Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Celebrate National Train Day
Where could you meet a couple that liked to travel to places like Iran? Or a man who worked as a pilot on foreign ocean-going merchant ships?
On the train, that’s where.
In 2006, my wife and I took Amtrak from La Crosse to Portland, Ore., to visit her brother and to allow her to attend a convention.
We boarded the train at 8 p.m. Monday in La Crosse and arrived at Portland’s great old downtown station at 11:45 Wednesday morning.
One thing that I really like about train travel is that they seat you at tables for four in the dining car, so if you’re not traveling in a group of four you always get seated with someone you don’t know. That’s where I met the world travelers and the merchant ship pilot.
Unlike air travel, where you’re stuck in your seat for two or three hours and may or may not even speak to your seatmate, train travel encourages a certain amount of socializing. Being on a train for 20 or 30 hours just encourages the formation of a temporary community.
You eat, drink, sleep, read, look at the scenery and talk to people.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because Saturday is National Train Day — a promotional event sponsored by Amtrak. The event in La Crosse will be held from 5:30 to
7:30 p.m. at the Amtrak Depot on St. Andrew Street, with displays, brochures and information about rail service plans in the future.
There will be cake, coffee, juice, clowns, balloons and games. What’s not to like?
Rail passenger service has been the unwanted stepchild in the United States for a long time. The railroads didn’t want passenger service. That’s why the federal government took it over in the 1970s.
Amtrak is doing very well now because of the energy crisis and the decline of the airlines following 9/11 and because of high fuel prices. But the road has at times been rough, and there is not always political support for passenger rail service.
Still, there were 29,000 boardings in La Crosse in 2007. And it’s hard to beat the relaxing trip between here and Chicago.
Actually, we’re lucky to be so close to Chicago because it makes the train arrival times more civilized. Eastbound trains stop in La Crosse in the late morning, and westbound trains stop in the early evening.
That’s a pretty cushy schedule compared with places like Fargo or Grand Forks, N.D., where the trains go through in the middle of the night. That’s the downside of train service — and fuel for the argument for increased service.
The serious argument for preserving passenger rail is that we need more transportation options — particularly as inter-city bus lines drop cities like La Crosse and airline travel gets more expensive and less pleasant.
And, on the train, you actually see the country, rather than just fly over it.
Contact Opinion page editor Richard Mial by e-mail at rmial@lacrossetribune.com.
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