An Amtrak Trek: Part I
This expatriate came visiting America again but needed to keep going from Miami, where the ship left his non-flying soul, to The City — New York. Ah, the romance. Ah, the luxury. Bring on that Pullman porter and hear the bell ring and the proud conductor call “All aboard”.
It is 2007. The ticket was booked online. I made this trip about 10 years ago from Rhinebeck, New York, through the City to Tampa to visit my ill mother. I was broke that year — could barely afford a coach ticket. It was better than I thought but the coach for 27 hours was stiffening, the train and toilets clean until somewhere in the South when everyone was too tired, the trip too long.
This is another year, another life and I splurged on the roomette for luxury, for survival and perhaps for the romance of railroading. The roomette was an extra $185 dollars over the $113 for the ticket. It was said to be fine for two but there is only one of me. Super-sized Americans may not fit into the roomette with ease.
Meals in the dining car are included along with bottled water and other first class perks. I didn't believe it would be worth the money. Trains are great for medium distance intercity travel. New York to Washington, Albany to New York, throw in a Boston and these are great trips of luxury, speed and comfort delivering the traveler from center city to center city without the taxi ride out to where they hid the airports.
My Internet ticket in hand I took the red-eyed me in a taxi from downtown Miami to the Amtrak station in North Miami. It is no longer in a Union Station but a nondescript building. There are two trains from Miami and both leave early in the morning. Mr. Night Person managed to wake at 5:30 and make the half-hour-before 7:15 departure. Security was a sleepy-cranky dude who attached tags to the checked baggage. Sleepy folk lined up for the coaches and I said, trying not to be pretentious, that I was in “the sleeper”. I was ordered into a golf cart and hummed off to the cars at the front of the train — locomotive, baggage car, three sleepers, dining car and a string of passenger cars. The sun was coming up over industrial Miami landscapes.
Article comments
1 - RNB
Passenger rail carries less than 1 percent of the intercity travel in the U.S. That's not a transportation mode, it's somebody's hobby.
2 - Mark Saleski
wow, really great stuff howard.
reminds me of shorter (and far less scary) version of paul theroux's The Old Patagonia Express
3 - Elvira Black
Hey Howard--good stuff. My b/f and I took Amtrak twice from NYC to Wisconsin. What a schlep, and the route was not very scenic. The second time I brought a ton of sandwiches for the road because the sandwiches etc cost a fortune. We didn't travel in "style" but I noticed that the supposed "sleeper" seats were identical to the regular ones. I guess you got the real deal though.
The conductors can be rude and unhelpful. You're right about the lack of security--one time we went right after there was a big announcement that Amtrak would be checking security more closely but apparently not.
My b/f went out to Ohio recently by plane to visit his folks, and though it was a short trip it was hellish nonetheless. He is very hesitant to ever take a plane trip again after that ordeal.
But it sounds like you had a relatively "pleasant" time of it in exchange for the extra bucks.
4 - Howard Dratch
Thanks for the comments. Mark: time for me to read the Theroux. Elvira yest it did have a "relatively" pleasant time. In the morning I board the Silver Star for the return.
I posted a similar article on my own blog, 7 Color Lagoon which garnered a wonderfully informative comment by Jim L. It is really worth the read for more of the Amtrak passenger rail situation from the keyboard of a real railroad man. I hope he will also post it here.
RNB. You may be right about the percentage of travel by rail but that could mean that there is a lot of room for the country to go back to the future.