Riding the Sierra Star

MAMMOTH LAKES – July 2, 2027 – It is an amazing sight to see. As we pull out of Paradise Station we lurch a bit, and the car is filled with the sounds of sleepy people griping and groping for loose belongings. We’re laden fairly full and even though we accelerated quickly, we drop a lot of speed as we hit the steep incline. The few of us looking out see the valley floor dropping away from us, and as the route turns we rather suddenly witness an unexpected and brilliant panorama of the eastern Sierra mountains through which we’ve just traveled. Bishop is on the valley floor to the left, just lit by the morning sun, and the Paradise Station just in front of us. The sky is a cloudless blue, and the valley stretches off into the distance, fading into a palette of browns, reds, greys, and greens.

The Sierra Star runs the long Owens valley in eastern California, along the auto-route and free-rail US-395, and on to Lake Tahoe. Right now it’s 6 a.m. and we’re closing in on Mammoth Lakes, where we’ll be spending the next 6 days and 5 nights. My cycling buddies and I have all packed our camping gear and mountain bikes, and we’re headed up for a few days of R&R on the world famous Mammoth Mountain. We caught the “First Lift” train out of the UCLA Station in L.A.. and we are right on schedule. In a little less than an hour we’ll grab our things, walk off the train at Mammoth Lakes Station and step onto the big gondola up to the main lodge.

The view this morning is awesome, and I woke up pumped. I’d had a few Bullies on the ride to the depot, and though they were primarily intended to help me sleep, they weren’t really necessary. Even the coach section seats in the train are comfortable enough for decent winks, and there’s enough space to keep a couple of small bags on the floor in front of you. I had kicked back that seat and almost instantly drifted off to sleep, watching the desert stars dancing overhead.

The “All Glass” design is amazing. It originated in Switzerland, where steep grades are common to most trips, as are breathtaking vistas. The cars are exceptionally light because the upper half of the car – above about a meter – is completely clear, constructed almost entirely of TCF (transparent carbon fiber).

The ends of each car are opaque making them vaguely reminiscent of an uncovered wagon, albeit updated 150 years. There’s an seemingly odd lack of wind (no “windows”), and there are occasional spots of glare and reflection, but still it’s an amazing way to see the countryside go by. And of course, to top off the experience with a dash of comfort, thanks to a sensor-controlled LCD covering, in the mid-day sun the roof turns a dark grey, shading the passengers without ruining the effect of the open view.

The chassis and frame of the train is made of similar CF-composite construction, leaving its batteries as the heaviest part of each car. Each of the cars is fully automated and, sporting its own engine/charging system, could make the trip under its own power. Although grid power is available along the way, most of the time the train runs on stored power – because drawing power from the grid drastically reduces efficiency. Batteries charge in stations and on steep grades, where speeds are lower and power needs are greatest. According to the info terminal in the cafe car, the trains reach a “power/weight vs. drag efficiency-maximum” when 10 to 12 cars combine; their combined benefit is sufficient to make the entire LA to Tahoe run on batteries only.

Leaving its amazing qualities and fuel-efficiency aside however, it is pretty much impossible to ignore the sensation of riding in the open air. Best of all, everyone – practically everyone – acknowledges the train as it passes by. From outside the train all one sees is the head and shoulders of the occupants, and inside the train, travelers generally enjoy the attention; some even wave back. On the daytime trips, I revel when these moments of mutual glee are occasionally interrupted by howls and mother’s gasps when the water-rafters are spotted on the Owen’s River, as rafters are often wont to moon the passing tourists.

The new FreeRail system has a sweet irony to it. The old steel rails brought the coasts together, and pushed out muscles as the primary mode of transportation. Later, buses, trucks and automobiles pushed trains to the brink of extinction, and the rails and stations fell into disrepair; many were even dismantled and demolished. Then the landscape changed yet again with the coming of the freeways. Hundreds of towns desolated, as traffic that brought their livelihoods and their daily excitement passed by at a mile a minute, never even slowing down. Now, 100 years after it began, the FreeRails take alignments once reserved for cars and trucks, and the train is once again becoming the preferred mode of transportation.

I awoke in the night possessed of excess fluids, and groggily staggered to the WC. When I came out, my eyes adjusted slowly, but what a treat they unveiled! The moon was just past full, but shone brightly down. We rocketed along the valley floor, flanked on either side by towering, snow peaked mountains. On the western edge of the valley, the burgeoning Mt. Schwartzenegger glowed a faint orange as its pyroclastic flow oozed down its slopes. The stars danced overhead, and moonlight twinkled around the seams in the roof as we gently rolled through the night.

