My Amtrak Adventure

For a recent birthday, I decided to treat myself to an Amtrak trip. Kathy couldn’t really take the time off from work, and I had accumulated enough free miles to earn a free round trip, first class ticket. So off I went to Ft. Worth, to ride the Texas Eagle to St. Louis.

The Eagle is an old and honored name among passenger trains, first operated by the Missouri Pacific & Texas & Pacific system in the late 1940s. The MP/T&P operated a number of Eagles that radiated out from St. Louis to Denver, Kansas City, New Orleans, and other points across the system. The Texas Eagle went from St. Louis to Texarkana and Marshall; from there, you could take an Eagle to Houston, Laredo, San Antonio, Brownsville, or Mexico City. Other Eagles would take you to Dallas, Ft. Worth, Abilene, El Paso – even Los Angeles, if you made connections on the Southern Pacific.

Amtrak’s Eagle runs from Chicago to St. Louis, Texarkana, Marshall, Dallas and Ft. Worth, then south to Austin and San Antonio, with connections eastbound to Houston & New Orleans, or westbound to El Paso and Los Angeles.

The train coming up from Austin was about an hour late getting into Ft. Worth – not a good beginning! But since Amtrak doesn’t own its own tracks in this part of the country, it is generally at the scheduling mercy of UP, BNSF, and other freight-haulers. But I checked in with the conductor, who pointed me towards my compartment, and I settled in.

Accommodations on an Amtrak sleeper come in various sizes. The “roomette,” which is what I had, is the smallest. It has two bench seats that face each other, and a sliding door for privacy. Cozy but comfortable, as long as you’re not claustrophobic, with restroom and shower facilities down the hall. Amtrak also offers bedrooms, family bedrooms, and bedroom suites, depending on a traveler’s needs, some with “en suite” restrooms and showers – see www.amtrak.com for more information.

Meals in the dining car are included with your first class ticket at no extra charge – gratuities and adult beverages are extra, of course. (More about the meals later.)

After the usual wait for servicing the train and loading passengers, the engineer gave the customary “Toot-toot” on the big locomotive’s horn, and we pulled smoothly out of downtown Ft. Worth. Until recently, pulling in and out of the Ft. Worth station required a complicated series of backup moves, crisscrossing through the Tower 55 interchange, and heading to Dallas on the UP through Arlington. Now however, the Eagle takes the more convenient route of the Trinity Railway Express commuter train (formerly the Rock Island line) through Richland Hills, Hurst, and Irving, on its way to Dallas Union Station.

As we pulled into Dallas, the conductor announced that he was hoping to make up some of the time he had lost earlier that day, and warned any passengers getting off the train at Dallas for a smoke break, to stay close to the train and ready to leave at short notice. Sure enough, we weren’t there very long before two more short blasts on the horn announced our departure, and we were gone, heading east past Deep Ellum, Fair Park, and into Mesquite and Terrell.

Heading through these residential areas, I was reminded of the interesting experience that often accompanies train travel: looking out your window into people’s backyards – some well-kept and inviting, others filled with piles of junk and forgotten, half-finished projects. You see plenty of both kinds, and everything in between.

Then it was into the beautiful woods of East Texas, which at the time were just beginning to put on their autumn colors. Now and then we’d pass a rural homestead, often with tractors and other farm equipment parked around the place. Going by homes like that, I can’t help but wonder about the people who live there. What is their life like? What are their delights, and their struggles? Are they happy? Do they want to ride this train when they hear it going by?

Train travel always makes me thoughtful.

Somewhere around Longview, I headed to the dining car for supper. Railroad dining cars have a long and well-deserved reputation for good food, and I’m happy to report that tradition is alive and well on the Texas Eagle. I had an excellent steak and baked potato, while enjoying pleasant conversation with three other travelers who were bound for various points north and east. (This kind of shared discussion is another old tradition of train travel.)

I found the sleeping car attendant, and asked him to make up my bed while I went to the club car to read and sip a little bourbon – it was my birthday, after all! I returned to my room, with the bed now prepared for sleeping, changed clothes and crawled between the covers, the train rocking me to sleep with the (usually) gentle “rhythm of the rails.”

I woke up the next morning, just after daylight. It was a cool, gray, cloudy & drizzly morning. We had crossed through Arkansas, and were just outside of St. Louis, awaiting clearance to pull into our spot – we had made up that hour, and were actually a few minutes early. I headed down the hallway in my pjs to the coffee pot – another “perk” of riding first class, complimentary coffee. A few minutes later, I got dressed and went back to the dining car for breakfast – scrambled eggs and bacon, with whole wheat toast.

