#southwest chief

[digitalbusker]

Southwest Chief let's gooooo!

(I forgot to get a picture before we got on.)

[sepdet]

I just returned from another cross-country Amtrak trip. I snapped hundreds of photos, but forced myself to select just ten to share in this post, unedited.

[aryburn-trains]

March 24, 2023 #3 Southwest Chief Chicago to Kansas City/Los Angeles Amtrak A bit of back story on this consist. On March 24, the Amtrak network was plagued with issues after they began having server issues with the PTC system. This caused a ripple effect of trains departing either incredibly late due to speed restrictions or simply being canceled all together. By the time #3 left Chicago, it was running nearly 4 hours behind schedule. On its own, the consist would have been unique with Operation Lifesaver P42 #203 leading. However this #3 had an entire trainset deadheading on the back: the consist of the canceled westbound #319 Lincoln Service/Missouri River Runner. It would be cut off in Kansas City to run as the eastbound #318 Lincoln Service/Missouri River Runner the following day, something that could not be said for the Southwest Chief as it was canceled out of Chicago on March 25th. I figured with such a unique consist, it was worth posting.  The consist includes P42 #203 & #140, two superliner I sleepers, a superliner I diner, a superliner II lounge, a superliner I coach, a superliner I coach baggage, a SC44, two viewliner II baggage cars, a horizon business class dinette and four Siemens coaches. The gifs used were made by Ken and myself. They can be found at the link below. My gifs have my name in the description. http://kenstransitgifs.com/gifindex.html

[mrsmoose54]

Further Planning in Progress 2023

I shared recently plans to visit three more States on my next visit to America. These states being Utah, Nebraska and New Mexico. My excitement about using Amtrak was going to result in many hours of my holiday travelling in a coach seat at a very reasonable ticket price. Further ideas flooded into my mind with a simple realisation that as I have visited California albeit not recently there was…

[therainingkiwi]

Train travel in The Lightning Thief/PJO TV season 1

Oh look, I'm overanalyzing fictional train travel because I'm one of Those neurodivergent people. Let's get into it. Warning for VERY minor book spoilers (just mentioning the names of all the cities our trio travels through).

TL; DR our trio's cross country travel route makes no sense at all.

In the first book/season of the Percy Jackson series, our main trio takes a cross-country trip from Long Island, NY, to Los Angeles, CA. In the beginning, it appears as if they've boarded a cross country bus that will drive them the whole way there (a trip that usually takes ~72 hours). However, they get derailed in rural New Jersey (presumably the northwestern part of the state).

After New Jersey, the action immediately skips ahead, and we next see our trio on an LA-bound train that's about to stop in St. Louis (and in the book, has a later stop in Denver).

So, just off the bat: the train route that the trio are taking doesn't exist IRL (assuming they board a train in Trenton, and that train stops in St. Louis, Denver, and Los Angeles). It's also impossible for a single person to travel that route for $200, much less three people. Chiron needs some up to date information about cross country travel prices.

If they were traveling a reasonable IRL amtrak route, they'd probably take the Cardinal from Trenton to Chicago, and then take the Southwest Chief from Chicago to LA. However, if they can get back to Penn Station from Aunty Em's, they could take the Lake Shore Limited from NYC to Chicago, which would be 7-8 hours shorter than getting to Chicago via the Cardinal.

They could also take a bus from north New Jersey to Chicago.

However, the Southwest Chief (most direct amtrak route to LA) stops at neither St. Louis nor Denver. The most notable cities along the route are Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff.

If they wanted to take a route to LA that had them pass thru St. Louis, they could take the Texas Eagle from Chicago to St. Louis to San Antonio, and then take the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to LA. There are 3 trains per week that make this two-leg trip without requiring travelers to transfer at San Antonio, so our trio are probably on one of those. Why they didn't take the (shorter, cheaper, and more frequent) Southwest Chief is a mystery, honestly.

Since Chicago is the USA Amtrak hub, most routes will pass thru that city. The only alternative route is taking the Crescent from Trenton to New Orleans and then taking the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to LA. This would take them nowhere near Denver or St Louis, but probably wouldn't have a significant time/price difference from routing the trip thru Chicago (assuming they travel direct from Chicago to LA rather than taking the Texas Eagle thru San Antonio).

