Just Roll Baby by Nathaniel Rich is his story of riding the Sunset Limited. The headline is "On A 47-hour train trip through half of America, an incredible little subculture takes place. Then vanishes. This is because on a train after people tire of doing solitary things they turn to conversation. The article is what Mr. Rich learned about his fellow Amtrak riders by having conversations with them.
I suspect many of us have had our own experience with the kind of subculture Mr. Rich writes about. I know I certainly have. The stories are common but each is also unique as each person he meets is unique just as each person I have ever met on a train is unique. This is the stuff of all of our lives.
If you are interested the article is in The New York Times Magazine for March 3. Here is a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/magazine/47-hour-train-ride.html?ref=magazine&_r=0#comments
I've gotten to know some people extremely well on long train trips. Then the trip ended and we went our separate ways.
As a relatively friquent rider of the City of New Orleans, Empire Builder, and least frquent Sunset limited i find that once your tickets are taken You become a part of a family. you sleep and reax and don't really worry about someone ripping uou off. There are no lock on the slleeper doors. you felel that everyone has your back. On the EB and Sl , I have met Australian sheepherderd and a footman for the the Queen of England along with a viriety of people just intersted in what's out side the windows in different parts of the country
When you were ridin' on the City of New Orleans I don't guess there were just 15 restless riders. There weren't when I rode it either.
One of my most memorial train trips was sometime after Amtrak had taken the Crescent from Southern operations but still had all-heritage equipment, from New York to Atlanta just before a convention there of the American Guild of Organist. The louge car had an electric piano. Untill late in the evening there was hymn singing and general music making. I got my chance at the piano to introduce some Jewish Sabbath, Passover, Hanukah, and Purim songs that were appreciated. I knew a few of the organist-chorusmasters before hand, from my professional acoustical consulting activiies, but got to know all traveling on that trip. Not all boarded at New York, we picked up more on the way south. The non-musician passengers in the lounge car seemed to enjoy the continual al-fresco concert, and there were absolutely no complaints.
In the last month of pre-Amtrak passenger service, I took a trip that covered several miles of routes that would no longer have passenger service after the end of the month. The main addition to my route-miles was on the North Coast Limited from Chicago to Portland and the City of Portland back to Chicago. About an hour so so out Portland, a freight train introduced me to a fellow passenger who, I soon learned, also enjoyed traveling by train. Somehow, we talked for about five hours as we not only spoke about some of our travels by rail but also about other things that interested both of us. Fifteen months later, we married (and our honeymoon trip was Ogden to Salt Lake City by way of San Francisco and Denver). We took such trips as we were able before I retired, but once I no longer had to be at work five days a week we took an extensive trip every year (being gone at least a month each time). We covered territory that was new to both of us, and territory that we were familiar with--all for the sake of riding trains. Last year, I lost my life and traveling companion, but I plan to continue taking extensive trips.
Johnny
Johnny,
I am so sorry to hear of your tragic loss. Please accept my condolences.
John
Thank you, John.
Last summer we took a 7,888 mile Amtrak trip around the country courtesy of the Amtrak Guest Rewards Program. The trip consisted of the Lake Shore Limited from Massachusetts to Chicago, the Texas Eagle to Texas, the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles, Metro-link for a local connection, the Coast Starlight to Eugene, Oregon, the Amtrak Cascades to Portland, Oregon, the Empire Builder to Chicago and the Lake Shore Limited back to Massachusetts. We had a roomette for the entire trip. The food was generally great with some variations noted between the various trains. The scenery was awesome and we had lots of fun meeting new folks along the way. The only “bump” along the way was a 12 hour delay getting back into Chicago, which ended up giving us an extra day to explore downtown Chicago. Amtrak took good care of us during this unexpected layover. I’d go again in a minute.
sno-cat I’d go again in a minute.
I assume you are once again saving up guest rewards points. So you will need to wait more than a minute or even a few minutes. But it will come.
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