Train travel....under appreciated.

VP Joe Biden spent 20 years commuting between Wilmington DE and Washington DC, by train.
Now I know why.
After spending the last 3 plus weeks aboard a tug, rockin and rollin, I now find myself, pulling away from Penn Station, in New York, in the quiet luxury of an Amtrak captains chair.
Window seat thank you.

This-is- living!
As my fellow tug crew members wait in JFK airport, probably just having gone through, the always fun exercise of disrobing before gallivanting through the screening machine of their choice, I calmly walked into the bowels of Madison Square Garden to purchase my train ticket.

That experience was as painless as ordering a water ice at the county fair. When was the last time you said at the ticket counter of a airline?
A 40 minute wait for my train afforded me the opportunity to sip on a Heineken and talk to a gentleman who was traveling home to Albany.
He had a funeral to go to in DC.
I felt bad.
Nice guy.

The big board tells me my train is coming in on track 7E. Walking up the stairs, I'm at the tracks. A friendly porter is pointing in the direction I should go. As I walk on the platform beside the train, I glance in and notice a sign.
"QUIET CAR"

That has my name written all over it. After spending 3 weeks with ear plugs in to deaden the ever present noise of the engines.......I want the damn quiet car.

I walk in the half empty car and choose a comfy recliner by the window. I take out my laptop, and before I can pull my blog up on the internet provided for free by Amtrak, we're quietly pulling out of the train station.

As I write this, we just stopped at, and left Newark New Jersey. The ticket lady came by and asked for my ticket.

She was whispering.

A female passenger across the isle asked to borrow my pen.
She was whispering too.

I love the quiet car.

As I look out the window I see neighborhoods slipping by. I see a Ford dealer and wonder how business is.

A minute later, a golf course, all green and lush, empty.
It's quiet there too.

Over the PA system our next stop is mentioned.
It's somewhere in New Jersey.
I think of my crew members again. They have 2 1/2 more hours to wait in the airport before their planes even begin to board.

Right now my wife is climbing into our car. She'll be picking me up in 40 minutes, when my train arrives in Wilmington DE.
I called her before I left the boat and suggested we do dinner in Wilmington.

I'm telling you, if you have a choice of traveling a few hours in the car, or relaxing on a train, you gotta go train.

40 minutes to go.

mmmm.

I wonder where that Club Car is?