Amtrak’s Train of Thought
Amtrak’s Capitol 726 is the perfect place to get your work done
if you’re traveling between Sacramento and the Silicon Valley
By Fred Sandsmark
In an age of teleconferencing and telecommuting, the railroad seems
like an anachronism — a mode of transportation that's decidedly
low-tech. It's a symbol of the old industrial economy, out of touch
with today's technology-fueled economic boom. But here in Northern
California, that's not the case.
On any weekday afternoon, you'll find a sleek, double-decker passenger
train idling at Oakland's Amtrak station. This is Capitol 726, one of
eight trains that shuttle daily between the Silicon and Sacramento
valleys. These European-designed cars are equipped with large windows,
reclining seats, a dining car and spacious tables, complete with
electrical outlets.
Soon, computers will be plugged into many of these outlets. Commuters
will be writing e-mail, crunching numbers and relaxing while they
travel. The Capitols are giving rise to a new breed of high-tech
employee — one who uses computer technology while he or she
commutes.
Let's take a journey on Capitol 726 to meet some of these people.
(We'll also do a little sightseeing along the way.) In a few minutes
we'll be rolling toward Sacramento.
5:25 P.M., OAKLAND
Larry Miller, a systems engineer for KLA Tencor, boards the train, his
Dell laptop under his arm. He settles into a table and gets to work,
writing control software for complex chip-making equipment. "I've never
been more productive," he notes when asked about working on the train.
Mike Adams, a systems analyst for a labor union, also boards in
Oakland. His Micron Transport is a magnet for young people: "Kids on
the train like to see what you're doing, which is kind of fun." He uses
the computer for writing reports, reading his e-mail and programming.
He also admits to an occasional game of Freesell, which he calls "more
of an addiction than a game."
5:36P.M., EMERYVILLE
After taking connecting buses from San Francisco, the majority of the
regular commuters board here. Among them is Roman Bitner, a collector
for Ikon Document Services. He rides the train daily, and uses his Dell
laptop to build spreadsheets and write reports along the way. He also
makes calls on his cellular phone. "My time in the office is not very
long by today's standards," he says. "But I use the train to extend my
workday. It's very productive."
Productivity is a common objective among train computer users, but the
conductors aren't always convinced. "In the morning, people who use
their computers are working. But in the afternoon, 90 percent of them
are playing Solitaire," observes "Yard Dog," an Amtrak conductor
who has worked the Capitols for two years. Over that time, ridership
has grown six percent, to nearly a half-million passengers a year, and
Yard Dog estimated that the number of computers has increased too.
5:50 P.M., RICHMOND
After a stop in Berkeley, the train arrives in Richmond. BART riders
transfer to the Capitol, and the train leaves the station and enters a
scenic, isolated stretch of tracks, hugging the bay shore.
On Thursday afternoons, riders watch sailboats race around Vallejo in
the Beer Can Regatta. "This is my favorite part of the trip," remarks
Delia Craven, who works at a magazine in San Francisco two or three
days a week. She runs a newsletter business on the side and does a lot
of the work on the train. "I do some writing on my PowerBook," she
says, "and sometimes I lay out newsletters using QuarkXpress. There's
no ringing phone, and the railroad coffee's not bad. That's a good
combination."
6:21 P.M.. MARTINEZ
The Capitol stops at the refinery town of Martinez, and 10 minutes
later it crosses high over San Francisco Bay. Amtrak's "Along the Way"
brochure, available on the train, says that this is "the longest and
heaviest double track railroad bridge west of the Mississippi." We also
learn that the bridge "requires 20,000 gallons of paint for three
coats," but by its appearance, one wonders how they know. The view of
the bay is spectacular.
Peter Ham, a financial analyst in the health care field, doesn't
notice. He has crossed the bridge hundreds of times, and he's deep in
concentration. His headphones are plugged into his Compaq laptop, which
has music, not software, in the CD player. He programs, works on
spreadsheets and writes e-mail. "I love the efficiency," he says of his
train commute. "I'm able to pump four more hours into my workday if I
need to."
The train passes the Mothball Fleet, then speeds out onto Suisun Marsh.
According to Amtrak, the marsh is "the largest remaining estuarine
wetland area in the continental U.S.," and the train provides a view
that motorists sitting on nearby Highway 680 can only imagine. Egrets
and herons fish among the tules, and Canada geese rest up for the next
leg of their migration. A couple of ramshackle hunting clubs crouch
along the tracks. Because there are no automobile crossings in this
stretch, the train can reach speeds of nearly 80 miles per hour.
