(The BBC published the following story by Richard Hollingham on its website on September 28.)
LONDON — Since the 11 September attacks many Americans have turned away from the airlines – either deciding not to travel at all or switching to railways.
Surveys suggest that passenger numbers are up on most rail routes in the US – but for the nation that pioneered long-distance rail travel, the service is in a poor way.
Trains are run by the government-funded Amtrak and are slow, unreliable and have to give way to more profitable freight services.
As a result the Bush administration wants to privatise the network.
So, I took one of America’s long-distance trains to sample the service for myself.
Looming nightmares
The taxi driver looked at me as if I were some sort of deranged lunatic and then spent the remainder of the early morning journey warning me of the nightmares ahead.
He told me it would be so much easier to fly from New Orleans to Washington DC in about two hours, asking: “How long was the train going to take?”
He almost crashed when I told him 26.
Union Station in New Orleans was once one of the city’s finest buildings.
Now the marble hall doubles as a bus terminal. The destination board lists only three services a day – including mine, the Crescent.
Going ‘Colonial’
The train itself couldn’t have been in greater contrast to its shabby surroundings: a line of silver carriages headed by two enormous diesel locomotives, each coach with its own name.
I was in Colonial, which – me being the only Brit on board – seemed somehow apt.
I’d booked a compartment.
It is a marvel of design as in a space little bigger than a bathtub they had somehow managed to fit two chairs, a table, bunks, toilet, basin and even a television.
I felt even more colonial when Gail, our carriage attendant, explained that there was also a shower and that breakfast would be served shortly.
‘Egalitarian’ meals
With a reverberating blast from the horns we clattered slowly, and slightly precariously, out of the station and through the suburbs of New Orleans.
Then out across a narrow trestle bridge and into the swamplands of Louisiana.
Our route would take us up into Mississippi then east through Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas to the East Coast – a distance of about 1,000 miles (1610 km) stopping at 25 stations along the way, many little more than a bench and a peeling sign.
Despite the class differences on the train – coach through deluxe – meals are egalitarian affairs.
Cooked on board and served on white linen tablecloths in the dining car, they’re a good way to meet fellow travellers.
At breakfast I got talking to Jim, a businessman from New York and a regular Amtrak traveller particularly since 11 September.
Not only, he says, is it a more relaxing way to travel, it’s also a good deal more secure.
He’s had his fill of airlines. What he can’t countenance is the fact that Amtrak is a nationalised institution that loses close on $1bn each year.
But for America’s railroad operators, passengers aren’t the priority.
The majority of lines don’t carry them at all.
They are reserved for high-speed freight trains, shifting bulk cargo across the continent.
Amtrak doesn’t even own most of the tracks, they’re leased from the freight companies.
Sometimes that means passengers shunted into sidings to make way for containers or oil or grain.
Only one service – that between Washington and Boston – travels anywhere near the speeds of European railways. Ours trundled along at a relatively sedate 60 mph (96 kph).
Stuck in West Virginia
By the end of dinner, I had been on the train for 11 hours, had eaten three enormous meals and spent most of the rest of the time dozing, reading or talking to my companions.
Too much longer and I would be so grotesquely fat I wouldn’t be able to fit along the corridors.
We pulled into Atlanta and more passengers joined the train – connecting from Chattanoga.
It’s telling that the Chattanoga Choo Choo is now a bus.
By 2100 local time I’d done sufficiently little to feel it was time for bed.
Gail prepared my bunk as I discussed the relative merits of rail privatisation in the bar with Bob, a guesthouse owner from North Carolina.
I slept well, apparently missing the most scenic part of the journey and awoke to silence.
The air conditioners quiet, the lights dim and perhaps most worrying the toilet’s “out of service” light was on.
Charlottesville, West Virginia, an attractive town by all accounts – and there are probably worse places to be stuck in a broken-down train.
As assorted train personnel gathered around the engine muttering, the rest of us ambled up and down the platform.
Sad feelings
It was a beautiful Sunday morning and no-one was that bothered.
Apparently it always happens when there’s a journalist on board.
Two hours later one of the two engines is shunted into a siding and we are underway again.
After 28 hours we pull into Union Station in Washington – its immaculately restored vaulted roof and marble halls a homage to the railways.
To critics of Amtrak: services like the Crescent are anachronisms that deserve to go the same way as the horse and carriage.
But I would be sad to see them go – I had no plans for the 26 hours I would have saved if I had flown, I wouldn’t have seen the southern States, chatted to dozens of people or enjoyed the excellent food.
Most Americans don’t know what they are missing.