Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1907-05-21
LETTERS FROM THE PACIFIC COAST
BY L. K. WRIGHT.
PORTLAND. ORE. MAY 6.


PORTLAND. ORE. MAY 6.
FRIEND GENE
| am writing to you in the hope that
you will consider the letter interesting
enough TO publish. In that way can
keep ray word with the friends /
promised would hear from me.
CHAPTER
of my epistle to the Wausonians
will be a tale of woe and il you
can't use it in your religious columns,
kindly cut it out and give it to Dr. Con-
lin, to read at the "knockers' table" +"
1t relates to our journey.
/ left Wansau with my family on the
st. Paul road at 1910 a. m, Tuesday,
April both; at New Lisbon the train on
the main line TO st. Paul was four hours
late, due TO a broken down engine, and
as consequence we missed the 1915
p. m. limited on the Northern Pacific
and were compelled to lay over "a
hours in st. Paul On this e. M. & ST..
T. alone there were 150 passengers
bound west over the N p.
On Wednesday morning. with lots of
company, tried to get my sleeping car
tickets transferred to the morning
limited. Finally at the city Office got
tickets which the yonng man took to
be the yice-president of the road. told
me were for the night limited, but in
order to get them had to take Seattle
sleeper instead of Portland. but he
told me the ride between the two cities
was day ride. In the evening when
we came to take the limited, we found
our berths called for the, slow train,
leaving at 1875 p. m. and arriving at
Seattle at O'clock Saturday evening
One of the high officials OF the road
changed the reading of my sleeper
tickets to Portland and il never
occurred to me that | was taking
chances of there being vacant berth
from Seattle to Portland, however as
things turned out it made no difference.
The first day, things went we'll,
although we were losing time. Our
train known as No. had good dining
car on. The N p. advertises: Dining
cars are run on all trans-continental
trains. They are attached to all west
bound trains at st. Paul, - and con-
tinue in the train constantly to the
opposite terminal. No matter what de-
lays may occur, when the meal hour
ready
Al Billings. Montana, which we
reached Friday noon. about five hours
late with heavy train, we were sup
posed to take the western passengers
and coaches of the Burlington. The
train on this road was also late and we
tourists watched with interest while
our train was cut up and switched
around. After the cars were all
shnffiee mp, our engine drew a palace
car of draft horses, two or three bag
gage cars. a smoker full of Dagoes, a
couple of day coaches and then it backed
down, hitched onto two tourist sleepers,
including mine, the dining car and the
balance of the sleepers were cut off and
we We're bound west, without any
dinner or dining car. The conductor
pacified us by the promise of new
diner at Livingston, lis miles west.
There We got sandwiches at 40 trow"
instead of the diner. 1t was the same
thing at Butte, which we reached Fri
day night. Saturday a. M, acted as
chief kicker and went to the conductor
and asked him to telegraph ahead for
milk for the babies 1--WE had about %
small children in the two cars, includ-
ing several bottle babies). The con-
ductor told me to have the porter do
our telegraphing / told him our por-
ter was green, did not get his berths
made up until IL o'clock at night, never
cleaned out his car and called his atten-
ton to the dining car advertisement.
He said this is not No. s, it is local
train. | persisted that our cars left st.
Paul as No. 8 and he walked away AT
Trout Creek, close to the Idaho line, on
Saturday morning we got a white" con-
ductor, he wasn't all covered up with
secret order buttons and must have had
babies of his own. He telegraphed Tor
said he did to Spokane and asked for
long enough stop to let the passengers
eat dinner. We reached Spokane about
noon, six hours late. the passengers on
the day coaches beat the anti-race sui
eide tourists to the lunch counter and
instead of getting dinner stop. we had
10 minutes. In answer to our protests,
new conductor told us to get our
dinners, and then gave us time to pay
for dinners and leave them uneaten,
when he called "all aboard" five min
utes later The milk my children drank
cost me 81 80, but we grabbed our bread
and butter and got aboard. The con-
ductor assured us he had to pull out, as
No. was right behind us and we inno-
Gently believed him, until we read on