Amtrak Dining Cars – Making New Friends Three Times a Day
(Just a reminder that I will be off on Tuesday for an extended trip — returning on November 6th — and, yes, there will be a lot of train travel included.)
One of the things about train travel I always anticipate with pleasure is the dining car experience … in particular, never knowing who your tablemates will turn out to be. I’ve had some wonderful meals while meeting and getting to know people from all over the country and from many other parts of the world.
More than anything else, this is probably what makes train travel special. You almost never spend any time chatting with fellow passengers on a long plane ride. It’s a five-hour flight from here in Hawaii to the U.S. mainland and most of the time, if you say anything at all to the person next to you, it’s “Excuse me” when you have to step over them when making a trip to the lavatory.
I got to know this delightful family on board the Empire Builder. They were en route for a week of camping and sightseeing in Glacier National Park.
Not so on the train. I can’t begin to recall all the interesting and unusual people I’ve met during a meal in an Amtrak dining car over the years. There was, for instance, the Japanese doctor who had been studying organ transplants in Boston for two years. He had become an ardent Red Sox fan and the two of us gleefully exchanged high-fives across the table when we realized our common bond.
On another occasion, I was ushered to a seat across from a 300-pound gent wearing a tank top, presumably to better display a chest and arms covered with tattoos. I can’t remember how it came up, but it developed that he and I both shared a great admiration for the American humorist, James Thurber.
A number of years back, I was having lunch in the Empire Builder’s dining car with an English gentleman who was touring the U.S. by train. At the time, we were heading west somewhere in Montana when the conductor stopped by our table to inform us that because of work being done on the tracks and an unusual amount of freight traffic, we would probably be three to four hours late arriving in Seattle the next day.
“Jolly good!” exclaimed the Brit. “Then we really are getting our money’s worth, aren’t we!”
I’ve never forgotten that, because it’s exactly the right way to approach any long-distance train journey: the more the better.
