other people's words easily lead you astray; think analytically for yourself!
11. I have no risk tolerance, just like a Nintendo FC character — I don't even have a health bar; according to the code, one bullet and I'm done.
12. In general, all kinds of things tend to get worse the more they're changed. As the saying goes: an old cat sleeps on the roof, passed down generation after generation; the later waves of the Yangtze push the earlier ones on, but each litter is worse than the last!
13. One realization from many years as a railfan: a lot of the time, don't assume you'll get a second chance! Sometimes when you say goodbye, it really means you'll never meet again... さよなら...