This is what happened on my first train trip  --Mark

I decided to try and go from Stockton, CA to Portola, CA, after
hearing that it was a fairly easy weekend trip.  I live in the SF Bay
Area.  So I drove to the Emeryville Amtrak station and parked my car
there, and took Amtrak out to Stockton.  From the Stockton station you
walk 1/4 mile or so east down the tracks to Stockton Tower, where the
ATSF/Amtrak tracks cross over SP and UP tracks.  SP and UP have yards
just south of the tower, with plenty of north/south traffic.  I walked
by Stockton tower (it was a Saturday morning) and there were "railfans"
lounging outside the tower watching trains.  BTW, this is not a great
area to be in at night.

I waited at the north end of the UP yard near the piggyback/stack
loading area for about 3 hours, because it looked like they were going
to load up a train.  I use a scanner, so I was listening to the UP
channels.  Whenever a train wants to leave the SP or UP yards heading
north (across the ATSF tracks), they have to call up Stockton Tower
and get permission to cross.  So as I was sitting there around 5pm
I heard something like "UP train STPCT calling Stockton Tower for
permission to leave".  I got out my California Region Timetable
booklet by Altamont Press and turned to the UP train decoder page,
which gave the source and destination as STockton to PoCatella
(Idaho).  Actually, it wouldn't have mattered much, since all UP
trains leaving Stockton going north go to Salt Lake City at least (I
think).

So anyways this real long mixed freight train with 3 or 4 shiny UP
engines starts pulling out of the yard and running through the stack
area, doing about 5mph.  I waited and finally near the end of the
train I spotted 4 closed hoppers coming up.  I ran over to catch the
train, tossed my bag up onto the back, and climbed aboard!
Unfortunately, being nervous and such, I had picked the end of the car
with the brake equipment, so all I could do was sit in the little V
area in the middle of the car.  This was OK since I was paranoid about
being spotted until we got out of the yard.

About 45 minutes after rolling out of Stockton, we pulled off at a
siding and stopped.  I poked my head out and looked forward, and
saw someone else's head sticking out of a car just ahead of mine!
Turns out he had hopped on the train at Stockton too, but had been
waiting deep in the yard for it.  Anyways I moved to the other side
of the car where I had a lot more room to sit down without the
brake stuff in the way.  We sat there for about 30 minutes waiting
for another train to pass, so I called up a few friends on my
cellphone to tell them about the trip so far!  The ride so far had
been pretty noisy (maybe an empty hopper?) so I made earplugs from
some tissue paper for the remainder of the ride. 

Then we got moving again and zipped along pretty fast all the way to
Oroville, at the base of the Sierras.  It was just getting dark around
this time, and I had a feeling I was in for some cold ahead as we
went up into the mountains.  At Oroville, we stopped in the yard, right
off the mainline, and I heard the engines decouple.  About 5 minutes
later a stack train passed by us on the way to Portola.  We sat in
the yard for about an hour.  I think they may have added or deleted
a few cars from the train.  Finally we got back underway.

The ride up the Feather River Canyon was great at first.  However, it
got *COLD* quickly.  By 11pm I had on two jackets and was still
freezing.  My sneakers didn't even insulate my feet from the cold
steel floor.  For the next 6 hours(!), the train would zip along
pretty fast, then stop at a siding for about 15-30 minutes, to let
traffic in the other direction pass, then run for 30 minutes, then
stop, over and over again.  It was a busy night!

We finally got to Keddie at like 3am.  There, we stopped and I think
they changed crews.  I had been expecting the crew change to happen at
Portola, so I was a little concerned about whether the train would
stop when we finally got there.  Along the ride to Portola, I noticed
another train not to far off the side in the darkness.  The engine was
heading right towards our train!  It then passed over us, pratically
right over the car I was on.  I couldn't figure this out, because I 
knew there were no other tracks in the area!  It was weird!

We finally got to Portola at around 6am.  I only knew I was there
because I saw "portola" written on a signal box when we entered
the yard.  I hopped off, and the train took off a few seconds
later.  We had only stopped for a minute or two.  I walked around
town for a few miles and finally found a room in a motel.

I got up around 1pm, had breakfast, and walked over to the Portola
Train museum.  It is a very large museum and there are lots of engines,
cabooses, and such that you can climb in and walk around on.  Exploring
the engines was pretty neat.  I was too tired to go home Sunday so I
stayed another night to rest up.

Monday I got up early and got to the yard at 10am.  I sat under the
bridge at the east end of the yard.  I heard on my scanner that they
were doing track maintenance and nothing was coming though till the
afternoon, so I went back to town, got some sandwiches and such for
the trip back, and got back to the yard around 1pm.

While I was waiting a switchman came out under the bridge to switch
a few tracks.  I heard on my scanner something was coming in heading
west.  I asked him about it and he told me it was going to be a slow
train, and would probably sit in the yard a while because it hadn't
been called to even leave Portola yet.  However, he mentioned a stack
train would be coming in within an hour and that I should catch that
instead :)

I told him about the cold night I had on the way up the day before.
He said "if I were you I would hide out across from the yard office,
and when the stack comes in and they switch crews, I would get in the
back unit and hide out in the bathroom till it leaves the yard.  It
would be a lot warmer. Yep, thats what I would do (wink wink)".
He told me this about 3 times during our conversation.  Turns out
the stack came in about 15 minutes later.  It only had 2 units and
about 50 container/well cars.  The switchman directed me in front
of the engine of an eastbound waiting train to catch my flight out.

However it was only 2pm and warm out and the train only had 2 units,
so I took a good seat in a well car, about 7 cars back from the
engines.  It was much more pleasant than the back of the hopper.  This
train moved slower through the canyon than the one I took up, but it
didn't stop at all.  On the way back during the day, I finally
realized that the mystery train I had seen the night before was
actually the front of my own train, as we went around "Williams Loop"!
We went all the way to Stockton in 7 hours, only stopping twice for
about 5 minutes.  Between Oroville and Stockton we were probably doing
70+ most of the time.

I decided to stick with the train all the way back to Oakland, since
otherwise I would have to wait 2 hours for Amtrak.  At Stockton, I
laid low while they did some switching, feeling the train moving back
and forth a bit.  Then I heard the power cut out!  I was warned they
might leave the back end of the train behind and take the rest to
Oakland, but I was only 7 cars back from the engine, on a train of 50
or so.  I peeked out of the car and found that my string only had
about 10 cars on it; the rest of the train was on the next track over
and the engine had just hooked up to it.  So I ran down the other
track and found a new seat for the ride to Oakland.

Unfortunately, it took 3-4 more hours to Oakland, due to 2 long stops
along the way.  It was fun riding through Altamont Pass and Niles
Canyon where I drive along the tracks many times.  I jumped off as we
went by Jack London Square (doing about 10-15mph), since I didn't want
to have to walk all the way back from the yards.  I called a taxi (on
my cellphone, a handy train hopping accessory) and got a ride back to
my car at Emeryville (I woulda been better off taking Amtrak back from
Stockton, considering the taxi cost $15, compared to the $1 Amtrak
return ticket, and the train ended up being an hour later than Amtrak)

Anyways, I had a great time and learned a few things that will help me
prepare for my next trip:)  One project I am going to start working
on is a WWW area for train hopping info.

-Mark