One week after I stepped off the California Zephyr at Union Station, Amtrak named a new CEO, Alexander Kummant. I don’t pretend I have that much clout; my complaint letter likely is still sitting in someone’s in-box.
To be fair, the trip had its upside. Train travel opens your eyes to America. This was my first long-distance train trip, Chicago to Denver, then the much-anticipated ride over the Rockies to Grand Junction, Colo., before we would disembark for Utah’s national parks.
I had girded myself for the first 10 hours of plains and boring fields of grain. But unlike the interstate, which ribbons through nothing, train tracks shoot past people’s back yards. There were indelible snapshots of small-town U.S.A.: barbecues, women hanging wash on the line, brightly lit high school baseball diamonds.
It felt like the backbone of America. Who knew there were so many country roads? For a miles-long stretch, the train whistled past vast corrals of cattle that made the herd from “Red River” look like peanuts.
And the people you meet! I made the trip with my twin 9-year-old boys. One of my sons and I befriended a tattooed guy from a Virginia pizza parlor, the Lost Dog Cafe, which also rescues pets. My other son was adopted by a college-age Kansan traveling with her tarantula. She shook fruit flies into its jar for dinner and told us about eight more tarantulas she had at home in her closet. A stooped old man who was seated with us at dinner turned out to be an aeronautical engineer who had designed a Mars lander.
The demographics of passengers on long-distance trains say a lot about what has become of train service. The majority were either foreign or young (or both), or really old.
In Europe, trains are a smart, upscale way to travel. You meet sophisticated couples and businesspeople with laptops. There are any number of reasons that’s not true here. Blame our car culture or the long distances between towns or the wrangling over who will build high-speed track or the increasingly stingy feds.
We also can blame Amtrak’s shoddy service. For the Zephyr, I beguiled my kids with visions of the magnificent Rockies climb, which is why I had splurged on a sleeper. Somewhere over the Mississippi, our conductor told us that summer track repairs weren’t finished, and the train was being diverted through Wyoming. We would be traveling the Rockies by bus. Couldn’t someone at Amtrak have let us know?
The tracks were fixed in time for the return, five days later, and we got to enjoy the snaking ascent along the Colorado River. But when the train finally arrived at Union Station, it was 16 hours late. A series of small calamities and laughable mishaps all contributed, most prompted by freight trains.
Amtrak leases track from companies such as Union Pacific, which gives its freight customers priority because they are bigger customers. As a result, we were constantly delayed because we had to pull over while 50 boxcars crawled by. Then one of those freights had a minor derailment, and we had to detour at a “Y” junction. Then our engines were faced the wrong way. Then the horn on the rescue freight locomotive didn’t work. Then the second rescue freight locomotive had a limited top speed. Then we had to wait two hours in Hastings, Neb., because our conductors had worked the maximum 12 hours, and two new guys had to take a five-hour taxi ride from Lincoln.
It’s small catastrophes like these that sour so many on train travel. That’s too bad, because in this day of increased airport hassles and unpredictable fuel costs, trains could be a terrific alternative. The linen tablecloths are still in place in the dining car. You can’t beat the view from the observation car. America is out there.
Now wouldn’t it be great if Kummant could shake loose serious money in Washington and restore some class to Amtrak service?
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Jonathan Black is the author of “Yes, You Can! Behind the Hype and Hustle of the Motivation Biz.”
