Riding the rails is nothing like flying. And that’s exactly what I liked about it.
Last weekend, my husband
and I drove to Richardson to visit my family. On Sunday, I decided I wanted to stick around a few more
days, so I sent the hubby and the labradeer back to Austin and bought an Amtrak
ticket to get me home on Wednesday.
I've been curious about
Amtrak for a while. I was seduced
by the romance of the train experience and intrigued by the prospect of reading
or writing or sleeping or doing anything during the trip besides driving in
traffic on I35. When I found out
how much it cost-- $28 one way-- I was even more interested. With Southwest flights now at $92 (gone
are the days of the $39 get-a-ways) and the cost to fill my gas tank more than $30,
it seemed stupid NOT to take the train.
Even when I found out that the trip was over seven hours long, I still
wasn't discouraged. (I was a little
CONFUSED... I mean it only takes about four hours by car and trains are
supposed to be fast, right? More on that later.) But I
just considered that time a gift and fantasized about all the writing I would
get done, all the books I could read.
So I did it. All in all, it was a pleasant
experience, (and thankfully nothing like my train experience in Peru). There were set-backs, there were
delays, there were unexpected surprises, but DESPITE all that, I still very
much enjoyed riding the train. The
best part of the whole thing was the lack of drama. It was SO AWESOME not to have to deal with the TSA, I don’t
even know where to begin. There
were no metal detectors. There
were no plastic bins in which to place your belt and car keys and ziplock
baggie of toothpaste and shampoo.
No one badgered me about the sack of food or the bottle of water I
carried on board. I never once had
to take off my shoes. [If you are
reading this right now and thinking, "That's not safe! How do they know people weren't
carrying guns?! You could have had
a bomb in your shoe! I for one
APPRECIATE the protection from terrorism that the TSA provides!" then by
all means, keep flying. Keep
getting to the airport two hours early in case the security lines are
ridiculously long. Keep stressing
out over whether or not Chapstick is considered a liquid. Keep allowing a rubber-gloved employee
to pat down the back of your head because your BOBBY PIN showed up suspiciously
in the body scanner. Have fun with
that.]
I'm not trying to say I
will never fly again or that I will cease doing the white-knuckle drive up
I35. I will. And there are definitely downsides to
riding the train, such as the length of the trip and the fact that I can't
bring my dog with me. (It’s a
pity, because he would love it.)
All I'm saying is that it was nice to be reminded of what the world was
like before we all went crazy and started accusing everyone and their
grandmother of being a terrorist.
Plus, the people I was
traveling with were awesome too.
Even when things were not going according to plan, even when situations
arose which were less than ideal, I only ever saw ONE person get crosswise
about it and complain. Everyone
else was calm, patient, and friendly.
I can't remember the last time I struck up a conversation with a
stranger in an airport, and if I'm flying alone and need to use the restroom, I
lug my rolling carry-on into the bathroom with me and park it in the tiny stall
rather than leave it "unattended", fearful from those constant
reminders on the loudspeaker. But
in the Fort Worth train station everyone was sociable. I had real, personal, friendly
conversations with at least seven different people, none of whom had met each
other before that day. I left my
bags with someone, twice, while I went to the bathroom. Instead of hugging our belongings tight
and tapping our feet restlessly and avoiding eye contact and stressing over how to board and when to
line up, we sprawled out in our seats, eating, journaling, knitting, sharing,
trusting that we'd hear the boarding announcement when it was made or help each
other out if need be. It was
lovely.
And once we got on the
train? Maybe I shouldn't even
mention the comfortable seats and the ample leg room and the handy electrical
outlets and the footrest and the fact that I had an empty seat next to me the
whole way. It just seems
mean. But it’s true. And I was allowed to get up and walk
around whenever I chose to do so and no one EVER asked me to put my tray table
away.
Oh, and the view was nice
too.
And I was able to make
phone calls.
And there were five
bathrooms just in my car.