I started to doze off again, and I thought about the train station the night before. A pudgy porter had told us the Sierra Star was on track nine, and we asked for the bike & luggage car.

“Sometimes it’s in the front, sometimes it’s in the back, you can never tell,” he said.

The platforms were loaded with all varieties of people, as they usually are, even though it was 9pm. There were several pairs of the tanned and tight types toting towering backpacks and there were fishermen that, if you’d given them pain rifles instead of fishing poles, would be indistinguishable from war correspondents.

As we walked toward the far end of the train the crowd changed a bit. Many of them were the usual dining-and-dancing-crowd-come-downtown-from-the-valley-types, but there were also bunch of scruffies there, pushing and shoving each other near the door of the first car.

“What’s up?” I asked one of them.

“It’s her,” he cocked his head toward the coach car they were standing around, “She’s actually on the freakin’ train.”

I hadn’t noticed, but I saw that what I’d mistaken for an ordinary coach car was actually the ornate, hand-built, completely private and off limits to everyone especially you, personal car of herself, Ms. Sandy Star. The crowd that was milling around was hoping for a glimpse of the stripper-cum-philanthropist, who was known for occasionally giving people cars and banks and things.

Back in 2013 Ms. Star was a struggling pole dancer in Pamona, buying her weekly lotto card like everybody else. When she hit a $646 million dollar jackpot, she took the payout plan, essentially providing her with an annual income of $20 million, after taxes, for 20 years. As one of the lotto winners she’s also exempt from the National and State Sales Tax Act of 2017, so she became quite the social benefactor. After all, one can only purchase and renovate so many strip bars into so many day cares and homeless shelters. She’s famous for giving lavish gifts, but she’s infamous for being a woman with a dream.

Ms. Star is an avid skier, and although she grew up on the long-closed BigBear slopes north of L.A., as a teen she always wanted to get back to Mammoth, where she’d originally fallen in love with mountain sports on a youth trip. The family couldn’t afford the fuel for the 300 mile drive, and commercial flights were non-existent, so she didn’t get back until she was much older.

She eventually traveled to Mammoth Mountain and beyond to Tahoe for her getaways, but usually drove as she abhorred flying. Mammoth and other more remote ski resorts had been suffering for years, and transportation woes were threatening to close Mammoth too. Mammoth Mountain parent corporation Samsung put the resort on the block in 2017, citing years of steadily decreasing snowfall and shorter ski seasons for the mountain’s lack of profits.

In 2018, Ms. Star and her attorneys approached the Counties of Inyo, Mono and Kern counties with a proposal. She’d stake $130 million of her own money into a project to buy and build a FreeRail to Mammoth Lakes, if the counties would arrange the rest. It took 3 years of wrangling but eventually the parties agreed, and the Sierra Star Railroad Company was born.

In only 3 more years after that, using state and federal right-of-ways, crews grooved and railed useful sections of US-395, rebuilding the railway from the high desert in Mojave to Bishop in record time. When the first official train to Bishop in 60 years arrived on April 20th, 2024, the incline section of the rail to Mammoth was already nearing completion. The first load of skiers disembarked at the Mammoth Lakes station December 1st, 2024, and the first person to step off the train was the mountain’s proud owner, Ms. Star herself.

In the four years since, the train has been a spectacular success, and 2026’s grand opening of the rest of the route to Tahoe connected a series of 3 tunnels totaling nearly 40 miles through Mono and Alpine counties. Today the route carries about 3000 people per day on 4 trains, but when most of the railroad’s 400 cars are in use, the railroad can carry almost 30,000 per day. During the height of the ski season, the system can run more than 40 trains using a carefully programmed series of sidetracks, switches and a strict adherence to schedule.

Our train is small, only ten system cars, Ms. Star’s car and a couple of not-yet-unhitched private cars that joined the train for late night ride, but that’s common in July. The usual configuration is one freighter, one baggage, two business, two coach, two sleepers, a cafe and a lounge. The private cars will probably jump off and take the regular road into town from the Mammoth Lakes station, which draws near. As the train turns off the road alignment to pull alongside the station platform a small plane touches down on the runway next us.

Her car shines in the crisp morning light, but its occupant is probably sleeping, I think. When the car roof is set to block out the sunlight entirely, it takes on a mirror-perfect reflecting appearance from the outside. In the distance I can see the same reflection slipping in and out of the terminal and disappearing up the hill towards town, as the gondola cars shine like huge drops of water hanging from a glistening strand of web.

My stomach feels light as we pull into the station, and the fresh summer air greets my lungs like an old friend. I’m filled with anticipation, and I rush to gather my things.