TRAIN TRAVEL

Cindy tells me today of a nightmare vacation of one of her co-workers.

Seems she, her mother, and her son planned to take the train from Indiana to Washington State. In theory...this sounds like it could be a great vacation. Travel by rail through some beautiful parts of America to a beautiful state...enjoy time there...and then travel back by another route to see other beautiful parts of America.

Sounds like a fun...relaxing...enjoyable time. Instead of the above...this is apparently how it went.

When arriving at the local Amtrak depot...they were told the train 'may' not make it in. So they were placed on a 'bus' to be driven to Chicago (about a 2 1/2-3 hour trip) by bus. When the bus arrived, the passengers were loaded on and the bus promptly backed into something, preventing luggage of the passengers to be loaded on it. Another bus was brought in and passengers and luggage were put on it and headed to Chicago. Shortly after getting out of town, one of the passengers realized they left their train tickets on 'the other' bus. The bus driver pulled over, contacted the depot, found an employee to find the first bus, find the tickets of the customer and then drive them up to the awaiting bus on the interstate.

At this point...would you be thinking that 'maybe' you made a mistake in planning this trip? Still, they went on and apparently things went reasonably well from Chicago to their destination in Washington. After a relaxing time there and finally needing to take the train 'back' to Indiana...they were told that the train left at 1am and they would ride it to the next stop, then get on a bus for a 3 hour bus ride to the next stop and get on the train there...if it was there...or they would then have 'another' 6 hour bus ride to their next destination.

Instead...asked for a refund...rented a car...and DROVE home to Indiana from Washington state.

This conversation made me ask Cindy...why don't we (the United States) have a 'high-speed rail system' ? Let's get America back to work, by building a rail system that would get us to-and-from major cities in a timely manner. We certainly need to get people to work! Why not serve two functions...get people working...and create a means of travel that would benefit many?

I think I would enjoy train travel if it was efficient. Wouldn't you? They have them in Europe...in fact my brother, Dave, is going to be taking the Eurostar next month as part of his travel as he and his wife travel from Stockholm-to-Paris-to-London. Apparently, they are trying to get one started in Dave's state of California, but the project seems to be going nowhere.

I guess Cindy & I, like Dave, will have to travel to Europe to ride one. Unless America gets started on it here pretty quickly, it wouldn't be done in my lifetime anyway...we'll HAVE to travel outside of America to ride one...if that's what we want to do.

Too bad. I think it's a WIN-WIN if we could get it going here.


Dan