Back East

Wednesday evening my son-in-law picked up my lovely wife and I at the Back Bay Train Station in Boston. We are staying with my daughter and family about a half hour from Boston.

The train came into the station about an hour and a half late. We stopped for some time in Rochester NY for a medical emergency. Since the emergency was not in my car we really don’t know more than that. There was also some delay in Albany NY. That’s where the Chicago train is split into a Boston and New York train. There were some issues with the procedure that also caused delays.

Thursday was a day of rest. I did a little laundry, visited the family and took a nice long nap.

So . . . was the train trip worth it? I thought so. My lovely wife and I had a great time. It’s a good way to see the country and to meet interesting people. Of course, there’s a certain romance to train travel. I was happy to experience it before all the joy is sucked out of trains. The current head of Amtrak has a background in the airline industry. He appears to want to make train travel as soulless as air travel. There’s a lot of push back to that, so we’ll see.

There were some things that made train travel special. The California train still had dining and observation cars. That’s where you really get a chance to meet and visit with people. The lack of wifi on that train might have been a plus. The director wants to eliminate dining cars and has done so on some routes.

That’s a mistake. People don’t take the train just for the travel. If getting from point A to point B was the whole point, we’d all fly.

-Sixbears