6:45 P.M., SUISUN/FAIRFIELD
Mike Milliard hops off at Suisun's quaint station. A consulting
software engineer with Bear River Associates, Mike uses his Newton
MessagePad for daily planning, spreadsheets and word processing as he
rides to and from Oakland every day. "We're doing similar stuff," he
says of his fellow computer users on the train. "Catching up on reading
and writing. It's a good use of the time." When time use isn't a
factor, Mike plays Mah Jongg on his Newton.
7:15 P.M., DAVIS
A crowd of people get off at Davis, including several academics who
teach in the Bay Area. One of them is Pat Patterson, a professor of
anatomy at University of California, San Francisco. He rides the train
three times a week, and uses the time to prepare for class with his
Apple PowerBook 3400c. He keeps a bank of digitized X-rays, MRIs and
anatomical images on the computer, and assembles them into teaching
aids and exams while he commutes. He uses Canvas and Photoshop to
doctor the images when necessary.
"I remember once I had an MRI with a perfect image on the left and a
lousy image on the right. I cut off the bad half, copied the good half,
and flopped it." The result: a perfect MRI for an exam.
Another PowerBook user, Steve Samuels, rides to Berkeley twice a week
to teach at the University of California. He's on the faculty at UC
Davis as a public health statistician. He has several computers at his
disposal, but his PowerBook 180 is his primary machine. He uses it to
write reports and grant proposals and to do statistical analysis. He
has been riding the train for five years and remembers when each car
had only two electrical outlets — computer users knew where they
were and headed straight for them when boarding. The current cars each
have a dozen outlets.
Those outlets are important, because not every computer can run on
batteries. "A while back, we had a rider who brought along a whole
computer on a cart," recalled Yard Dog. "Computer, monitor, keyboard,
mouse — he'd hook it all up and go to work," he recalls with a
chuckle. "He didn't last for long."
By 7:25 the train is barreling across the Yolo Bypass. Egrets and pelicans scatter when they hear the train whistle.
7:42 P.M., SACRAMENTO
The train pulls up near the 1925 brick station and Jim Hays gets off.
He works from his home in Sacramento and occasionally takes the train
to the San Francisco headquarters of Primus, a software company. As he
rides, he uses a GoldMine contact database on his ThinkPad 600 to
prepare e-mail sales calls. "Sometimes I say that I'm writing from the
train. This can be conversation starter — people reply with
questions or recall a vacation they took."
The train leaves Sacramento and crosses the American River near Cal
Expo. It enters the land of strip malls, tract houses and light
industry that comprises North Highlands, Antelope and Roseville.
8:17 P.M., ROSEVILLE
Phil Lucas, a programmer for the DAVID Corporation in San Francisco,
gets off here. He rides the train three times a week, and uses his
laptop to program in DataFlex ("an obscure language," he concedes). The
laptop is his primary computer. He has docking stations with a mouse,
keyboard and full monitor when he's stationary. "The computer's like a
puppy," he says. "People ask questions about it when they see me
working."
Cindy Denham agreed. "People ask about the computer, especially when
they see pictures on the screen," she notes. She keeps digital
photographs of products and customers on her computer and
assembles PowerPoint presentations for Haworth Inc., an office
furniture manufacturer. Once a month she rides the train from Roseville
to San Francisco for meetings. "I do the things I would normally put
off — like expense reports —- when I'm on the train," she
admits.
AND INTO THE FOOTHILLS
It's 8:48 p.m. when Bill Smith gets off the train in Auburn. He rides
down on Mondays and spends the week in San Francisco, where he manages
construction for O'Brien Kreitzberg. His Toshiba laptop is never far
away. "I use it to prepare for inspections," he explains as he shows
off complicated spreadsheets of every building detail he checks out.
He's also designing cabinets for his home using KeyCAD. "Carrying a
drafting board on the train would be tough," he quips. The computer
helped him make a friend not long ago — a four-year-old girl
"sat down and took over the computer. We pulled up Paintbrush and had a
great time."
Capitol 726 continues eastward, following the original route of the
transcontinental railroad, until it reaches Colfax. There, the
train is shut down for the night, cleaned and readied for tomorrow's
run. In just a few hours, the railroad — California's
traditional highway of commerce — will once again meet the
new digital economy.
For more information about Amtrak's Capitol trains, visit the website at www.amtrakcalifornia.com
This article first appeared in California Computer News, August 1998
Copyright © 1998, 2006 Fred Sandsmark / Marble Publishing
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