(The Fresno Bee published the following story by Russell Clemings on its website on September 2. Bob Bloomer is a member of BLE Division 553 in Calwa City, Calif.)
FRESNO, Calif. — Bob Bloomer loves trains; that much is clear.
He loves them enough to have spent his entire adult life as an engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad and its successor, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Now retired in Clovis, he loves trains enough to dream of having one of his own, a “dinner train” chugging back and forth with five cars on the short line between downtown Fresno and Kerman, carrying diners enjoying meals on settings of fine china, with crystal stemware and linen tablecloths and napkins.
An impossible fantasy?
Bloomer doesn’t think so. He claims 25 investors — whom he won’t identify — plus letters of support from two dozen local dignitaries and political bodies, as well as encouraging feedback from the Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the Kerman-to-Fresno line, and the San Joaquin Valley Railroad, which leases and operates it.
Perhaps most important, he’s also got determination.
“I am not the kind of person who gets discouraged with a dream,” this avuncular train lover says. “I am pursuing this until it comes true.”
His dream may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. A Web site devoted to such “dinner trains” (http://www.americandinnertrains.com) lists 82 of them in the United States and Canada, including 10 in California alone.
Some, such as the Napa Valley Wine Train, have an undeniable cachet. But others operate in locales no less improbable than the Fresno County flatlands.
“In fact, the first dinner train I ever rode was in Iowa, through cornfields, and that’s all you saw was cornfields,” Bloomer said, “It was a very pleasant experience.”
Bloomer has been trying since the late 1980s to bring his dream to life. At first, he said, his idea was to run on another San Joaquin Valley Railroad line from Visalia to Exeter. But the Southern Pacific Railroad, which owned those tracks at the time, refused to bless that plan, he said.
Later, he explored a similar concept on a line from West Sacramento to Woodland, but gave up when the California State Railroad Museum announced plans for its own dinner train.
“Two dinner trains in the same area won’t work,” Bloomer said.
Whether the latest iteration will succeed remains to be seen. Bloomer said he is waiting for approval from the Southern Pacific’s successor, the Union Pacific, although he said he has been given a sample contract to review.
One sticking point, he says, will be insurance.
“The problem is finding someone who will sell it to you, because the companies have all dropped out and there’s only about one left,” he said.
But Bloomer remains optimistic.
He has worked with the Central Valley Business Incubator, a local nonprofit organization that offers assistance to aspiring entrepreneurs, to produce a business plan.
He has even mapped out a timetable for the trains — lunch runs Wednesday through Saturday, dinner runs on Friday and Saturday and brunch on Sunday, plus charters. He expects an average of 100 guests per day.
How soon the service may begin is still the biggest question.
“I’ve got to figure out how we’re going to deal with this insurance problem,” he said. “Let’s just say sometime next year.”