I just, that means a few hours ago, got back from my annual train trip with my brother. Over the past few years we have traversed the country together as a kind of male bonding thing. My brother is a genuine train enthusiast who knows the names of all the equipment and the routes. I like looking out the window and listening to what people have to say.
More after the jump.
If you travel on Amtrak’s long distance trains and eat in the dining car, the arrangements are very democratic. First come, first served and you are seated with whomever is before or after you in line. This leads to conversation with people on a non-selective basis. It is fun and informative.
Our last trip ending today was from Portland, Oregon to New York, changing trains in Chicago. We flew to Portland to make this work in the least amount of time and thanks to JetBlue that was affordable.
The passengers fell into two or three general categories. I say this because the coach passengers were purely into transportation. The balance were senior citizens on extended tours of the country and folks that don’t fly, period.
The particular train we took (Amtrak’s Empire Builder) started in Portland merged with its counterpart in Spokane, which started in Seattle, and continued cross Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin to end up in Chicago where many pasengers, like us, transferred to trains going to their final destinations.
I was paricularly intersted in teh discussion with the Red Staters which have little if any air transport opportunities and rely heavily on the trains. Kansas, especially has virtually no airline service,
and none from the capital. In Montana, would be totally isolated without the train, especially in the winter months when the roads are often impassable, but the trains can get through better. The folks I spoke with from Nebraska, said the situation was similar.
because the hurry-up-and-wait, sardine can seating, and stale “snacks” are totally absent. People take Amtrak precisely because they’re not in any particular hurry; it’s not as though it is convenient or inexpensive.
My first trip, from Cleveland to Boston, set the tone for all my subsequent rides. I bought a coach seat.
Coach seating means you park your butt in a wide, high-backed leather chair with a movable footrest. I slept like a baby, although my (attractive young) seatmate told me in the morning that I made “funny noises” in my sleep. I moseyed to the men’s room to wash my face, brush my teeth, and shave.
I proceeded to the dining car, where I was seated at a table set with a linen cloth, sterling and china, and fresh-cut flowers. My pleasant tablemates and I spun out our tales of travel as waiters served fresh brewed coffee, fresh orange juice, scrambled eggs and English muffins.
Later, I took my book along to the lounge car and settle into a booth with a beverage to read. After a while, two young plopped down across from me and challenged me to a game on their traveling Parchisi set. We played several games, chatted for a while, and next thing I knew we were pulling into South Station.
Total door-to-door travel time: fifteen hours. Stress factor: zero. Fatigue level: zero.
On our most recent plane trip, my family and I arrived at Logan two and one-half hours early to make sure we got through security with time to spare, supped on $8 ham sandwiches at a deli there, and then waited four hours for our weather-delayed plane. Total door-to-door travel time: ten hours. Stress factor: 10. Fatigue level: 10.
Yeah, keep cutting subsidies for Amtrak. We gotta prop up those all-important airlines so we can hurry from place to place….always waiting, always treated like cattle. Bah.
the wife and I will take the ultimate of all train rides: the Trans-Siberian railroad. Maybe in two or three years.
Thanks for the post. It was a pleasant diversion.