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AMTRAK

"You leave the Pennsylvania Station ‘bout a quarter to four,
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore…"

So goes the song and so went our journey, except that we weren't on the Chattanooga Choo Choo, but The Colonial, and we were bound for Virginia.

That rail trip from New York's Penn Station made me realise a couple of things.
The first is that you miss an awful lot of America when you fly over it, and the second is that our British train stations have a lot of room for improvement in terms of comfort.
It seemed that every ticket holder at Penn had a place to sit, and up-market goods were on sale from trendy market carts on the station forecourt.

The marble floor seemed clear and spacious, but it was 10.30am and I dare say it would be busier when the commuters come through or a big event was on upstairs at Madison Square Garden.

The destination board offered an ever-changing list of intriguingly named trains, like The Adirondack to Montreal; The Mayflower to Boston, The Bear Mountain to Albany.

Suddenly I heard the "aalll aboard" meant for us. We boarded and our train glided out of the darkness emerging on the other side of New York's East River in New Jersey.

This train, along with The Virginian and The Tidewater, runs through historic America, taking you from the Statue of Liberty to the great battlefields of the Civil War. And, like trains everywhere, you get the chance to peer into other folks’ back yards.

Every now and then, amidst the laundry blowing in the wind and the dilapidated old cars, something unusual catches the eye…like the large building with its entire frontage given over to a beautiful mural of a whale.

We left Philadelphia, where the Liberty Bell once rang to mark the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and I turned my attention to the inside of the train.
We were travelling on an ordinary ticket, but it was still plush enough to compare favourably with 'First Class' in the United Kingdom. There was lots of space and the airline-style seats reclined at the touch of a button.

Washington

At Washington, there was time to get out, stretch the legs and explore the station.
It was like a bright airy cathedral with its fine domed ceiling traced out in gold, but there were also shops, cafes and potted palm trees. Somehow we were not surprised to learn that it is a popular tourist attraction.

The tannoy called another "aaall aboard" and we walked back along the gleaming silver, red and blue coaches and returned to air-conditioned comfort.

Shortly after pulling out of the station, we crossed the border into Virginia and next up were Fredricksburg and Richmond where Civil War battlefields pitted families against each other.

Then there was Alexandria and Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington. By now however, the day had taken its toll and the comforting sound of the train was enough to send me to sleep.

I drifted off, dreaming of travelling from mile high Denver over The Rockies on the Californian Zephyr to San Francisco, of riding the Desert Wind to Los Angeles or the South West Chief through the rugged canyons to Albuquerque.
For a country that has such a love affair with the automobile, they do a fine job with the trains, and one can only hope that enough people keep traveling on the trains to support the system.

FACT FILE

Amtrak – a great web site, http://www.amtrak.com - you can plan almost everything, including visiting attractions at your destination. Check out the rail passes as well – the one for international travellers is particularly attractive.