It's not all tray tables and footrests.
Like I said, though, there
are downsides. The schedule was
not ideal. My ticket said departure time was 11:50AM from Union Station in
Dallas and arrival time was 7:30PM in Austin. That’s already a LONG trip, but I was up for it. Still it didn’t go exactly as I thought it would.
My Time Table (A.K.A. The
Reason Why the Trip Takes Seven Hours, or in My Case, Ten)
10:38AM - Board DART metro
rail to go downtown to Union Station in Dallas.
11:15AM - Arrive at Union
Station, find out the tracks between Dallas and Fort Worth are under
construction so a bus will take me to Fort Worth to get on the train.
11:50AM - Bus leaves for
Fort Worth.
12:30PM - Arrive at Fort
Worth station to find that the train does not leave until 3:10. Sit down and make friends for two and a
half hours.
2:50PM – Boarding begins
(quick process, no security checks, barely even glanced at my ID).
3:15PM - Train starts
moving, making only a couple of brief stops at Temple and… somewhere else. I can't remember.
6:40PM - While passing
through Round Rock, an announcement is made that we will arrive in Austin in 35
minutes, earlier than our scheduled arrival time. (Yea!)
7:05PM – When we are in
north Austin, an announcement is made that Amtrak shares the tracks with Union
Pacific and due to a Union Pacific freight train delay we will have to stop and
wait about 25-30 minutes for a freight to pass. (Boo.)
8:15PM - After an hour and
ten minutes of sitting on the tracks, we start moving again.
8:30PM - Arrive at the
Austin station an hour late.
 |
| Boarding in Fort Worth, 3:00PM |
(Again, everyone was
patient about the delays and I for one did not mind them, seeing as how I had
good books and no place to be.
However, it was somewhat frustrating to be SO CLOSE to home when the
delay occurred.)
Now comes the part when I assault a stranger.
 |
| Don't mess with me, old man. |
Probably the best part of
the trip for me was meeting the other travelers. Following are some journal entries from my layover in Fort
Worth and my first few minutes on the train.
1:10PM –
I
am sitting in the Fort Worth train station waiting for my train to Austin. My company includes a woman who has six
kids. She has homeschooled five of
them; one chose to attend public high school. She is knitting a purple hat. She tells me that her seventeen-year-old son writes
novels. He likes to swing on a
swingset while listening to music to get his ideas.
There
is also a girl in her twenties sitting across from me who is returning to
Austin after being in a hospital for a week. She was doing a clinical drug trial for the disease P.O.T.S.
(Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) which is a condition that makes the heart beat like it is
running a marathon and causes those afflicted to pass out often. She said the syndrome is not recognized
by the FDA, and their only drug to treat it is in danger of being taken off the
market. The girl has only had the
disease for two years. She was
attending Texas State in San Marcos, getting her degree in kinesiology when she
got sick. She had to quit school
and now lives with her mom in Austin because her condition is
debilitating. She can be fine one
day and then bedridden the next. She’s
very sweet. I worry for her because
she's traveling alone, but everyone is being kind to her and one woman is
being very motherly, helping with her bags, etc.
The
old man to the left of me with bad teeth is a delivery man, though I didn't hear
what he delivers, and he lives in Indiana. He has a seat cover that he puts in his chair. He says it has magnets in it and helps
with circulation. He has special
shoes with magnets in them too and he says they have really helped his
diabetes. When I mention that they
should have a Starbucks in this place because they would make a lot of money,
he says, "Do you know what's worse than coffee?" which I thought was
a funny response to my desire for coffee.
Then he proceeds to tell me a couple of stories about traveling in
Canada. In one, his bus broke down
on the side of the road and he walked for hours in -20 degrees. In another one, he was with some
Russians in a diner and didn't want coffee. They offered him “postum” which is, according to him, “the
worst drink in the world”. Apparently it was terrible and made him almost vomit
on the spot. (I looked it up on Wikipedia. It is a roasted grain beverage that was
offered as a healthy alternative to coffee. A 1910 ad shows it being advertised for children.)
