All Aboard Amtrak

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When I was little, my mom decided to take us to her hometown to visit her mom and dad. We lived in West Virginia and they lived all the way over on the other side of the country…in Spokane, Washington. I truly remember how she got out a map of the United States, showed me where we lived and where we were going. I thought it would take a month to get there since it took me a while just to walk down our street.

Oh, but we weren’t driving. My dad wasn’t going, so I didn’t have to worry about getting sick on hairpin turn roads. We were going to take the train. Whaaaaat??? A train? I was so excited, I couldn’t stand it. I was seven and was going to take a train across the country. Out west. Where bad guys wearing bandanas over their noses and mouths would stop the train and take the gold. Cowboy stereotypes. My mom explained that it would take three days and three nights and we would be sleeping on the train. The hell you say?

I was so excited and the trip did not disappoint. I was so interested in the sleeping cars and sleeping in the bunks was so much fun. The sounds of the clickety-clack on the rails and the train whistle at railroad crossings made for a peaceful sleep. I am sure that my mom felt differently as she was traveling with three children under the age of seven. Well, that was her fault, wasn’t it? I had a blast. And isn’t that what really matters?

Fast forward a gazillion years… My daughter is going to NYU for grad school and we needed to go up again to look for an apartment. Well, she didn’t want to fly or drive. She was tired of flight delays and she knew that I would lose my mind the first time I got lost driving my car in the big city. She wanted to travel on the MegaBus. Uh, no, said Mom. I remember reading about a guy who was stabbed and then had his head cut off while riding on a long distance bus in Canada in 2008. I read the details about that and decided I didn’t want to sit with a guy holding a Rambo knife. So, I looked into traveling by Amtrak. I was told it was quite expensive, but I got excited to think about train travel. I want to take

Pittsburgh amtrak station

a trip across Canada (when my poor 16 year old cat passes) in a train, so a jaunt from Pittsburgh to NYC might be fun.

I was able to book a one way trip for $86 a person up. I planned to leave her up there and come back by train and that fee was only $68. Pretty inexpensive. But sometimes you get what you pay for, so I was cautiously optimistic. In case you were wondering, I did do a google for “amtrak murders,” but nothing sinister came up. I was good to go.

Well, it was great. We drove to Pittsburgh, which was an easy drive at 6:30a.m. We were going to take the Pennsylvanian. Seats are not reserved, so it is basically whoever gets on the train first gets their pick of seats. The last car is for business travelers. The next car is the cafe car, which serves snacks and drinks. They have everything from pizza to hot dogs and hamburgers to Snickers bars , beer, and cereal.  I did not know this, but you can also bring your own food to eat for the journey. I saw a couple of people carrying a small cooler full of drinks and sandwiches for their family. I need to remember this. The car in front of the cafe car was full of tables. Some people were sitting there talking or reading the newspaper. And in front of those were about four coach cars.

The seats are comfortable and recline a bit for extra comfort. The only problem I found with the whole journey was the fact that the bathrooms get a bit overused and messy after about 5 hours. The bathrooms are bigger than airplane bathrooms, so they aren’t so bad…when the trip is under 5 hours. There is one station that we had to wait for about 1/2 hour to change the engine and then we traveled backwards the rest of the way to NYC. I think that during that time, someone should come aboard to clean the bathrooms and make sure they flush. That is the only problem I found with Amtrak.

The whole trip takes more than 9 hours. We arrived at Penn Station on 34th Street. We booked a hotel near the train station, so it was an easy

Unbelievable tile work in the stations

adjustment from train to city. It was sort of fun on the return home. Everyone stands and watches what track each train comes up on, and then people make a mad dash to that line. After all, everyone likes a window seat.

My daughter will have to go back to NYC in a week to search on for an apartment. If I go, I will definitely travel by Amtrak again. It gives me time to read that book I haven’t been able to find time to read and it gives me peace of mind about not driving into the city. And most importantly, I get to see the countryside and not just pavement and street lights.

It’s a great way to travel. I had a blast. And that’s what really matters.