NY Times: Long-Distance Train Travel

New York Times looks at the pleasure of long-distance train travel

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Silver Star in Winter Park, FL [Image: Davisdrives]

The New York Times featured a nice piece by Joe Sharkey in the Business Section concerning the lost art of the extended business trip.  In his “On a Long Train Trip, Rare Pleasures Return,”, Mr. Sharkey began his trip on Amtrak’s Silver Star with trepidation, wondering whether the 26 hour trip from Tampa, Florida to New York City would be an excursion or an ordeal:

Before boarding, I was skeptical about this adventure, but I have to report that the trip was more civilized than air travel and worth it this one time. The dining car menus offer a good range of selections. Communal dining — that is, you’re seated at a small table with strangers — was a nice change from the general social alienation of air travel.

Early the next morning, incidentally, I was astonished when the sleeper car’s affable porter, Thomas Clemo, tapped on my door to deliver The New York Times, one in a bundle that had been picked up at a stop in North Carolina.

The writer concludes that he will most likely save train travel for business trips under 500 miles—but conceded that time spent sleeping isn’t really time lost, and arriving in downtown Manhattan was a “significant convenience.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Sharkey is a little too sanguine about the funding shortfalls facing intercity passenger trains, merely noting that the Congressional budget in the coming year is too tight to allow for any real expansion of service and that the High-Speed & Intercity Passenger Rail Program has become politicized.  One would hope that a recent convert to the convenience and comfort of train travel would spend a little more time asking why government spending is a tiny fraction of what is directed to modes like highways and airports.

The last sentence almost makes up for this oversight, however, perfectly capturing what is so special about overnight train travel;

I slept well in my bunk with the gentle sway of the car. My ear never heard the mournful wail that the sad ballads claim for a train whistle. Instead, I heard soft chords that reminded me more of Duke Ellington’s rhythms as the Silver Star sped up the coast through the dark.

Posted by NARP

Tags: business travel, florida, joe sharkey, long-distance trains, manhattan, new york times, silver star, tampa
(0) Comments