{"id":670,"date":"2006-06-03T17:49:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-03T17:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=670"},"modified":"2006-06-03T17:49:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-03T17:49:00","slug":"670","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=670","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The parallel universe of train travel<\/strong><\/p>\n

Making train reservations<\/a> for M. and me to travel to AAR-SBL in November, I discovered that there were already no basic sleeper rooms left to reserve for one part of the trip–outbound from La Junta, Colorado, to Chicago.<\/p>\n

Who says Americans don’t like train travel? <\/p>\n

Every time I take the (always politically threatened<\/a>) cross-country trains, I am amazed at how full they are. And yet when the news media talk about travel, it’s always airplanes\/cars\/airplanes\/cars.<\/p>\n

Train travel is like a parallel universe. You see America passing outside the window, the crew members and most passengers are Americans, you pay and tip in American dollars, and yet you feel somehow sort of invisible.<\/p>\n

Forget your Lear jets. If I were rich, I would have my own rail car. Some people do. If I were merely well-to-do, I would “>rent one<\/a>. If I could not have my private rail car hauled to my destination, I would have a member of my staff meet me with an automobile at the nearest railway station. <\/p>\n

Why do air travelers put up with being jammed into tiny seats after being groped by TSA agents, only to be dumped at an airport many miles away from their destination?<\/p>\n

Tags: Amtrak<\/a>, Travel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The parallel universe of train travel Making train reservations for M. and me to travel to AAR-SBL in November, I discovered that there were already no basic sleeper rooms left to reserve for one part of the trip–outbound from La Junta, Colorado, to Chicago. Who says Americans don’t like train travel? Every time I take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-670","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":216,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=216","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":0},"title":"Under the Spell of Sulis-2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"But before I could visit the temple of Minerva Sulis, there was the conference to attend. I arrived midway through the first day, 24 June, considerably jet-lagged, after a journey on two airplanes, two trains, and my feet. Arriving at The Forum, a 1930s movie palace now home of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":87,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=87","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":1},"title":"Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 18, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Blogging will slow down until the week after Christmas while Mary and I get on the train for Philadelphia and New York. According to Leslie Miller, who covers transportation for the Washington Post, on Wednessday the 17th, the Federal Railroad Administration \"is trying to give communities that want to silence\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9306,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9306","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":2},"title":"Approaching Salem","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"We arrived at the apartment in \"Witch City\" ( Salem, Mass.) a little after 11 p.m.after a 100-mile drive, two Amtrak trains, a Boston taxi, a MBTA train (picture) and a Lyft car ride.","rel":"","context":"In \"Salem\"","block_context":{"text":"Salem","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=salem"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/approaching-salem.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=769","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":3},"title":"Amtrak Heaven, Amtrak Hell–and all for Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Regular readers know that M. and I like train travel. We saw both sides of it on our just-completed trip to Washington, DC.The Southwest Chief was on time to La Junta, Colorado, where we meet it, but the ticket agent was muttering about possible stoppage due to high winds.Somewhere in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1138,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1138","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":4},"title":"View from a Parallel Universe","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"M. and I are on the road, looking for books, brew pubs, and botanicals, so blogging will be sporadic for a few days. So far we have covered two out of three.This interior view is not a brew pub, however, but one of our favorite coffee shops.","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9291,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9291","url_meta":{"origin":670,"position":5},"title":"Last Chance for Chiles","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday the 14th \u2014\u00a0the last chance to eat some chile colorado before heading east for New England cooking. (Tres Margaritas, Pueblo.). But . . . today's Amtrak breakfast menu featured a quesadilla of sorts, making that the first time that I had been served green chiles on the train.","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/chile-colorado.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/chile-colorado.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/chile-colorado.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}