1:30PM –
The
seat to the right of me keeps filling and emptying again. It is the seat closest to the door
which keeps opening to let in the cold wind. We (my new friends and I) are unsure if it is the
temperature which keeps driving people away, or us. A man approaches and asks if the seat is taken. We say no and laugh, which unsettles
him. I tell him, "People
don't stay long," and explain that we don't know if it is the cold or
us. He smiles and sits down. Two minutes later the door opens. He turns, gets my attention, and says
pointedly, "I can tell you... it's NOT you." :)
1:50PM –
The
delivery man next to me says, "Do you know anyone who can interpret
dreams?" I say no, I used to
have a book, but... He says, "I've been having the dumbest recurring
dream." So of course I ask
what it is. He says, "I keep
dreaming I'm a muffler." I
say, "A muffler? Like... on a
car?" He nods and says it's
the stupidest thing but he has the dream over and over. I venture, "Well, you do travel a
lot. Maybe..." But he shakes
his head, says he's had the dream for years, before the traveling. I am trying to think of something else
to say when he says, "And I keep waking up EXHAUSTED!" And that's when I punched him right in
the shoulder. Yep, I punched an
old man who I had only known for half an hour. I probably shouldn't have done that, but he seemed to enjoy
it. When he finished laughing, he
went on to tell me that in his job people always want to tell jokes, but
everyone tells a dirty joke and that's not his thing. So he started listening to a radio show that ended every
program with a joke, a clean one that they could say on the air. He would listen to the show, hear the
joke, then turn off his radio and say it over and over and over to himself and
every time he said it, he would tweak it just a little until it was his
own. Then he'd go to make a
delivery and the moment he got there, he wouldn't let the other person get a
word in edgewise, he'd just launch right into his jokes. He'd tell them one after another until
the job was done and he was gone.
And that's how he figured out how to keep from
having to listen to tasteless jokes all day. I like this guy.
He reminds me of my grandpa.
2:25PM –
A
small child, maybe 4 or 5, is playing patty-cake with her big sister and
singing, "That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I LIKE it, uh-huh, uh-huh"
a la KC & the Sunshine Band.
2:35PM –
The
train is here, but they are not boarding yet. There is a man next to me from Bastrop who is taking the
train because he can't fly because he had cataract surgery last week. He said it was amazing and now he can't
wait to do the other eye. He said
during the surgery he got to see a great laser light show behind his
eyelid. I asked him if it hurt and
he said after a couple of Xanax before hand you don't care about anything. His wife is a teacher and ever since he
retired at age 55, he has been substitute teaching. (It sounds like he is a good sub because he worked over 100 days
in the same school last year.) He
said the very first day of subbing he was in a sixth grade math class and at
lunch he called his wife and told her, "They do not pay you enough."
All aboard.
3:19PM – Just got on the
train. Nice comfy seat, tray,
handy electrical outlets, unbelievable leg room, footrest, and no one in the
seat next to me. Woo hoo! We are starting to move.
3:37PM - oooOOOooo! Just found my SECOND footrest!
3:40PM - Announcement
about dinner reservations. Options
are... vegetarian noodle bowl for $16.00 (!!!), half a roasted chicken for
$16.75, pork ribs for $19.00, or steak for... (missed the price, but I bet it
was more than $19.00). I think I
will stick to my peanut butter sandwiches and apples and goldfish crackers.
3:42PM – The gentle
rocking of the train is quite soothing.
I will have to fight being lulled to sleep.
3:43PM - Hmm... very hard
to write on moving train. Signing
off.
 |
| Arriving in Austin, 8:30PM |
[Note:
I never learned the names of any of my travel-buddies and I never gave
them mine. But if one of my train
friends is reading this blog, I’m the girl in the red scarf who wasn’t wearing
an eye patch. You know what I mean… Email me!]
