It was a train ride. It was a funeral procession.
It was a joyous and scenic adventure through history.It was a somber death march, perhaps foreshadowing the extinction of a species.
It was the final eastbound voyage of Amtrak's Desert Wind, a hail to the rails that celebrated the past and mourned the future of passenger trains in America.
The 13-car train, with its 16 crew members and nearly 300 passengers, rocked gently through Salt Lake City early Friday on its way to Chicago. It was a trek it has made at least three times a week since 1979; a journey that it, and perhaps no other passenger train, will ever make - on a regular basis - again.
"This is a sad day for all of us," said conductor Bill Sheehy, a former Park City resident and five-year veteran of the Desert Wind. "If this (train) will go, the rest will follow, I'm convinced of it."
Sheehy fears that within a decade, Amtrak's entire fleet of inter-city passenger trains will succumb to politics and the public's progressive abandonment of the rails as a mode of travel.
He has reason for concern. Congress is no longer willing to subsidize the national rail service to the same degree it has in the past. Amtrak's share of federal money is down to $225 million this year after topping out at $720 million in 1981. Those budget constraints have forced it to pursue endeavors that bring in the most revenue - like carrying the U.S. mail and operating short-distance commuter trains in major cities - and dumping the more costly long-distance routes where ridership is the lowest.
The Desert Wind and the Pioneer, a Chicago-to-Seattle train with a stop in Ogden, make their final journeys this weekend. The last westbound Desert Wind was to leave Chicago on Saturday afternoon and grind its wheels to a halt for the last time in Salt Lake City early Monday morning. The last Pioneer, a westbound train, was to reach Ogden late Friday night.
Thereafter, Amtrak will restore daily service of the California Zephyr, a Chicago-to-Oakland train with a stop in Salt Lake City. It has been running four days a week, but must run daily if Amtrak is to capitalize on mail contracts. Some cities, like Ogden and Las Vegas, will now be without passenger rail service. And Salt Lake passengers will have to go to the Bay Area first if they want to take a train to Southern California.
The significance of the Desert Wind's final eastbound departure was not lost on many. The Los Angeles Times commemorated the event with a front-page story Thursday. Television cameras and reporters swarmed Los Angeles' Union Station, interviewing passengers and crew members alike, before the train set out at 10:45 a.m. Thursday. Several newspaper reporters went along for the ride.
The few passengers who weren't aware of the journey's cryptic allure when they purchased their tickets soon discovered they were riding a rail of tears. Most who hopped aboard for all or part of the 2,397-mile trip to the Windy City were fully cognizant of their participation in history.
"We're aboard a train that's being murdered," sighed Larry Wines, founder of a California railroad museum and one of many avid rail enthusiasts who heeded that final call of "All aboard."
Wines and others spent the first few hours of the ride asking crew members to scribble their names on schedule cards, creating their own souvenirs. Others walked from car to car with railroad scanners, listening to crew members and track workers banter about the many delays the train would encounter.
All along the first leg of the trip, through suburbs like Fullerton and small towns like Victorville, the train's passing was honored. People standing in their yards turned to wave. Others parked their cars at grade crossings and along highways to salute the Desert Wind as it meandered.
Inside the train, spirits soared and waned simultaneously. Passengers cursed the day but reveled in the legacy of the Desert Wind and its predecessor, the City of Los Angeles, the Union Pacific train that traversed the same corridor from 1936 to 1971.
"This is just devastating," said Bob Dooley of Monrovia, Calif., who planned to go home on the last westbound Desert Wind. "This is, I think, the most beautiful route between here and Chicago."
"It's absolutely pathetic" that Americans don't support passenger rail service like Europeans do, said John Callaghan, a nurse from San Diego.
Jon and Laura Palmatier of Binghamton, N.Y., made sure the Desert Wind was part of their monthlong tour of the country by rail. They were to stay overnight in Salt Lake City and catch the last westbound Pioneer on Friday.
"One nice thing about train travel is you realize what a wonderfully diverse country this is," said Laura Palmatier
Silas Brown, bound for Yellowstone, said he took the train because it was cheaper than flying from his Arizona home to Bozeman, Mont. From Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, however, a one-way coach fare for this trip was $122 - about $40 more than a 14-day advance plane ticket.
Most folks felt fortunate to be on the last Desert Wind. Andrew Fuhriman just felt fortunate to be alive. The 20-year-old Brigham City man was robbed and stabbed in Tijuana, Mexico, last Friday, and took the Desert Wind home because the doctor said it would be easier on him than a plane ride.
The trip was doubly emotional for train attendant Johnnie Peyton, a 41-year veteran of the railroad business who would retire along with the Desert Wind in Chicago.
"I'll miss it, I enjoy my co-workers every day," said the 62-year-old Mississippi native.
Crew Chief Rick Johnson said the Desert Wind's demise won't put any of its employees out of work, although some might have to take less desirable shifts on other trains.
Assistant conductor Buck Cleveland said he'd rather stay on the Desert Wind than take his new assignment on the Chief, where he'll work between Los Angeles and Kingman, Ariz.
"You ever been to Kingman, Ariz.?" he asked. "I'm bummed."
Like many of the train's passengers, the Wasatch Front slumbered as the Desert Wind blew into town one last time, about 4:15 a.m. It was only a half hour late, but decades removed from an era when rail was king.