(The following column by Kevin Wiatrowski appeared on the Tampa Tribune website on August 23, 2009.)
TAMPA, Fla. — The day before my family and I boarded Amtrak’s Auto Train in Lorton, Va., my friend Jeff Carter told me something that gave me pause.
“The last time I took it,” he said, “it was supposed to leave at 4 o’clock and the train didn’t get there until 9:30.”
I knew the national railway isn’t known for its punctuality. But the wife and I had two preschool children to entertain. The prospect of doing that on a train platform for 51/2 hours nearly made me sick to my stomach.
So I was relieved when we pulled into the station south of Washington, D.C., and found a shiny passenger train waiting.
The 20 hours that followed rank as the most civilized travel experience I have ever had.
I didn’t have to remove my shoes or belt before boarding the train. I got a near-gourmet dinner on china plates. At night, I slept lying down with free blankets and pillows and a porter at my beck and call.
It beat the heck out of the two 10-hour drives between stops on the journey I had dubbed “Le Tour de Grandparents.”
Rather than ride sitting in coach, we had reserved two roomettes for our family. They were tiny, much smaller than the four-bed family room. But they also cost less. And they gave the boys a place to play while my wife and I sat across the hall reading and talking.
Altogether, the accommodations for us and the car cost about $700 – not cheap, but a welcome trade for endless hours of backseat whining or the joyless cattle drive of air travel.
We pulled into the station about two hours before our 4 p.m. departure. An attendant took our names and slapped a large number on the driver’s side car door.
The bulk of our luggage stayed in the car, so we took two bags for the night, one with clothes and one with toys. As we left the car, a crew member checked the underside with a mirror on a stick while another slowly circled the car with a video camera. Then a crew member drove our Hyundai Santa Fe up a ramp and into the depths of an enclosed car carrier.
The Lorton station is all glass and steel, not the brick throwback to yesteryear I expected. If it lacked romance, it also lacked the humorless security officers that block every turn in the airport. Beyond the sweep of our car, we met less security on the Auto Train that we do entering Busch Gardens.
At 3:30 (half an hour early), the train pulled out of the station bound for Florida.
We learned quickly that it takes a little practice to walk on a moving train. Fortunately, in the close quarters, any stumble quickly met a wall, door handle or seatback.
We found the lounge car, where the kids played games while the parents had a little Virginia wine and we all watched the countryside go by.
Riding on borrowed freight lines, Amtrak gave us a view of the United States no one gets driving along the interstate.
We slid through the backyards of countless homes, glided past a few industrial complexes and even skimmed the Quantico Marine Reservation, where we caught a glimpse of the president’s helicopter in its hangar.
We skirted major cities and blew through the vacant hearts of small towns that once thrived with the railroads.
Duane, our porter, rescheduled our 9 p.m. dinner to a more reasonable-with-kids 5 p.m. slot. We ate baked potatoes, fish and mac-and-cheese as the broad, rocky James River passed beneath us outside Richmond.
The Auto Train crowd was a mix of families large and small, retirees and plain old train lovers. Some were heading for a week at Disney World. Others, like the mother and son we met from Vermont, were starting a new life in Palm Beach County.
In the evening, we took the kids to the lounge car for a movie while Duane turned our roomettes into sleeping quarters.
Sleeping on a moving train, it turns out, is almost as challenging as walking on one. My upper bunk was narrow and close to the ceiling, but comfortable enough for a back sleeper like me. It was the first bed I’d ever slept in with a net to keep me from falling out.
My wife, Jen, shared the lower bunk in her roomette with our 2-year-old, which proved to be an adventure in itself.
I thought I might need my net in Georgia. The train pitched and rolled on the tracks like a ship at sea. If Amtrak ever gets to build its own tracks for the Auto Train, it should start in Georgia.
Breakfast started at 6 a.m. When we got there at 7:30, a carafe of orange juice, bagels and cereal awaited us. The sun slanted through the windows as we neared the end of the trip.
By 8:30, we were sitting outside the Sanford station waiting to disembark.
By 10:30, we were on Interstate 4 and headed home to Wesley Chapel.
A few hours later, I was already thumbing through Amtrak’s schedule looking for more new places we could go by train.
The Silver Meteor, it turns out, runs every day from Tampa to Miami.