Good Reasons to Travel by Train

There are lots of good reasons to travel by train. Since the time when I went to college in D. C. and my family was living in Massachusetts I have taken to train travel like a fish to water. Today as a senior citizen I still enjoy traveling by train when taking long trips like visiting my daughter and her family in Chicago or traveling back to my old haunts in Washington D. C. Of course not every hour that I have spent on a train has been a joy ride. I have been on a train that caught fire and a train so full of holiday travelers that my seat was on top of my suitcase , I sat in a dining car when all the lights went out in the middle of dinner and existed on a long train ride on a family sized chocolate bar and a can of Fresca. But I still favor trains over other means of transport partly out of habit but mostly because of these good reasons to travel by train.

Trains Tend to Be on Time. I’m a person who doesn’t really like to wait for the action to get going. If a movie is supposed to start at 3:30 p.m. I don’t want to still be distracting myself with popcorn at 3:45 p.m. So when I decide to take a trip I want that trip, no matter how long it is going to take to accomplish, to begin with some reliable promptness. I have found from experience that trains, by and large, are like me, creatures of habit. If there is a 9:30 a.m. train leaving from Providence ,RI to go to New York, you had better be there on time because the train will be and it will also generally leave on time. Sadly this is not true of air flights today, nor is it true if you decide to drive yourself. That morning departure time always gets bumped up a half hour or an hour for one reason or another. No give me the train, for the most part it will leave on time and my vacation has begun.

Engineers Know Where They Are Going . One of the most off putting parts of taking a auto trip can be the fact that there are always issues about how to get where you are going. I have driven from Boston, MA to Bradenton Florida. With my family I drove several thousands miles round trip from Massachusetts to Wyoming and back. On long trips and short there is invariably the need to get out the maps and discuss the options. Even when I was a thirty something I never really was fond of “options”. The word seemed to mean there would have to be a discussion and invariably a decision and then possibly a review of how good or bad the decision was. Trains remove the options. A train has set destinations. The engineer isn’t going to take a side trip, he isn’t going to come up with an alternate route. A train going to Philly is going to go to Philly on the same track it uses every day, no discussions, no maps and no options. To me that’s a very good reason to travel by train.

You Can Meet Interesting People or Not. I have traveled by plane, not often by enough to know that I really don’t enjoy being stuffed into a seat next to someone I don’t know and having to ride that way for hours. Maybe the person is interesting maybe not, but in planes with three across seating my husband and I are going to have to deal with someone else, whether we like it or not for the duration of the flight. The train allows you to escape that alternative if you are traveling in pairs. My husband and I can have some pleasant conversation or ignore each other as we see fit but we are totally in a comfort zone. Even the person across the aisle can be pretty easily ignored. If someone initiates conversation on a train you have all manner of ways to put it to an end . On the other hand there are plenty of people on a train who can be entertaining and enjoyable company and help to pass the ride time pleasantly. We have had dinner on a train with a couple from North Carolina and followed that by breakfasting on the same trip with a mother and her two children from Georgia, but only because we chose to. A good reason to travel by train is because, at least for couples, it is ideally set up to allow you some basic privacy.

You Can Stretch. When my husband and I have had enough time sitting in our tourist class seats we can move around. Whether you are a senior citizen with stiffness issues or a single mom with a hyper active child, trains may be a wonderful solution to your travel needs. You can do more than just parade endlessly up and down the aisle to the restroom. There is a whole train length of many cars that can give you a good stretch whenever you need it. Walk all the way to the rear of the train, hang out there for a bit and then retrace your steps. With a great deal of attention you can even stretch your legs if your particular train makes a long stop at a station , though it is important to check your plan with a conductor so as not to be left behind.

Depending on the length of your train ride and the particular train you are riding you may find a “Club Car “with tables and benches where you can stretch out more than in your regular seat. My husband and I bring along a deck of cards, a puzzle book or something to read and treat the club car like another room in our traveling house. We are often surprised by how few people seem aware of this alternative to sitting in the train proper.

Mechanical Difficulties Not a Problem. I can’t deny it. My biggest single reason for choosing train over other means of transportation is how I perceive its safety. Please don’t confuse me with statistics about how safe other modes of travel may be. I don’t dispute the numbers, I only dispute the feeling. In my mind a very good reason to travel by train is contained in the concept that if something mechanical goes wrong with a train, as opposed to a plane, what you have got going for you is the fact that you are on the ground not thousands of feet in the air. While the same is true of cars or buses, trains seem to surround you with so much more protection that to me the likelihood of personal damage seems in my physics challenged mind would seem to be much less severe. Bottom line I guess I believe that there are chances for mechanical difficulties to occur in any means of transport, but I would rather be on the ground and surrounded by a lot of metal when the difficulty occurs.