17 Hours in the Real America
On the Road—the Railroad, That Is
October 2007 By Denny Hatch
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In the News
HOLIDAY PRIMEROver the River and Through the Roof …
Planning to travel this holiday season? You better watch out.
Here are some ways to make travel during the busy months ahead a little more bearable.
* Ride the rails. If traveling in the Northeast, consider taking the train. Advantages include a less restrictive pre-departure arrival time (45 minutes recommended for holidays), carry-on allowances of two 50-pound bags, en-route mobility, a dining car and no road rage. According to Amtrak manager Tracy Connell, the busiest days are the Tuesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Travel is more spread out around Christmas and New Year’s, and you can save money by traveling during off-peak hours (early morning or late evening). Generally, Connell says train stations also are less busy on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day than on the preceding three or four days. Reservations are required for all trips, and although Amtrak adds trains during the holidays, prime times can sell out. Info: 800-872-7245, http://www.amtrak.com.
—Kristin Harrison, The Washington Post, October 21, 2007
The following Wednesday, we flew home: Up at 5:30 a.m.; traffic jam during the taxi ride to O’Hare; hefting our bags to check-in at US Airways; being treated like terrorists by screeners; calorie-laden breakfast at Chili’s with plastic eating utensils; two hours in the crowded waiting room amidst loud cell phone yappers; middle seats in a sealed aluminum tube and hurled at 500 mph across the country for two hours; exit madness with apprehension over the possibility of lost luggage; and taxi home.
Six hours of hellish travel, and I should be grateful; everything was on time and our luggage made it.
Every time I glanced out the window during the flight and saw Mother Earth 35,000 feet below, I thought, “So much is happening down there, and I’m missing it all.”
A Love Affair with Trains
When I was a kid in the early 1940s, once a year we would travel by train from New York to visit my grandmother in Los Angeles, where she was a voice teacher—overnight to Chicago and two days on the Santa Fe Chief to L.A. To Peggy’s irritation and my delight, our everyday dinnerware is reproduction Santa Fe Railroad dining car china.
In 1949 I spent six weeks in Las Vegas with my father who needed to establish residence so he could divorce my mother. We stayed at the adobe Boulderado Dude Ranch (currently the oldest standing structure in Las Vegas), and every evening at sunset we would watch the Union Pacific train to Chicago pass by in the distance like a tiny HO model with the windows lighted. As his six weeks was drawing to a close, I asked my father if we could take that train back and he agreed. Instead of going to the Las Vegas train station, we drove down to the railroad tracks and flagged down the train. As the noisy monster slowed to a halt, a door in one of the passenger cars opened and a conductor appeared with a little metal stool. He took our grips and we boarded right there in the middle of the desert.
(Quick Query: Has any reader ever flagged down a transcontinental train and boarded it in the middle of nowhere? Tell us about it.)
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* America’s greatest achievers made their contributions—and their fortunes—prior to cell phones and BlackBerrys: Edison, Henry Luce, Donald Douglas, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, to name a few.* Are the perpetually-connected people furiously thumbing BlackBerrys and yakking on cell phones thinking? Or are they simply reacting and acting? Is this the best way to grow a business and further a career? After all, the world’s most successful entrepreneur—and the third richest person—Warren Buffett, does not have a computer on his desk.
* “If you are a marketer, take the bus, subway, train or streetcar to work. These are the real Americans that you want to reach with your messages.”
—Axel Andersson
* “THINK.”
—Thomas J. Watson (1874-1956), president of IBM (née International Business Machines Corp.)
* Unless you are willing to spend thousands of dollars for a few hours of comfort on all-business-class airlines or private jets, expect your commercial airline experience to start at mediocre and go downhill from there.
* Why not reconnect with your country, and its people—the real America. Try an overnight train. You might even reconnect with yourself.
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Capitol Limitedhttp://tinyurl.com/322c5p
Amtrak Accommodations
http://tinyurl.com/3yh4cc
Santa Fe Railroad Dining Car China
http://www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com/railroadchina.html
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