Unfortunately, there are no trains in the USA that travel between St. Louis and Denver (or even between St. Louis and Colorado in general), so that leg of their trip would have been made via bus. Greyhound (the USA's main long-distance bus travel company) has buses directly from St. Louis to Denver that end in California (but in San Francisco rather than LA).

In conclusion, I propose a new Amtrak route called "The Lightning Thief" that travels from New York-Penn Station, down the Northeast corridor thru New Jersey, and then turns west, making major stops in St. Louis, Denver, and Las Vegas, before terminating in LA. It doesn't stop in Amtrak's Chicago hub because all hub-and-spoke transit systems should have rim routes, and because Chicago isn't mentioned in The Lightning Thief.

Also, in conclusion, the USA needs better rail infrastructure and I'm a fucking nerd.

Amtrak map below for reference.

[kcvulpinestudios]

Enjoy this Santa Fe Railroad poster from me.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The American Southwest group :::  Marc Faulkner  ·  · 

A stormy morning in NW New Mexico. I originally planned on going to another spot that required about a 2 mile hike across open desert, which didn't sound appealing at 5 am seeing a ton of rain on radar and knowing it would be a cold and muddy experience. So I opted to hop over to Shiprock and try to get something interesting, and I am glad I made that call. Taken this past November.

* * * * *

“Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round . . . The sky is round and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power whirls, birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds. And they were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop.”

― Chief Black Elk

[jmpphoto]

Sentinel Mesa Sunrise by James Marvin Phelps Via Flickr: Sentinel Mesa Sunrise Navajo Tribal Park Arizona/Utah Border September 2022

[dyke-o-matic]

So you saw fell in love with Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon and now you want her on your screen as much as possible? I’m here to help.

Certain Women directed by Kelly Reichardt

This was the first time I saw Lily Gladstone in anything and I screamed about her specifically for days. The film is segmented into three stories about women living in the northwestern plains region of the US. All three segments are good, but Lily Gladstone’s is by far my favorite. She plays a ranch hand who starts sitting in on a night school law class when she develops a crush on the teacher, played by (bonus!) Kristen Stewart.

Certain Women is streaming on The Criterion Channel, AMC+, and Kanopy (Kanopy is free!). It is also available to rent on the major platforms.

The Unknown Country directed by Morrisa Maltz

This movie is stunning. Think Nomadland but even more stripped down. Lily Gladstone plays a character on a roadtrip to reunite with her estranged family after the death of her grandmother. Along the way she tries to learn more about who her grandmother was in life and reconnect with her memory. A lot of the film is unscripted, and breathtaking shots of the western US landscape punctuate the brief encounters she has at each stop on her journey.

The Unknown Country is available to rent on the major platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon, and YouTube.

Quantum Cowboys directed by Geoff Marslett

This one’s for the multiverse fans. A really fun romp that might make your head hurt if you think about it too hard. Lily Gladstone plays a character in the 1870’s southwest who encounters a pair of travelers stuck in a time loop (sort of). She enlists their help (sort of) in a plan to recover land that was taken from her and in return helps them in their attempt to break their cycle. Most of the film is rotoscope animation, so it’s a completely different type of a performance from Lily Gladstone. I had the extraordinary luck of meeting her at a festival screening last year and they said it was such a fun deviation from their usual hyper realistic work.

Quantum Cowboys is available to rent on major platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon, and YouTube.

Fancy Dance directed by Erica Tremblay

The most recent Lily Gladstone film to blow me away, and maybe my favorite film of 2023. Lily Gladstone plays a character who has been trying to find her missing sister while simultaneously providing care for her sister’s daughter. When it appears she may lose custody, the two hit the road to search for the teen’s mother. It’s sad and sweet and beautiful. I have to warn that the subject matter is heavy and all too real but that’s why it’s an important story. It’s about something that is so pervasive, yet people outside of the community affected turn a blind eye to it.

Fancy Dance can be seen in select theaters and is now streaming on Apple TV+. Erica Tremblay previously directed Lily Gladstone in the short film Little Chief, which can be found on Vimeo.

