You meet the darndest folks on the Texas Eagle.

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Twice I road the CZ with John Madden. Wild thing is the second y\time he remembered me as the "Wired Librarian." and he did drink Miller Lite (this was the 80's)
 
I met retired US Senator Gary Hart (of Colorado) some years back on the Coast Starlight...
 
andersone said:
Twice I road the CZ with John Madden. Wild thing is the second y\time he remembered me as the "Wired Librarian." and he did drink Miller Lite (this was the 80's)
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I listen to Madden on KCBS radio (SF station) almost every day, and he definitely does not fly. He has his own bus, but I guess he likes the train, too!
 
If you ride long enough, you'll get a few celebrity stories here and there. It's still awesome, though, since sometimes you actually get meaningful facetime with someone, and you can't put a price on that.
 
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CaliforniaMom said:
andersone said:
Twice I road the CZ with John Madden. Wild thing is the second y\time he remembered me as the "Wired Librarian." and he did drink Miller Lite (this was the 80's)
Click to expand...
I listen to Madden on KCBS radio (SF station) almost every day, and he definitely does not fly. He has his own bus, but I guess he likes the train, too!
Click to expand...
well this was in the 80's before he had his bus. A totally engaging individual, we discussed everything from sports to politics to history. He actually sought me out the second day of the first trip and we had both lunch and dinner together,, And aside I knew it was Jesse Jackson, I met him often as a young man - my church group helped out with some of the meal programs he ran in Chicago. He should have been the first black president, but had way too much fire in the belly but he did pave the way for current Commander in Chief.
 
CaliforniaMom said:
andersone said:
Twice I road the CZ with John Madden. Wild thing is the second y\time he remembered me as the "Wired Librarian." and he did drink Miller Lite (this was the 80's)
Click to expand...
I listen to Madden on KCBS radio (SF station) almost every day, and he definitely does not fly. He has his own bus, but I guess he likes the train, too!
Click to expand...
When John Madden first starting doing color commentary for the Monday Night Football games, he would always travel to the cities of the games via Amtrak. But with more delayed trains, fewer trains overall, and more cities for the games that did not have convenient Amtrak service from his home in the SF Bay Area, he switched to a personal bus (like a glorified motor home) with a driver (or two) and other supporting staff.

But now that he is not serving regularly on TV anymore, I think he spends much more time at home with friends and family. He still has a regular radiio interview segment weekday mornings on KCBS in the San Francisco area.
 
How did you approach Jesse Jackson?

"Hi, you look a lot like JJ. Are you JJ? Can I take a photo with you?"
 
Shawn Ryu said:
Jesse Jackson rides trains? Wow.
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As I said I am guessing he was riding to Springfield, the state capital. It's a long drive from Chicago, yet the air service options are poor and often interrupted. So if he did not have a private plane available, it might have made the most sense. This was north of Bloomington-Normal, so it is possible he was going there as well.
 
Anderson said:
If you ride long enough, you'll get a few celebrity stories here and there. It's still awesome, though, since sometimes you actually get meaningful facetime with someone, and you can't put a price on that.
Click to expand...
I did a trip on Acela in First Class from NYP to New Haven in 2011. I got to talking with the attendant and he collected the ticket stubs of celebrities who rode with him over the last 20-30 years... and had the celebrities sign the stubs... and he kept them in a scrap book. He shared the scrap book with me and I got pictures of all the stubs. I was planning to use them as an appendix of the railroad route guide book I got published that year. The attendant called me a couple of days later and said he was fine with me keeping the pictures, but wanted to pull his permission to use them in the book in respect for the celebrities' privacy, etc. I was looking at the pictures the other days... funny a lot of celebrities still have AGR.
 
I've been told I looked (in my younger days...) a little (or lot, depending on how many beers in they were) like Garth Brooks. More than one person has an autographed picture of them and "Garth".....hey, as long as they're happy....
 
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