We pulled in and stopped. I tipped the waiter, went back to my room, and grabbed my luggage; from there, I headed out to explore St. Louis.

But that’s a story for next time.

 

The Magic Carpet Made of Steel

The next time your travel plans call for a long-distance trip, let me suggest that you take a page from the past, and go by train.  In my opinion, traveling by Amtrak is one of America’s best-kept secrets.  And most of the time, it absolutely beats flying as a way of getting from here to there.

I have had the pleasure of taking the train on several overnight trips, and it’s a wonderful experience.  Some trips I’ve had a private roomette; other times I’ve gone the cheap route and just gotten a seat in the coach car.

Riding in coach is a pleasant surprise for anyone used to flying.  The tickets cost about the same as taking the bus, but it’s a much more comfortable way to go.  The seats are roomier, and there’s a LOT more leg room.  There are also electrical outlets at every seat where you can plug in and recharge your laptop or cell phone.  You can easily get up and walk to stretch your legs, go to one of the several restrooms on each car, or go to the lounge car.

If you do go to the lounge car, you’ll find lots of very comfortable seats and ginormous picture windows for looking out on the passing scenery.  You’ll also find a snack bar selling heat-and-eat meals, soft drinks and adult beverages, as well as sundries like playing cards, post cards, toiletries, and other items for sale.

My friend Phil Stallings – a retired airline captain – likes to say, “It only costs a little more to go first class; you just can’t go quite as often.”  That’s true of Amtrak, and if you can at all afford getting a roomette or a bedroom, I would highly recommend it.

Roomettes are small compartments, just right for one or two people.  In the daytime, they come with two comfortable seats that face each other, a drop-down table between them, and a sliding, locking door with a heavy curtain over it for privacy.  The rooms have electrical outlets, and adjustable climate controls, and space to store a couple of suitcases.

In the evening, the porter will fold down the seats and make them into a comfortable twin-sized bed for you.  There’s also a drop-down “Murphy” bed above the window, if two people are sharing the room.

Your first class ticket also includes meals in the dining car.  Eating in the diner has always been one of the best parts of train travel, and while Amtrak cuisine can’t quite match up to the glory days of the Super Chief or the Twentieth Century Limited, it’s still pretty good.

When you get up in the morning, the porter will bring you complimentary coffee or juice.  You can also reserve a time to go downstairs and take a shower.

Try doing that on a 737…

The last time I traveled first class, I took Amtrak from Ft. Worth to Cincinnati, via Chicago.  We left Cowtown early afternoon on the “Texas Eagle,” stopped in Dallas for a few minutes, then continued on from there.  I had supper in the diner – a really good steak, as I recall – then hung out in the lounge car and read as the night fell over East Texas.  I went back to my compartment and went to bed, “rocking to the gentle beat.”

I woke up briefly as we went through Little Rock, and then it was dawn and we were in St. Louis.  My good friend Mike Kloog lives there, and he came to the station.  I went in and he and I had a nice visit as the train was being serviced.  I climbed back aboard, and had breakfast as we went by the St. Louis Arch and crossed the Mississippi into Illinois.  Later, I had lunch near Joliet, then we were in Chicago, where I caught Amtrak’s “Cardinal” to Cincinnati.  All in all, a wonderful trip.

Let’s consider some negatives:

• Yes, the schedules are not always convenient, and you sometimes have to drive an hour or two to catch the train.  But then, I’ve often driven to Dallas or Lubbock to catch a flight, so that shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.
• Yes, it takes longer to get there than flying.  Sometimes when you travel, speed is necessary.  But not always.  When you have the time, you should consider the train.
• Yes, it can be a bit pricey if you get a private room.  But that balances out when you consider the cost of gasoline, meals and motel rooms for driving across country.  And you don’t arrive feeling beaten up and strung out from the road.
• Yes, sometimes the trains run late.  But then, so does every other form of public transportation.  And outside of the Boston-New York-Washington, DC corridor, Amtrak doesn’t own its own tracks, so it has to juggle schedules around the freight railroads whose tracks it leases.

All that said, I still think it’s well worth it to take the train.  No security hassles getting on, and no TSA agents copping a feel.  No extra charge to bring along a suitcase.  No cramped seats, or not being allowed to go use the restroom while the train circles the station.  Scenery that you can actually see, and appreciate the beauty and diversity of this great country of ours.  Food that you’d actually pay money to eat.  And wonderful people to meet, with whom you can visit and share the ride.

Whenever I talk to people about long distance train trips, I often hear, “I’ve always wanted to do that.”  Maybe it’s time to take a page from Nike’s book, and just do it.  I think you’ll be glad you did.  And you don’t have to be a train buff to enjoy the ride.