My brother says one shouldn’t complain about air travel, one should just drive instead. It’s less hassle and uses less fuel per person. He may be right but I’m not about to tell him so. In any case, when it comes to getting halfway across the country, we’ve gotten too accustomed to the speed of flying to go back to driving. Besides, driving exhausts me even more than flying.
My favorite means of transport for the trip to my daughter’s house, 150 miles away, is the train. I am on the train right now. I am writing. Later I will read and compose email messages that I will send later. I don’t have Internet access because I don’t have one of those awful little I-gadgets that compel you to do everything in miniature--impossible for aging eyes.
But I have a nice seat, a nice view, and the ability to multitask. My carbon emissions are way low. My ticket was cheap. What more could I want?
One thing: dependability. The train is like the rhyme my father used to tease me with:
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid.
When trains are good they are very, very good. Good is clean, cool (or warm), and on time.
This one came into my station (which is just 20 minutes from my house) only 10 minutes late. A good sign. But as I began writing it stopped dead in the middle of the cornfields. Bad.
Fortunately, within a few minutes the oncoming train we were waiting for slammed past. We’re on our way again. We may get to my destination nearly on time. Or not.
The usual delay is about 45 minutes for what is supposed to be a 2 hour 50 minute trip. That’s bad but not, I suppose, horrid. Horrid is when the three-hour trip took five-and-a-half hours.
Once my daughter and her infant boarded an evening train in midwinter that came into the station two hours late and was delayed another hour during the journey. Three-hour trip took six.
The moral lesson for Amtrak is the same as what we teach our kids: practice dependability. If trains were reasonably on time many more people would gladly convert to train travel, especially as gas prices rise. Yes the tracks are bad and there’s no money to fix them and the networks are too skimpy—it’s hard to get where you want to go. But as trust builds, so would usage, and with usage, funds and support.
Imagine trains that would carry you halfway across the country in the time it takes to drive, while you kick back and relax. Amtrak schedules say that is possible. In actuality, it never happens.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Kalamazoo, we’ve stopped again.
***
Later. (Sigh.) The trip tied my previous record—two-and-a-half hours late. The signaling system went out and we crept along at 15 mph for an eternity. No excuse. Horrid.
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