A chill ran up my spine when this email from Amtrak was forwarded to me: “We are contacting you today to inform you that starting January 6 through March 1, 2016, the Pacific Parlour car will be removed from the Coast Starlight trains for maintenance. During this period, the dining car and Sightseer Lounge…
OK, I will concede that you may be tired of reading about the Pacific Parlour Cars on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight. I suppose part of the reason I write about them is because I really do go out of my way to ride the Coast Starlight—at several hundred dollars of extra expense—just to spend a dozen…
This is one of my favorite rides. The Cardinal runs between New York and Chicago, but it takes a meandering southern route that makes it, without doubt, one of the two or three more scenic Amtrak rides in the eastern part of the country. After the westbound train leaves New York’s Penn Station, it heads…
The next morning, back in the desert and not quite halfway through its journey, the Ghan reaches Alice Springs. It stops for several hours here, allowing passengers to tour the area. The statue in the railway station depicts an Afghan camel herder, from whom the train got its name. “Ghan” is, in fact, Aussie shorthand…