[beforeimdeceased]

🌾🥃🪑 PARADISE — ELLIE WILLIAMS

moodboard layout ib @munsonsfairy

somewhere in southwest texas, glimmering under the sun, was none other than ellie williams. a car mechanic and a damn good one. she’d had her fair share of run ins with the police on a list, taped to the front of the chief’s desk.

possession of illegal substances, aggravated assault, and failure to appear in court. but fuck court. ellie just wanted to come home to her sweetheart, you.

in a small corner just off the highway lay a simple plot of land. two decades ago they’d turned it into a trailer park, but it was becoming more of a community to you.

you and ellie had hauled ass and held yourselves up pretty well there the last four years. she’d been fleeing from bad things all her life. this was her one shot at staying still.

you were fanning yourself with an old newspaper, sat on your porch in a lawn chair that always creaked when you moved. ellie was gonna get to fixing it one day.

you swat a bug off your leg before reaching for your iced glass of sun tea. letting the cold liquid slip down your throat and soothe your body’s rising temperature.

above the sunglasses sat on top of your head was a sweet kiss placed in your hair. ellie had come outside to greet you.

“hey baby, soaking in the sun?” she smiles. a tank top bunched up on her waist at a pair of shorts that were way too big for her. her boxers peaking through as she continued to pull them up and let them fall. pull them up, let them fall. over and over.

“more like the sun’s frying my ass.” you chuckle a bit to yourself. she laughs along with you. “come on inside i wanna show you something.”

what you laid your eyes on festered up tears. she’d made a custom photo frame for the two if you. etchings of your initials with roses and flowers adorned it’s sides. a photograph of you two smiling when you’d first arrived was in the middle.

you envelop her in a hug, wrapping your arms around her neck as hers fall to your waist. “oh ellie! it’s beautiful.” you smile.

she grabs your hips, her grip a bit firmer now as she looks into your eyes. “i’m glad you like it.”

you let a sweet kiss linger on her lips, your mouths dripping with desire. your blood rushing with excitement. you were so content with the life you’d built, you wanted her right then and there.

“cmon.” she trails as her right hand in yours leads you to the bedroom. she carefully places you on the bed, peppering kisses on your face. her fingers hooked into the hem of your jean shorts, struggling to pull them down.

you help her, unbuckling them, and letting them be forgotten as they fall past your ankles to the floor. her hand snaking up your thigh to rub you over your panties.

a soft moan spilling from your lips is caught by hers. she chuckles as you struggle to kiss back.

her fingers slide your underwear to the side and trail over your soaked lips, rubbing your wetness and making a mess of your cunt. your underwear had long before been ruined.

she dips two fingers in, the nectar of your heat allowing her to slip in easily. you lean back onto your elbows looking up at her. she can’t help but smile.

“always so easy to slip in, i’ll never get tired of it. you’re always so wet for me fuck.”

her fingers move faster, free hand carefully finding itself on your lower back. you lean into her touch finding yourself grinding on her fingers. a long and drawn out, “fuuuck.” is all that leaves her lips as she watches you. your steady pace, back and forth. practically drooling as she watches herself slip in and out of you. your slick a sheen coating on her fingers and dripping down her palm.

this is paradise.

[city-of-ladies]

Women warriors in Chinese history - Part 1

“In the nomadic tribes of the foreign princesses from the Steppes northwest to the northeast of the Chinese borders, women habitually rode horses and were frequently also skilled militarily. They had to be able to survive on their own and defend themselves when their men left camp to herd animals for months on end. Thus, unsurprisingly, many daughters of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribal chiefs were also capable fighters. Madam Pan 潘夫人 of “barbarian origins” during the Wei dynasty, the semi-barbarian Princess Pingyang 平陽公主 who helped establish the Tang dynasty, and the “barbarian queen,” Empress Dowager Xiao, are historical examples of this category of female generals.

While the barbarians to the north were known as fan 番, those belonging to peripheral areas from the southwest to the southeast were known as man 蠻. Like the nomadic princesses, these women of non-Chinese or Chinese ethnic minority groups did not bind their feet and could thus become formidable opponents. Indeed, the female battle units within the Taiping 太平 rebel forces that actually entered combat – rather than merely providing labour as most of the female units did –were reportedly made up in the main of women from the Miao 苗 tribes, aside from the Hakka (Kejia 客家) women of Guangxi. 

Female bandit leaders or daughters and sisters of bandit leaders who occupied mountains or established strongholds in marginal lands are almost indistinguishable from the man barbarian princesses of tribal chieftains in novels and shadow plays. Such barbarian women generals and female bandit leaders were rarely privileged enough to be recorded by the historians. The three found most frequently, Madam Xi 洗夫人 (502– 557), Madam Washi 瓦氏夫人 (1498–1557),95 and Madam Xu 許夫人 (1271–1368), were all pro-Chinese. While the first two cooperated with the Chinese government, the third joined Chinese forces against the Mongols. A certain Zhejie 折節 or Shejie 蛇節, a female leader of the Miao tribe, also led a rebellion against Mongol troupes, but she eventually surrendered to them and was subsequently executed. 

