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XTRN -----PENNIES READ:

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THE SANTA FE ROUTE IS GOING TO BE HUGE!


FIRST UNDERGROUND CLUB
MARCH 10, 2014 BY MCCALL HUMES

Alternate Title: Why Dining Clubs are better than Night Clubs

(Summary: It’s the food)

You know how in movies the hip guy might go to an unmarked door in a LA alley, do a special knock, and get let in to an underground club? Or the New York cool cat will whisper a password to a set of tough guy eyes in a door slot, and be led across a commercial kitchen, through a thick curtain to a dance floor where pretty people are moving in perfect time to some swanky jazz band? Yeah, this First was kinda like that. Except instead of a night of fighting for a space at the bar, my evening led to stuffing my face with yummy food and washing it down with free top shelf liquor. On a train. That’s right, I win.



Have y’all heard of the X train? Maybe not. But I bet you have heard that there will be a passenger train between Southern California and Las Vegas, right? That’s how I was. Just didn’t know the name. And now we do. The X train.



My sister, Britums, Marketing Coordinator for Golf Summerlin, is very good at finding fun and creative activities for us and once again, this one was all her. She called me one day and said she followed The X Train on Facebook. They had just posted that the first 40 people to email them would be invited to take part in either a murder mystery party or an underground supper club aboard their train. I think it was part of a media day they were having here in Vegas. We both immediately responded and were given invitations. The mystery party sounded fun, we usually host one once a year ourselves, but the timing was bad for us that day so we opted for dinner. Boy, am I glad we did!

Let me set the scene…

We parked in a corner lot in an industrial part of town. Waiting there was a shuttle bus to drive us across the street. Literally. It was a bit of a shady part of town, at a poorly lit intersection, so the shuttle was more of a courtesy than necessity. It added to the ‘underground’ vibe though, so I dug it. We parked, got on a shuttle, crossed one street, got out at an industrial park, and walked through a warehouse full of fork lifts and other such equipment. Definitely an underground vibe. For a second I questioned what exactly we had gotten ourselves into.

The only reason for this seemingly random location, as far as I could tell, was that there are live train tracks behind this particular warehouse. They end there so it’s a good place to park and leave a train. It’s possible there was more of a connection between the building and the train, but I forgot to ask. Anyway, parked on one of the tracks were two X Train cars.

Before walking through a back door and up the ramp leading to the train, we were greeted by a very friendly woman handing out cocktails.

And I’m in love.

It occurs to me now that I’m pretty much the ideal mark. “Hey there lil’ lady, come to this shady local, get in my unmarked car, drink this. It’s not weird, go ahead…”

“Oh sure, sounds fun. I love cocktails!! By the way, I’m just here for the food. I’ll pass on the rape.”


Anyway, there were lots of witnesses so I willingly took the yummy cocktail and went aboard. I didn’t know what to expect, but let me tell ya, I was not disappointed. Once in the train we were given a little tour. To our right there was the passenger car. It had comfy seats, each with its own table and area to plug in phones and electronics. Already this seemed so much better than squeezing into a snug middle seat on a plane. To our left was the kitchen car where chefs from Masterpiece Cuisine were hard at work making us an 8 course tasting menu. In between was an open bar, filled with free top shelf liquor. Like I said, I WIN!

Britums and I had a great time. We enjoyed the food courses, which came at a rate of about once every eight minutes. I honestly don’t know how they pulled it together without a full kitchen. Guess that’s why they’re the professionals. For dessert they even flambe’d donuts in the middle of our car. I suggested that we all jump up and down to see how the chef’s techniques held up to the motion of a moving car, but no one joined in. I guess I’ll have to take an actual ride to see that.

There was a nice variety of people on the parked train with us. A guy from California, and the friend he was in town visiting, sat across from us. They had also found out about the event via Facebook. I got the impression he had followed the creation of this train line longer than us and was somehow connected to it.


Since I am always on the lookout for Firsts to try, I have made a habit of asking new people if they have hobbies or experiences they’d like to share with me. These guys were very into hosting couchsurfers. One of them, a fellow blogger named Connor, has hosted around 100 visitors!! I have never hosted, nor couch surfed, but Britums and my mom have both opened their homes up to travelers this way in the past so I was quite familiar. If you are interested in meeting people, often from other countries, and learning about new cultures, it’s a pretty cool way to do it. You just have to be smart and safe about it. (Said the easy mark.)

These guys had some pretty entertaining stories to share about their experiences with it. Between them, and the girl the next seat over whom I exchanged eyebrow threading stories with, we had quite enjoyable conversations that evening.

This was a wonderful night. I always have a great time with Britums and this was no exception. I am really enjoying getting myself out of the house more and trying all these Firsts!

Traveling by train has always been on my bucket list and this evening only solidified the dream. Can’t wait to have the full X Train experience!