Six Amish guys step onto a long-distance Amtrak…
Sound like the setup to a joke? In fact, it’s the starting point of a big New York Times story on long-distance train travel, either for work or for fun, across America.
On both sides of the train window, American scenery unfolded. A dirty layer of ice and snow subdued the still cropland to the distant horizon. At the next table a woman stuck her nose in a novel; a college kid pecked at a laptop. Overlaying all this, a soundtrack: choo-k-choo-k-choo-k-choo-k-choo-k — the metronomic rhythm of an Amtrak train rolling down the line to California, a sound that called to mind an old camera reel moving frames of images along a linear track, telling a story.
With gas prices ticking upwards and airlines charging for every last article brought on board (and continuing to withhold the peanuts), long-distance trips on trains like the California Zephyr, writes Andy Isaacson, are suddenly in vogue.