PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Sometimes planning a trip can be as adventurous as actually pushing off. And in this day and age of five-hour delays, cracking metal parts and endless debate about Amtrak, I am flipping through a map-sized red-and-white railroad timetable and hoping to reserve my ticket right away, according to an editorial by Peter Mandel in the Providence Journal.
Since I will be riding the train from Providence to New York, and then on to Chicago, I think I will stay up, puff on a cigar and read the papers, instead of sleeping. There’s the “parlor car,” where I can chug along in a swivel chair, the “Cafe Bar Car,” the “Coffee Shop Tavern,” the “Observation Car and Lounge” . . .
Can I be reading this right? The schedule I have dug up is dated 1955, and these hotel-like choices were offered by the now-defunct Pennsylvania Railroad. But I will not let that stop me.
I will have to take the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad on the leg down to Penn Station. But this does not seem a bad thing. I can hop The Federal or The Patriot or The Senator or The William Penn — expresses that blow through town about every hour.
Then, when I change trains in New York, I will have my pick of even more esteemed long-distance engines for the trip out west. There is The Manhattan Limited, which leaves Penn Station at 1:15 p.m. and, winding its way through Newark, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Altoona, Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne, gets into the Windy City at 6:20 the next morning. Not bad. Not bad at all. But it might be swifter to get on The General or The Trail Blazer or The Gotham, which all make fewer stops and do the route in even less time.
Then, running down the columns, my finger accidentally lands on an express that I’ve overlooked. It’s The Broadway Limited, and unless there’s some mistake this track star of a train bolts out of New York at 7:50 p.m. and, despite the obligatory big-city stops, gets into Chicago well before I’ll be ready to get off: at exactly 7:45 a.m. the next day. Wow.
I am mentally booking my ticket as you read this, and, while I’m at it, reserving a berth in the standard Pullman car. Nothing fancy — though I will be able to slip my shoes into a box mounted on the wall next to my bunk and discover them freshly shined when I wake up.
Mind you, I could have gone for a “Roomette,” a “Double Bedroom,” a “Duplex Room” or even a “Drawing Room Compartment” _ but, as I told you, I have in mind to sit up most of the night. As we roar through darkened Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, I will be trying to remember a few things.
One of them will be: Why did we ever give up on the Pennsy and the New Haven, and put our chips on Amtrak — now on the verge of killing its last few long-distance runs in an effort to keep afloat?
And even Amtrak, despite its absence of style and customer service, seems better than no trains at all.
I remember, as you do, that privately run trains were going bankrupt. I know about the interstate highways, and I admit that airplane flights are speedier than train rides.
But could it be that all we remember about privately run trains were their death throes in the 1960s? This was, after all, a period when people thought that cities, too, were done for, and that hard-edged modern architecture meant the end of elegance for all time. We were aiming for the moon, and wanted to get there fast. That was when we let go of The Gotham and The Broadway Limited, with all their streamlined trim and dinners and drinks and fine big windows and bedrooms and shined shoes.
But that was then, and this is now: an age that thrives on revivals — Art Deco towers, classic musicals, 1940s clothes, historic downtowns.
It’s a long shot, perhaps, but might it be time to try to bring back the marvelous world of The Pennsy and The New York Central? Such trains would not be spare and pared down, like the Acela, but, rather, have all the old spit and polish of the past — like a restored grand hotel.
“I travel not to get anywhere,” said one wise traveler, Robert Louis Stevenson, “but to go.” I am betting that a lot of today’s urban denizens would agree that The Broadway Limited would be a kind of going that is worth paying for. Being aboard it would, without doubt, be more wonderful than your arrival in Harrisburg, Altoona, Fort Wayne, or even Philadelphia or Chicago.
So what can it matter if the route would not be the shortest we know? As I said, I’m staying up late this night in the Observation Car and Lounge. I am reading, and I am smoking, and I am staring out into the dark. And, I’m glad to say, there are many miles still left to ride.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Peter Mandel of Providence, R.I., an author of children’s books, wrote this article for The Providence Journal.