Wednesday, September 24, 2008

"Schedule!? We Don't Keep No Stinking Schedule!"

My daughter Candace, with her two boys and one boyfriend, came back from a week's vacation yesterday. They went to Bakersfield, vacation capital of the world, to visit her friend. They came by Amtrak and had made arrangements with another friend to pick them up. However, because of scheduling conflicts, C asked if I would do the honors. Sure, no problem, I said. The train station is only 15 minutes away even if they were scheduled to return at 4:30pm, right when traffic is at its peak.

They finally got off the train at 7:50pm....3 hrs and 20 minutes later than expected. Plenty of time to take photos, unfortunately my camera didn't do so well... the pictures came out too dark.

 
This is a picture of Union Station that was on the wall. (overhead lights are reflecting off the marble wall.) The building now looks just like the photograph. The street is now paved and the cars are newer, but the basic structure is the same.

 
Don't get excited but here are the front doors that you enter.

 
In this picture we are looking towards the ticket counter.

 
Here is a very pleasant little park area in front of the station and across the street where folks are loaded and unloaded.

Apparently the train had a two-hour wait because of work that was being done on the tracks. This was a work project and not an emergency fix. There after the train kept getting pulled off to the side to fix something or to let another train go by.

Schedule? What's that?
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4 comments:

sandy said...

well that figures, let the little people wait, let them be screwed cause they sure don't matter...so what they paid for a ticket assuming they could believe a schedule.

hope they enjoyed their vacation...but Bakersfield...

cat's momma said...

Vacation capital ... hahaha! I like the old, old buildings. L.A. has a beautiful old station...they're usually rather grand compared to the modern little outpost train stations.

Wanda said...

As a matter of fact, I was on the Amtrak train in Bakersfield this weekend on my trip up north.

Unknown said...

I never heard of Bakersfield at being the world famous vactioning ideal ever. I have to laugh when I think at what you posted.

Very interesting history about that train station, I never knew it was that old...who was that had said...The older the better?

My mom used to say that all of the time. lol