Train in Vain

I debated for awhile about whether or not to write this travel story down. At the time it happened, I was a mixture of irked and triumphant. Later, I felt like it might be bad form to talk or write about it. But I don't know why that is. Maybe I'll write it out and then decide whether or not to hit the "publish" button on my blog.

This happened on the return journey.

Let me back up a bit and explain a little bit about the train set up. There are about eight or nine cars on the train, and about 250 passengers, give or take. Dave and I splurged on first-class tickets for the Parlor Car, one of the few original 1880 cars. It's a "bar car" with a full bar and attendant/bartender. We mostly chose the tickets not because we wanted to start drinking on the 8:45 a.m. train but, because they are serving liquor, the car is limited to 21 and older. In other words: No children and, more importantly, no parents either. (It's almost always the parents who are the more obnoxious of the child-parent dimer.)

The other thing we liked about the car was that it was limited, assigned seating. There are 22 seats, so that's the total number of people in the car. And, it had what the website euphemistically called a "private viewing platform" which, it turned out, was a tiny area at the back of the car that would hold four people. Our car was the last car on the train, so it was like riding in the caboose almost. You could stand at the back of the train like a politician doing whistle-stops in small towns.

The man in the pale shorts is standing on the "private viewing platform."

Because the "viewing platform" was so tiny, the car attendant asked that we limit ourselves to 10 minutes out there at a time so that everyone could take turns looking at the scenery. She was a retired school teacher turned railroad employee, so the way she put it was, "We have to share the toys!" Most people were respectful about it, but my story has to do with the one person who wasn't and what my response to that person was.

Most of my pics from the viewing platform look like this.

So, on the way up, everyone was super excited and the viewing platform was almost always filled with people taking pictures or gawking at the mountains and so on. There are several places on the journey where the photo opportunities, as they say, are pretty iconic for railway junkies, so everyone wants to get those same shots (that you can see in the guidebook and all over the internet). One of those places is where a rickety looking bridge crosses the river gorge on a curve so that part of the train stretches out in front of you. On the way up, about six people crowded onto the viewing platform to get photos and we had our own polite little mob scene. I had no interest in joining the scrum, so we stayed in the car.

On the way back, however, when we crossed that same spot everyone was getting pretty jaded about the whole experience, so the viewing platform only held one middle-aged white man with his expensive camera. I asked Dave, as we approached that point, if he wanted to go out to get a look and he said yes, so we went out onto the viewing platform.

The middle-aged white man was standing on one end of the platform, so we naturally moved to the other side. As we neared the bridge, middle-aged white man realized that he was on the wrong side of the train to get a good picture of the train on the bridge, so he pushed his way past Dave to where I was standing with my camera ready to take a picture and he said, "Excuse me! Excuse me!"

I paid him absolutely no attention, so he said again, "Excuse me! Excuse me! This is the picture I've been waiting for. Excuse me!"

Yes, he actually expected me to just step out of his way so that he could take the picture that I was just about to take. And I was, like, yeah, no, that is not happening, asshole.

No, I didn't call him an asshole. In fact, I don't remember what I said or if I even said anything since I was concentrating on my camera, but I calmly stood there and took a series of three pictures. Then I moved out of the way and said, "There you go, it's all yours," just as we passed over the bridge and it was behind us.

And he said, "I waited out here half an hour to get that shot." To which I replied, "Maybe that's why the attendant asked us to limit our time to ten minutes." He said, sarcastically, "Thanks," and what I could I say but "Oh, you're welcome!"

We came inside the car a minute after he did, and I made sure, because I knew middle-aged white man would be watching, that I had a big, happy smile on my face. I took my seat and saw that this man was standing up, glaring at me, so I smiled even bigger and made a joke to Dave about whatever so that we were both started laughing.

A minute later, I started to break down this little exchange, saying to Dave that I'm not sure what massive sense of entitlement could possibly lead this middle-aged white man to think that, just because he wanted something, that it was my job to just move out of his way. I paid just as much for my ticket as he did for his, so I had just as much right to stand out there and take my picture. And if he thought otherwise, well, he could just go and kick rocks.

Dave remarked that middle-aged white man's pointed "Excuse me!" could just have easily been a "Oh, I would love to get a shot of this, can I squeeze in behind you?" Or, "Can I get a shot before we pass the bridge?" And I told Dave, yes, in that case I would have gladly either squeezed in so that we could both get the picture, or quickly taken my picture and moved out of the way so that he could get a picture, too. But that wasn't what he wanted and certainly not what he asked for. Middle-aged white man clearly just wanted me to move out of his way so that he could take his perfect picture. He certainly didn't care whether or not I got my picture.

I was just fine with my reaction and response--I would have been kicking myself if I had just moved out of the way, actually--but I also felt, like I said, triumphant. It might have been the tiniest bit jerky on my part, but I wasn't bothered terribly much by that.

I showed Dave the picture on my camera and said, "I should go over and offer to email him a copy," and we laughed about it again.

This is that photo. Ha!