Train traveling has an incomparable addictive allure ...
While standing right before the door after wobbling down the aisle like a toddler learning to walk, I noticed the "magic button". Teetering forward through the doorway, the connecting train car rocked and swayed directly opposite of the car I then stood on. I was hooked as I experienced my first Amtrak trip upon the Coast Starlight! I had to feel this sensation again ... And so I did!
Even after journeying, one-way, across our vast country with all its magnificent splendor five times, traveling roundtrip along much of the East coast, experiencing the beauty of the West coast, and then hop-scotching across picturesque Switzerland, my heart still leaps at the whisper of "rail travel". The train's metronomic clickity-clack, occasionally slowing down or speeding up, and the cars' gently rocking as the train zooms through the night; simply gazing out the window with a journal in hand as slideshows of scenery pass by; stri...
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Entry 16
7:45, 4 March
I'm looking at Rocky the Goat. Although really an antelope, Rocky was the mascot of the Great Northern Railroad which once ran this line. Waving a jaunty cloven hoof, starting in 1921 he urged passengers to delight in the Empire Builder while urging shippers to send there goods by rail. The vintage Whitefish train station has a big statue of Rocky out front, although in the general bustle, few are pausing to admire his bearded visage. Lots of people are boarding and exiting the train here (flying and driving to this rugged part of the state is a hassle) and I say goodbye to Kaylie. Skis emerge from the baggage car by the dozen: popular resorts are found in the surrounding hills; nearby Glacier National Park draws tourists through the year.
- Ryan Ver Berkmoes -
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So many memories! The Polish man sharing the compartment with me, his box of pigeons at his feet; the Czech man showing me the photo of his wife, inviting me home to meet her; passing Swiss scenes from an old calendar I'd saved; the Italian Alps under the full moon; seeing the train get tied down onto the ferry for crossing to Sweden; training through the seasons down to Bergen from Oslo; seeing nothing but blue sky and white snow, and a family with small kids all in colorful snowsuits waving at us; sharing wine from a huge flask in Portugal; passing through grey, dull East Germany, then spotting a young girl watering a small circle of flowers beside the tracks; the two 80-something ladies at dinner - when asked who would get the top bunk, one turned to her friend and asked, "How many times do you have to get up and go to the bathroom?" My sister and I got to take a train trip alone when I was 6, and I've loved them ever since.............62 years later and always looking forward...
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Train travel is a social experience. Don't believe me? Get on a train alone sometime and walk through the cars, an experience you could never have on a bus or plane, and you can meet some of the most fascinating people! Take, for instance, a wonderful 16 hour train ride I had in China from Guilin to Kunming. I was traveling alone but quickly connected with other solo travelers and had the night of my life interacting with locals who spoke no English via a phrasebook. Together with locals, we learned to play Chinese Chess, conversed about our hometowns (by pointing at the phrase book) and drank beers till lights out time. It was an adventure I could only have on a train!
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Being able to have the freedom to travel and see beauty in every form is something most of us aspire for. Being limited, the United States is the extent of my travels. Recently, I submitted an essay that resulted in winning a scholarship for two weeks to study and immerse myself in Argentina's wonderful culture. I will be going the end of this October and going to classes for 2 weeks learning Spanish everyday and without much free time.
Being able to have the chance to stay in Buenos Aires for an extra couple of days and visit Machu Picchu to hike through it's sacred city is something of a spiritual and intellectual interest of mine. One of the benefits of trains is trains are able to reach places that cars and planes can not. To Machu Picchu one would have to get there (first by plane for those outside of South America) then by train, just to hike the rest of the way (unless by horseback), and helicopters are the only aerial transport of which sounds expensive.
To be honest,...
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All aboard the Empire Builder! I do not meet just any empress at breakfast. She is the Absolute Ruler of the Midwest, but she doesn't talk down to me, a mere New Yorker. I remark on the passing scene, cows in the green pasture with a backdrop of a bright, blue sky and clouds like huge down comforters. She launches into her story: It all started with 4-H and her mission to win the blue ribbon. Naturally, she had the best cow. At the last moment her conscience won out. She couldn't, she said, show a cow that hadn't "freshened." Before I could ask her what that meant -- although I thought I knew -- she shot along to her next subject like the train going through a tunnel: something about the cow needing to be "bagged out." This empress wore no tiara, but was a self-confessed "cheesehead." I see her now, years later, surveying her green and pleasant land out the window. I think of her every time I pour that cow's milk on my oatmeal at breakfast time. Only on a train.
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Plane travel is really all the same: the same economy class chairs, the same restrictions, the same pressurized air. A window seat, if you manage to get one, can only give you a small glimpse of the landscape beneath revealing the tiny dots of a country a long way down. Train travel always gives me the impression that I am viewing a country from the ground up and not the other way around. I get to travel through a country not overtop of one. The passing fields and landscapes paint the picture of a country like a movie, shifting scenes from countryside, to inner city, to vast mountain ranges. More than the views I love the inside atmosphere of a train: collegial, inviting, involved and un-confined. I feel engaged in a temporary community rather than isolated in my own little world.
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We barely made the train in Oslo and had no time to buy water or food for the ride to Hamburg where the only set detail for a rendezvous with friends was “see you at the Mazzy Star concert”. We found our seats and contemplated our fates, but with each stop of the train things got more and more crowded, but also better and better. Young people piled on and shared their food, their wine, and their stories with us. Some of them shoved poles for teepees through the windows and then climbed into the aisles along with them. Everyone had camping gear and they all thought we were going the same place too – Roskilde, a huge outdoor rock festival in Denmark. They tried to convince us to get off there anyway, though we had no tickets, but we bid our new friends farewell and went on to our own show, luckily in a small venue where we had no problems finding our old friends and telling them all about our Viking train ride.
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Entry 15
7:00, 4 March
The cheery Brett greets me in the diner, which bustles with people chasing the sleep out of their eyes with liberal doses of coffee, OJ and more. I'm ready to order the pancakes right up until I see the corned beef hash. I love corned beef hash and not being distracted by too many synonyms for the dish, I order it. While I munch away, the couple across from me talk about the possums and skunks that have colonized their barn in rural Oregon. Looking at the show-drifted scenes outside, I reckon the local varmints would be pretty jealous of their Oregon cousins.
- Ryan Ver Berkmoes
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