On the Rails for the First Time
A totally self-indulgent discussion of my first experience with rail travel.
Hi, there. So, this isn’t going to be my typical writing about writing. This is going to be something of a bonus travelogue about my and my wife’s first experience with rail travel. So if railroads and travelogues aren’t your thing, feel free to tap out for this bit.
What I Knew About Trains
I’ve always had some interest in train travel. My grandfather Fred was a railroad employee back in Wisconsin years ago. When I was a kid, long after he’d retired from the railroad, I was fascinated by all of the train artwork and models he had whenever I visited. I also was interested in model trains, although I never got into building them myself. I’m not sure whether it was due to the expense of that hobby or not wanting to devote the time to setting them up, but it never really happened for me.
I was also interested in what it might be like to ride on a train. It looked like fun on all the old Hollywood films, with spacious sleeping and dining cars, just cruising along the rails without a care in the world.
As I got older, the idea of rail travel became more attractive to me, especially for long-distance trips. Driving was all right, but it was a hassle to have to drive and be aware of my surroundings for hours at a time. As for air travel, I always loved flying, but commercial air travel as it now exists just became one long hassle for me. The seats always are too small, there’s few good food options, and boarding and deboarding is a trial.
Unfortunately, for a long time I didn’t live anywhere near a passenger rail station. While Amtrak is still very active on the coasts and in the old Rust Belt, there were very few opportunities for mass transit in the middle of Iowa. I used to think we were lucky to have a passable bus service in Muscatine and Iowa City during the years I went to school there. I remember a few years back attending an exhibit at the Muscatine Art Center on the history of train travel in the city and being disappointed it had died out long before I first moved there.
Regular train travel was something for Chicagoland residents, not me. Even though some train stops were within a small drive for me, things never lined up to take a shot at it.
However, recently I settled into Fort Madison, which just happens to be a stop for Amtrak. In a quirk of geography, the southern half of Iowa happens to be better served by passenger rail than the center portion of Iowa, which could use the service given its greater population. Regardless, it provided me with an opportunity.
An Opportunity
I have to say my wife Laura is quite thoughtful when it comes to gifts, a talent I don’t necessarily have - I often have to ask my family and friends what to get them. So, when she suggested we take the train to Chicago and hang out there for the weekend, watch a Chicago Fire soccer match, and do a river tour, I was all for it.
Chicago went great - the Fire actually won a game, which was a rare instance this season, and the river tour was a great look at the architectural history of the city, despite the fact it was raining more or less the entire day. But it was the train ride I was interested in, because I wanted to see if the experience would measure up to what I had built up in my head.
Boarding
The historic Fort Madison railway station is a modest little building overlooking our riverfront. It’s not a massive hub of a rail network, but a station receiving two trains a day, one traveling east and one traveling west. It’s part of the Southwest Chief route running between Chicago and Los Angeles, and happens to be the only Iowa stop on the route. (Other Iowa stops a bit more north of us are on the California Zephyr running between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area.)
Tickets and baggage are relatively straightforward and somewhat simplified compared to airplanes. Electronic tickets are usually the way to go, although they also allow you to print them out. Once you get in the system, you can get updates on the status of your train, which wound up being pretty helpful when our train to Chicago got delayed by four hours due to mechanical issues. For me, it was something just as likely as if we had went by air, so it didn’t phase me.
The surprising thing when you see an Amtrak train is how short it is compared to the dozens and dozens of cars you see on commercial freight trains. For both our trains leaving and returning to Fort Madison, you have two engines at the front, followed by a baggage car, a sleeping car specifically for the crew, two sleeping cars for longer-term passengers, a dining car, an observation/cafe car, and finally two coach cars that just have seats for passengers and not their own cabins. It’s a pretty efficient setup, and once we got started it was a relatively simple business to walk between cars even during the trip.
Getting on the train is a relatively straighforward process, although I would absolutely advise travelers to use one of those wheeled, vertically oriented pieces of luggage as compared to a longer gym bag or something you need to always carry by hand. The latter are a bit difficult to carry as you are negotiating the relatively narrow stairways between the upper and lower levels of cars. However, I didn’t find any issue with storing my luggage in the overhead compartments, which don’t have doors you have to mess with like on planes.
With Chicago just a four-hour train ride (at least 20 minutes shorter than by automobile), we decided on coach seats rather than blowing unnecessary cash on a sleeper room. Even in coach, our seating arrangements were superior to an airline situation. While the width was slightly better than the airlines, we had all the leg room we needed and there were no issues with leaning our seats back. We had good-sized windows if we wanted to sightsee and curtains if we didn’t. There were even a couple plug-ins for when we needed to recharge our phones.
Unlike with the airlines, we also had the option of some different seating during the trip, which made for a more comfortable experience. We were able to enter the observation car or the dining car if we were interested in a meal. Although I had previously heard some good things about Amtrak cuisine, and we didn’t have any issue with the snacks available there, we decided against a meal and stuck to the observation car. These can get pretty crowded, especially if you’re in a particularly scenic area of the country, but we managed to find a spot to sit down. It’s a really great place to spread out and enjoy looking at the scenery. I’d love to see what the Rockies would look like from the observation deck.
Disembarking and Reboarding
We got off the train at Chicago’s Union Station, located near the Chicago Loop. I’ve been to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in years past, and that had some nice facilities, but I was impressed with the nearly 100-year-old station, which according to Wikipedia handles 140,000 passengers every weekday on 30 different platforms, as well as bus and other local commuter rail and Chicago Transit Authority connections.
We waited for a while in the Great Hall, which was all marble and a beautiful skylight. There were plenty of options for eating there if needed, and we had enough places to recharge electronics or rest on comfortable seating, which comes in useful if your train faces any delays. (Other than our train to Chicago, we were lucky on that front.) There were a lot more bells and whistles there, including the electronic billboards which listed where and when the various trains were arriving or departing.
With no car in Chicago, we had to improvise when we needed to get around. The CTA was convenient, although we had to get very knowledgeable about train routes and how they synced up with the street layouts. Eventually, we used Uber a bit, especially since we ended up getting a hotel well on the South Side because it was one of the more affordable options for us. (We learned later there was at least one large convention and a few other events going on in Chicago that same weekend, which drove up prices and lowered availability for hotel rooms. If we had the option, we would have chose to have a hotel at or near a CTA stop, because there were connections between Union Station and the CTA lines.
Conclusion
All things considered, I would definitely consider traveling by Amtrak in the future. It was a great experience even with our short trip, and all of the staff we encountered were friendly and professional. I’d be interested in taking a longer sleeper car trip in the future, even if it meant having to trek up to Burlington to catch the train up there. If you can manage it, I would recommend the experience to others.
Railway is my favorite way to travel. It’s relaxing and like Jason said, it’s great to sit in the observation car and watch the scenery. We once went to the SW and the mountains were fantastic and going through the Moffitt Tunnel was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Jan.
Glad it was such a good experience. I always loved train travel and miss it. A sleeper for an overnight trip can be fun also.