The World Through a Coach Window

There are a few prerequisites to be achieved before one can comment on past and future railroads with authority. One should know the major branches of the Class I family tree by memory, should have a working technical knowledge of past and present railroad technologies, and should posses an idea of where the major railroad routes exist and what sort of cargo rolls over each of them.

There are also experiential lessons: A visit to a dispatching center and a few moments spent in awe of how an industry spanning half a continent originates from within a few acres, time spent at a large switching yard to appreciate the sheer volume of material that travels over our rails, feeling the heat of a well-stoked fire and the feel of 200 or more pounds of pressure flowing through an injector in order to appreciate what it takes to keep the entire system in motion. Above all, though, a good expositor of the rails should spend as much time as possible around the trains — both beside them and upon them — to develop an understanding of both how they work and the way they mold the land and communities immediately beyond the permanent way.

I have first hand experience with all those requirements, and have no lack of hours racked up beside the tracks. Through all that, one blind spot has persisted: I have not had the chance to travel on an Amtrak train. The recent celebration of Trains Magazine’s 75th anniversary presented the perfect opportunity to test out one of our nation’s long-distance train routes.

The Hiawatha's departure. Construction at Milwaukee Intermodal Station is visible.

The trek from Brew City to The Big D
There is Amtrak service from Milwaukee to Dallas. Once there, I can connect to local commuter trains and arrive almost at my doorstep. The first train in my lineup is the Hiawatha from Milwaukee to Chicago. It departs from the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, a glass-fronted building tucked in between a downtown connector highway and water. The train glides out of Milwaukee over smooth tracks and encounters no delays. It reminds me of any given light-rail route, except that there is higher passenger capacity and more room dedicated to luggage. We arrive in Chicago after an hour and 45 minutes and scatter to our connecting routes.

The view of the Chicago skyline as the Hiawatha approaches Chicago.

I have more than an hour’s layover before continuing southwards, and wait to board the Texas Eagleunder the expansive ceiling of Union Station Chicago’s Great Hall. Christmas decorations do not obscure the breathtaking scope of the architecture, the fine details carved into the stone. The room feels reverential, like it should have been created for worship or matters of state instead of for every day travel.

The grand staircase in Chicago Union Station will look familiar to cinephiles: It was used as the set for a pivotal scene in 'The Untouchables.'

After all the boarding call is announced and the passengers are settled, the Texas Eagle proceeds through Chicago slowly, halting at intervals to let other trains pass us by. At times if feels like the right of way has been hewn out of brick and concrete canyons. The residential and commercial buildings in Chicago are far denser than any neighborhood in my home state, most standing only an arm’s length from each other, and I do not see any decayed or unused space. We come to the outskirts of town and begin to pass by greying factory buildings, dusty power plants and, while the Texas Eagle isn’t the right train to recount poetry about graveyards full of rusting automobiles, they are there.

Illinois scenery at dusk. (photo by Jason Bradshaw)

After a few hours, the train has left Chicago behind. The dense city transitions into rural Illinois relatively effortlessly, and soon the train is rolling free through stippled cornfields. They stretch uninterrupted from horizon to horizon, flat and singularly dedicated to agricultural production, permitting only the occasional splash of color from farmhouses or trees clinging to fall foliage. If Chicago impresses with how much it can fit into a square mile, what is memorable about the rest of Illinois is how many undeveloped acres it can line up next to each other.

Soon this landscape becomes monotonous, and the passengers begin to look inside the train for stimulation. We begin to wander through the train, to sample the goods in the cafe car and the views on the observation deck, to make polite but reserved conversation about boarding points and destinations and the circumstances taking us there. Most people seem friendly, but reluctant to venture beyond polite small talk. I attribute this to the train being roomy enough to allow us each a space of our own. We are not forced to sit directly beside a stranger except in the dining car, and it is there that the most genuine conversations take place.

I find it difficult to parse out the specific reasons why these people chose to travel by train. They weren’t drawn in by a financial motive. Amtrak coach tickets are on average slightly more expensive than air travel, and are much more so if one purchases a roomette. Neither do riders save any time: It takes almost a full day to go from Chicago to Dallas, and the passengers continuing on to San Antonio or Houston will be in transit much longer than that.

Dissatisfaction with air travel is the closet thing that comes up as a unifying factor bringing people on board. Some of the passengers find the boarding process too frustrating or humiliating to endure, others are coming from or going to such rural locations that riding the train is quicker and more direct way to get to their destination than when travel to and from the airport is factored in.

The failings of air travel, though, do not automatically translate into a love of rail travel. I hear gratitude that Amtrak offers room to stretch the legs but no grand reminiscences of our nation’s bygone passenger rail network, appreciations of the scenery outside the windows but no interest in the railroad industry itself. The passengers appreciate the train for what it is: A slower, but more comfortable vehicle from point A to point B.
The night falls, and we roll on through southern Illinois. It is pitch dark when the Texas Eagle arrives in St. Louis. The river glitters with the reflection of the illuminated skyline, and a misting rain give the Gateway Arch a gentle blur. Many of the downtown buildings are illuminated in bands of red, white, and blue, a show of solidarity for the Paris attacks which took place little more than a day before.

We do not have the option of pretending that the Texas Eagle is exempt from the fallout of the attack. Security at Chicago Union Station has been temporarily and significantly increased, and passengers board the trains in the presence of bomb-sniffing dogs and police officers armed with rifles. Some individuals traveling along certain routes seem to be have put under extra scrutiny.

The evidence of what happened in Paris leaves a palpable anxiety in the air. I realize that the turmoil far beyond the windows has stunted the way the passengers interact with each other. We are not just removed to our own corners of the train, we are mildly suspicious of each other, resentful that our boarding process resembled the ones at airports, and, yet, ready to leap into solidarity on the off chance that a violent incident would actually occur.
The light rain turns into a downpour as we as we pull out of St. Louis. The rhythm of the rails and the sound of the rain combine into a perfect sedative. I curl up into the seat and have nothing to report of Missouri and Arkansas except that they were pleasant to sleep through.

Some gut instinct wakes me up just as we cross the Texas border around six in the morning. The forests in East Texas are displaying the best of their fall pallette, and the last five hours heading into Dallas are the most scenic. We encounter our only significant delay near Longview when storm debris falls onto the track, but pull into Dallas Union Station only quarter of an hour behind schedule.

For all practical purposes, I am home.

I gather up my checked luggage and wait in the shadow of Reunion Tower for the first northbound local train to arrive. I cast about some disjointed thoughts regarding Amtrak coming to prominence if they were actually given a decent budget, how they could interface with the many parts of the country rediscovering the necessity of passenger rail, but I am too exhausted to arrange them into a coherent narrative. Sleep in a moving vehicle is never refreshing.

The one reaction that does come to me is that where time and the routing allows, I would do this again. The trip is viable, practical, and I can envision Amtrak serving my needs again in the future. Amtrak has succeeded as an alternative to other means of travel, has preserved a relaxed atmosphere in an industry increasingly concerned about security, and has endured its lean years and continued to ensure that we as travelers have options. Amtrak has done all this even in defiance of a parsimonious budget, and could alter the way we travel if it was properly nurtured.            

It’s worth doing. Amtrak is ours, and so is the land outside the coach window. Both are worth protecting.