Real enemies of the Chinese empire, such as the Trv’vy sisters of Vietnam, are hardly ever mentioned by the Chinese, even though they are first recorded in the Han dynastic history. Even under such circumstances, of the women commanders in Chinese history studied by Xiaolin Li, a hefty per cent were from “minor nationalities.”

Female rebel leaders and women warriors in rebel forces tended to rise from peasantry and marginal groups such as families of itinerant performers, robbers, boatmen, and hunters. Many of them are beautiful and charismatic. Most of the rebel groups were basically bandits (known as haohan 好漢, “bravos” euphemistically) – how else could they have survived without a continuous source of income? Many of the bandit groups, like the sworn brothers of the Water Margin, lived in mountains and marshlands, awaiting a chance to start or join in an uprising with the hope of gaining power and legitimacy through either pardon (when they posed too great a threat to the state) or founding a new dynasty. Many had sisters, wives, or daughters who were also capable of leading armies.”

Chinese shadow theatre: history, popular religion, and women warriors, Fan Pen Li Chen

[sepdet]

drat. I'm home and can't sleep because I've been on a cross country train trip and i miss the feeling of my bed rocking and massaging my achy back.

Time to put on a recording of train sounds to trick the brain into thinking i'm still in my private little nest stretched out next to the window as the plains and desert whisk by in the night.

[odetopictorialism]

Carl E. Moon (American, 1878 – 1948) learned his craft as an apprentice to a photography studio. Subsequently he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and opened his own studio, where he made pictorial studies of Indians that were living in the region.

In the early 1920's Moon established a studio in Pasadena, California, where he continued to photograph and paint. During the last three decades of this career, the Photographer produced works for Henry E. Huntington, published "Indians of the Southwest", and contributed illustrations for children's books written by his wife, Grace Purdie Moon.

The Pottery Maker, 1910

The Meeting Place, Taos: Border of New Mexico Near Colorado Line, 1908

Arrow Maker. Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. ca. 1904

The Flute Song, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico, 1900

A Taos Pueblo runner, 1914

Up the Acoma trail, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, ca. 1904

"The Black Jar", 1900

The Scout, Taos Mountains, New Mexico, 1904

Pedro Begay, Navajo, 1907

Hopi Mirror, Pool near Walpi, Arizona, 1900

Lotta Atsye, the chief’s daughter of the Laguna Pueblo, 1904

Haz-Pah, Navajo, 1914

[mrsmoose54]

Planning in Progress - Visiting States #46 & #47 possibly #48

Those of you that follow this site already know that I have stepped foot into 45 states. I still need to visit Utah, New Mexico, Nebraska and North Dakota. As I am resident in the UK this rather restricts my options and what with the current cost of living crisis my purse strings are stretched. I have researched air fares in September and October and based them on Premium Economy because of the…

[thomaswaynewolf]

This is the fifth episode in the series over the Apache Indians in the American Southwest. This episode covers the aftermath of the Camp Grant Massacre and encompasses the years 1870 to 1874. It also continues the story of the most feared Apache warrior chief to have ever lived in the eyes of the Americans: Cochise. 
The episode introduces important men of history in the region like General Crook, General Howard, Captain Tom Jeffords, Cochise’s sons Taza and Naiche, the Tonto Apache chief Red Ant (Delshay), the various Apache Scout leaders like Al Sieber, and countless others. Lieutenant Bourke, Geronimo, Merejildo Grijalva, and Mickey Free the kidnapped boy who started this long war also make heavy return appearances. The massive offensive against the Apaches and Yavapai Indians during the winter of 1872 to 1873 is discussed in detail as well as the flip side of the Indians Wars: President Grant’s “Peace Policy”. 
Battles ensue, bureaucrats meddle, reservations are established, massacres like the Skeleton Cave Massacre blight the land, but by the end of the episode peace will reign, however briefly, on Apacheria.

[amtrak-official]

is there a route to toronto from albuquerque-tf2heritageposts

Southwest Chief to Chicago then Lakeshore Limited to Buffalo then Maple Leaf to Toronto