MAY 1 WAS A SATURDAY IN 1971. That was the first day of Amtrak. I should scan some of the slides I took in Milwaukee that day. The Milwaukee Road washed the locomotives and 1948 series Hiawatha coaches and a cafe car for the few Chicago trains that remained, and the first scheduled Pacific Coast train since the Olympian Hiawatha came off featured a well-scrubbed Burlington Northern consist with what came close to a matched set of Burlington Northern F units leading.

National Train Day will be May 9. I will be riding the Stolypin car to Grading Gulag.