Barstow business owner lets passengers ride the rails

ABOARD THE TIOGA PASS — A small group of train travelers navigates through the Labor Day weekend crowds of Los Angeles’ Union Station on Saturday on their way to track 12.

They bypass the ticket counters and go directly to the “Tioga Pass,” the end car of the Amtrak Surfliner train bound for San Diego at 11:10 am. The car’s unofficial conductor, Norm Orfall, marks down the 17 passenger names on a clipboard but doesn’t ask for tickets. He doesn’t have to — it’s his train car.

Orfall is the owner of Aronco Leasing Company which uses the ‘Tioga Pass’ to carry passengers cross-country on privately chartered trips. Orfall is a Barstow resident but keeps the car in Los Angeles because Barstow’s busy rail yard makes storage difficult. He pays Amtrak $2.10 per mile to haul the car.

“It’s very hard to get it in and out of Barstow,” Orfall said.

The 79-foot-long car was built in 1959 as an observation platform for executives of the Canadian National Railway to inspect the tracks. It contains two bedrooms, lounge area and a dining room for eight. A chef staffs the car’s kitchen and serves food to guests on china plates during long trips.

Saturday’s trip was a short one to San Diego, and passengers were too busy looking out the railcar’s windows to be very hungry. They sat on couches in the car’s oak-paneled “living room” sipping Cokes and making small talk about the technical aspects of rail travel. Orfall narrated the trip as the train jostled past recycling yards and cement plants at Hobart Yard - a worn curved section of rail serving L.A.’s heavy industry.

“Those 10- and 12,000-pound freight trains will really tear up a track,” Orfall explained to his guests.

The passengers were mostly unbothered by the shaking and took turns gathering outside on the car’s open air observation platform. They grasped an overhanging bar for stability while using the other hand to take pictures.

They laughed at the cars stuck in bumper to bumper holiday traffic on a stretch of Interstate 5 as the train sped along at 90 mph. At railroad crossings, small children peered out minivan windows and college students stared from convertibles stopped in traffic. Everyone waved at the train.

For passenger Mario Cerratzas the freedom of riding in a private car was the highlight of the trip.

“This is awesome,” he said. “Amtrak won’t even let you open the windows.”

Although no precise figures are available, Norm Orfall estimates there are about 80 privately owned Amtrak compatible railcars in the U.S. The typical used railcar costs about $75,000, but a fully restored one could cost as much as $200,000, he said. After the restoration was completed in 2003, Orfall began renting the Tioga Pass out to groups to pay for his hobby. He relies on word of mouth and his Web site, www.ridemytrain.com. He said the car generates plenty of interest.

Orfall, a former Santa Fe rail yard supervisor, first became involved with the “Tioga Pass” in January 1993 when he was asked by a friend, Rutherford Hayes, to ride with the car from Edmonton Alberta for Hayes’ collection. Hayes died shortly afterwards and the car sat unused in front of the Harvey House in Barstow until Orfall purchased it from the estate. He began restoring it in 1999 and completed the overhaul in 2003.

Although he performed some of the labor himself, some of the welding and electrical work required specialized work.

“I had a guy working for me nearly full-time for about a year,” Orfall said.

The train’s maiden voyage from Los Angeles to St. Louis was not without incident.

“We found out all the things that didn’t work,” he said.

“The car’s heater went down in St. Louis in the middle of January. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

Jon Clark, a railroad inspector and “Tioga Pass” passenger, said that although it seems like a hobby reserved for a wealthy elite, private railcar ownership is relatively inexpensive when compared to private plane or classic car collections.

“A lot of people who have their own cars are just regular working guys. It’s affordable if you do your own work,” he said. Clark said he owns 15 railway cars and said that finding someone to perform the specialized restoration can be difficult.

“You’re dealing with a car that’s 50, 60, 70 years old — an antique piece of machinery that you’re adapting to modern standards”

He said the biggest challenge to private ownership was the lack of a support network for private owners.

“You really have to seek it out; it’s really hard finding a place to park an 85-foot toy,” he said.