It's Not Just a Train Trip, It's a State of Mind

"And those EMD switchers … " "Gaviota's at 339.5, right?"

I catch snippets of this conversation among four casually dressed middle-aged men. The talk is lively, spirited, friendly—and completely incomprehensible. That's because it's in the coded language of those who live and breathe railroads. They call themselves "railfans," but just about everyone else calls them "foamers"—as in foam at the mouth—a moniker that some embrace with humor while others consider an insult. Whatever they're called, these railroad enthusiasts have elevated a staid and somewhat nerdy hobby to a grand obsession.

These four men are in foamer heaven right now, and I'm with them. We are aboard a special excursion train wending its way up the California coast on a lovely late spring afternoon, traveling in a style that most of us have never experienced. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a foamer, but I do love trains, and I have always regretted that I was born too late to enjoy any part of the long heyday (1880s-1950s) of long-distance rail travel. It was on a Los Angeles-to-Seattle trip last year that I encountered my first foamer, an earnest young man who bored me silly with railroad trivia and engineering statistics but also told me about an upcoming rail excursion—this one.

For the next two days, the 85 of us who have signed on for this L.A.-to-Oakland round trip will have the run of three lovingly restored passenger cars: a 1948 Vista-Dome, a 1927 lounge observation car and a 1941 Pony Express car. The cars, by special arrangement, are attached to the Coast Starlight, Amtrak's daily Los Angeles-to-Seattle run.

Our trip is billed as a "rail cruise," which, like an ocean cruise, is designed to be a travel experience dedicated to the journey rather than the destination. In the West, land of extraordinary vistas and wide-open spaces, rail cruises and private excursion trains are an increasingly popular close-to-home adventure for those who want to enjoy the landscape they usually fly over and experience the romance of train travel. The trip I am on, the Pacific Coast Limited, will be offered, with some variations, twice this fall, Oct. 22-24 and Nov. 5-7.

These rail cruises are the brainchild of Todd Clark, founder and webmaster of http://www.trainorders.com , one of the top foamer sites on the Internet, and most of those onboard are, like Todd, card-carrying (or, in this case, railroad insignia-wearing) foamers. Many are Californians, but others have come from as far away as Ohio, New Jersey, Tennessee and even New Zealand for the experience. The trip is not just an excursion along what is one of the most scenic stretches of railroad track in the country, not just a trip back in time to when railroad travel was elegant and refined, but a light romp through the psyches of those obsessed by trains.

The trip begins, fittingly, at one of the most impressive passenger train stations in the country, Los Angeles' Union Station, a quirky blend of Spanish and Art Deco architecture noteworthy for its palatial waiting room and lovely outdoor gardens.

First opened to travelers in 1939, it was the last of the grand-scale train stations to be built in America. Today it is the nation's sixth busiest, but that's because of commuter, not long-distance, trains.

We depart on time, 10:15 a.m., and as the train slowly makes its way through the urban landscape, skirting the concrete-lined Los Angeles River, I take a tour of our three vintage cars.

At the rear of the train is the Los Angeles, a luxury car built by the famous Pullman Co. in 1927. It is elegant and posh, designed as a Gilded Age hotel on rails. It has two first-class bedrooms with private baths; a secretary's room (a necessity for the movie moguls and business magnates who regularly booked passage); a crew room to house the car's porter and chef; a tiny, self-contained galley; a formal dining room with built-in breakfront and crystal chandelier; an elegant salon with overstuffed armchairs; and a large observation platform.

Three-quarters of a century ago, political candidates might have given speeches from this platform. Today it is packed with foamers, including a former physics professor from Massachusetts who flew cross-country to make this trip; a hip, young Berkeley grad who took a job he didn't like when he discovered that his place of work was only 50 feet from the Southern Pacific Railroad track (he watches trains all day); and a man with a congenital liver disease who spent months planning this trip and coordinating his health treatments. He will need dialysis immediately when we get to our destination.

The next car is the Silver Lariat, a stainless-steel, bubble-topped glass Vista-Dome built in 1948 for the original California Zephyr, the Oakland-to-Chicago passenger train. It took the current owners, Burt Hermey and Al Bishop, five years to rebuild and refurbish this car, from its understated gray wool carpet and burgundy upholstery to the special-order antimacassars draped over the backs of the comfortable coach seats. The car is quiet. The seats are wide, the windows expansive.

Up a small flight of stairs is the dome with seating for 24 passengers and an unobstructed 180-degree vista. Up here I find a man who tells me he moved to Tehachapi, some 120 miles north of L.A., for one reason only: Forty freight trains go through that town every day. So far he has taken 25,000 slides of their comings and goings. Also in the dome are two longtime traveling buddies. They proudly admit to suffering from "railpox," the disease for which they hope there is no cure. "We all have one-track minds," one of them says. "Girlfriends come and girlfriends go," the other philosophizes, "but the railroad remains."

The third car is the Pony Express, one of the most unusual passenger cars in service in North America. The car was originally built in 1941 as transport for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and has been refurbished as an open-air party car. The four big cargo doors that allowed horses to enter now remain open—with protective railings—to give riders a wind-whipping-through-the-hair experience. The car's interior has been redone in ash paneling to replicate an 1872 coach car. Along one side is a carved oak bar; the floor is parquet.

If these three cars never moved an inch, this still would be an adventure worth having. But we are moving, and I know exactly how fast—49.3 mph—because the Pony Express is equipped with a thoroughly modern global positioning satellite system. Next to me, one of the foamiest foamers onboard, a self-described technogeek named Derek Law, is keeping tabs on everything. He leans out the cargo doors to take digital photos, rushes back to the computer to download them and then, with a flurry of mouse clicks, posts the photos he just took on the http://www.trainorders.com website for the edification of those foamers not fortunate enough to be traveling with us.

I stand by the open cargo doors and watch as the Glendale station—a pearl-pink Spanish Colonial-Revival gem of a building—goes by, then the burnt hills of Simi Valley, then Oxnard and finally, at noon, the Pacific. The sun is glinting off the ocean; the air is cool and fresh. The surfers are out. It's time for lunch.

Donnalee Clark, a former student of the culinary arts, a professional cake decorator, trip organizer and Todd Clark's wife, is in charge of the food. This trip she has the assistance of Shawn Murphey, one of 12 full-time private rail-car chefs in the country. Those who have sampled train food during the last 20 years know that onboard cuisine ranges from inedible to on par with economy-class airline food. This is different. Working shoulder to shoulder in the 6-by-8-foot galley tucked beneath the Silver Lariat's dome, the women have put together a casual buffet lunch that could be ordinary but isn't. The deli sandwiches are made with Boar's Head meats on artisan bread. The tomato slices have both color and, miraculously, taste. The potato salad is tangy and substantial. The fruit came onboard at our last stop, fresh Santa Clara River Valley oranges. Lunch is set out on the big oak bar in the Pony Express. I grab a plate and take it to one of the tables set up at the rear of the car.

The train now is barreling along the coast into Santa Barbara, and the open-air car smells of eucalyptus and escallonia and sea air. The jacaranda trees are in bloom, a brilliant purple. The bougainvilleas are scarlet red, the sky a cloudless blue. The sensory experience is vivid and immediate, like riding on a motorcycle or in a convertible. The track noise is loud and hypnotic. You could stand by the open doors all day in a meditative trance. Even some of the foamers have stopped taking pictures and started enjoying the moment.