It's funny how often you hear about railroad trips in songs, novels and older movies.
Yet how many people today actually take train journeys? In Europe trains are still prevalent, but in America they are near extinction.
While large cities still have commuter lines, the Metro North trains that run out of New York City, long distance rail travel is just not a modern thing in America.
The American railroad, Amtrak, is always on the verge of bankruptcy.
It is not well ranked among the world's railroads.
I have taken trains back and forth across the U.
S.
some seven times, mostly in coach, a grueling but still rewarding three day journey through farmlands, badlands, mountains and some dessert.
On the trips I've taken, my fellow passengers were disproportionately retirees --in the overworked U.
S.
, most people simply don't have time to take long train rides.
Long bus rides, meanwhile, are mainly relegated to the poor.
Middle America is all about planes and cars.
Trains offer unique qualities lacking in buses, automobiles or airplanes.
They are by far the most social form of travel, save perhaps for a cruise ship.
The latter, however, are almost strictly tourist affairs, while trains still do offer the service of basic transportation from Point A to Point B.
The lounge, observation and dining cars of a train offer one the opportunity to casually rub shoulders with fellow passengers.
Card games are fairly common on trains, when passengers aren't watching movies.
There is something almost hypnotic about the rhythms of a train, thatcan get you into a trancelike state.
This is heightened by the fact that trains tend to take you, at least between cities, through territory unspoiled by highways, malls and other signs of our overcrowded and largely aesthetically barren modern landscape.
On a train, we can still catch glimpses of how life appeared a hundred years ago.
Of course, this anachronistic spell is somewhat broken by the ubiquitous cell phones and laptops, but something of the old world glamor remains.
People have long tended to romanticize trains, and I suppose I'm doing that here as well.
In fact, train rides can also be tedious and frustrating.
Not infrequently, you have to contend with late trains, overpriced and decidedly mediocre meals and noisy (and sometimes intoxicated) fellow passengers.
Still, overall, railroad trips offer a more distinctive travel experience than any of the alternatives.