(The following travel column by David Molyneaux appeared on The Plain Dealer website on November 23.)
CLEVELAND — On the night train to Charleston, S.C., the great monuments of Washington slip silently past the window in little pockets of golden glows.
Alas, glimpses are all you get, and there is no warning, no reminder to be alert when you leave Washington’s cavernous and well-preserved Union Station to rumble south toward the Potomac.
So, if you ride this Amtrak train and want to see the sights, be ready from the first lurch forward out of the terminal, and make sure to sit on the right side, the sight side, as the train continues its East Coast run toward the Carolinas and Florida. Before you take more than a sip of the merlot you brought onboard to celebrate a weekend in South Carolina, symbols of Washington – the dome of the Capitol, the spike of the Washington Monument, the distant steps of the Lincoln, the closer columns of the Jefferson – are gone, and the window is just a rush of fields, telephone poles and towns closed for the evening.
Still, this is a train ride, and for me, click-clacking and gently rolling to sleep on a train is one of the joys of travel.
I could have flown to my business meeting in Charleston. And I might have, if Continental Airlines still offered a nonstop flight from Cleveland. But, as I would be inconvenienced anyway with a connection in Newark, N.J., why not make this trip a bit of an adventure?
Adventure is what always comes with riding the rails from Cleveland, starting with attempts to locate the Amtrak station that sits across the Shoreway from the stadium where the Browns play. To get there, you have to drive in circles around a parking garage east of East Ninth Street. Usually, this is accomplished in pitch dark, because Amtrak trains stop here in the middle of the night. Drivers often are confused by the signs, as most people do not make good decisions between 1 and 5 a.m.
I looked on the Internet (www.amtrak.com ) and asked about choices for getting from Cleveland to Washington and Charleston. The first choice was a 1 a.m. departure, arriving in Washington at 12:20 p.m., about twice as long as it would take me to drive it, and too late already for my meeting in Charleston. The second choice was worse, a routing through New York, leaving Cleveland at 2:20 a.m., changing trains and finally reaching Washington at 6:30 p.m. The most amazing routing was the third choice, in which I could leave Cleveland at 2:20 a.m., stop in Springfield, Mass., and New Haven, Conn., arriving exhausted in Washington at 10:59 p.m., almost 21 hours to go about 350 miles, an average of less than 15 miles per hour. Why does Amtrak even bother to offer this choice?
I decided the quickest way to get to the train from Cleveland was to fly.
For $44 one way on Southwest, I could fly to the Baltimore-Washington airport. I had read that Amtrak had a Baltimore airport station, so I could take a short-haul train to downtown Washington, then transfer to the night train, the Silver Meteor, that runs daily between New York and Miami.
My plan was to put in a day’s work in Cleveland, travel all night, have breakfast on the train and be ready for my morning meeting in Charleston. The cost – a total of $325 to $400, including air to Baltimore, a room with a bed and full breakfast on the train – still would be less than airfare and a night in a Charleston hotel.
It all worked out, and the ride was fun. But Amtrak didn’t make it easy.
For instance, when I flew into the Baltimore airport, I couldn’t find the train station. I asked several airport workers who didn’t have a clue. Finally, I guessed that the shuttle bus with an Amtrak sign indicating the train to New York also would take me to the train to Washington. It did, after a 15-minute wait for the bus. When I got to the station – off the airport grounds – after another 15 minutes, there was a healthy line at the ticket window and no directions to the platform (I already had my ticket, which I bought at the elusive Cleveland Amtrak station). I found the platform in the dark and got on the next Washington train, ending up at Union Station about 20 minutes later.
Union Station is magnificent, a work of art, offering shops and restaurants, most of which were closed at 10 p.m. So, I settled into the comfortable Amtrak lounge, where, a few minutes before 11 p.m., an Amtrak employee led a small group of us to the train, which departed almost on time.
My compartment, one of the largest on the train, was roomy, complete with a tiny bathroom, a big picture window and two reclining seats that the steward made into a double bed. A single bed above folded down from the wall, and there was room for several small carry-on bags – but not much more. Two medium-size people might have difficulty sleeping in the double bed, and the two would not be standing at the same time when the beds were down. With the beds up, however, the compartment had plenty of room.
The sleepy night ride was not smooth, but it wasn’t rough either, as the train crossed Virginia and North Carolina. Train whistles don’t bother me, and neither does the rocking motion that is pretty constant. I had a good night’s sleep.
At 7 a.m., an hour out of Charleston, I walked to the dining car for breakfast and a reminder that Amtrak still has a way to go as a gracious host.
The fellows in the dining car had that sleeper look, where their eyes never meet yours and their ears don’t hear you unless they start the conversation, which they don’t. Like robots, they continue to work as if you don’t exist, placing eggs here and toast there.
I found a table and waited awhile, eventually figuring out that no one at my table would be served until the table was full. It’s easier for the waiter that way. When we were a full table, a menu for each of us appeared, a sheet of paper for each passenger to check off breakfast preferences.
With these sheets of paper, Amtrak has perfected a style of one-way, semicommunication. No words need be spoken. There’s no reason to ask any questions, because there are no special requests. You might as well be picking items from a vending machine.
But how could I complain? I had had a fine night’s sleep, and the office was a world away. The food was passable, the view out the window was Carolina countryside, and I was on a train called the Silver Meteor.
Beats walking, and beats most other modes of transportation.