Have you ever heard of it? Well… thanks to this guy, now you do! Thanks so much to 2026 SmugMug, Inc. for giving me so much information about this lovely rail car.

The Tam was built by Pullman about 1923 and was formerly ATSF 33. It was sold by the ATSF and had several private owners including Atlantic Richfield Corporation. Our group purchased the car “on the court house steps” after Southern Pacific had forclosed on the previous owner for non-payment of storage charges. A few modications had been made to the car over the years, but overall it retained much of its original 1923 ambience.

Be sure you click through the photos on his website. It’s a beautiful old rail car, isn’t it? Privately owned cars can be connected to passenger trains for exclusive, cross-country travel through services like Amtrak Privately-Owned Rail Cars, provided they meet current passenger-car certification and safety standards.

You may ask, why am I showing you all this? Aside from the train factor, of course. Well, it’s because Nolemana and I got to ride on it years ago!! It was connected to the end of another train (maybe Southern Pacific?) and it was an incredible day.

I just found the photos, and they’re not dated, unfortunately, but it was probably in the 1990s sometime. And how did that come to happen, you ask? (Ho, I’m so full of questions today, yeah?)

Well, this is the answer. My friend, Gil Starratt, was a family friend from ‘way back in Hawai’i. He was in the Navy back then, and he stayed in touch with us through all the years afterwards and after my dad’s death, too. He loved trains, and knew I loved them, too, and one day he called me and said he and some friends had chartered the Tamalpais from California to Seattle, and if I wanted to, Nolemana and I could tag along from Portland to Salem on it! Did I want to? Is the sky blue? Do robins sing? Is Hawaiʻi surrounded by the Pacific Ocean? Of course I did!!

I’m gonna have to look in my old journals and see if I can find exactly what I wrote about how we worked it all out, because right now I can’t remember how we got home from Salem! But ride in the Tamalpais from Portland to Salem, we did, and it was fabulous!! We got to see the inside of the car, which was beautiful, but mostly Gil and Nolemana and I stood out on the back and marveled at the wonder of it all, watching the miles go by. Even now, I get wai maka just thinking about it. I loved Gil, and was so grateful to him for allowing us to have this trip of a lifetime.

I don’t have any photos of Nolemana and I on the train, but here’s one of Gil, and then one of his friends as they were about to leave. Oh, how I wished I could stay with them fir awhile, yet was so grateful to Gil for making our trip possible. (That’s Gil in the blue shirt.) Gil passed away in 2002, and I will always treasure his presence in my life.

Mahalo nui, Gil; you were a special part of my life and I treasure this memory.