There’s a lot to say for taking a couple of days out of already extended itinerary to stop off at Charlottesville, Virginia, just to spend a couple or three hours at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home. This is beautiful country and today was an especially beautiful day: clear skies and bright sunshine with temperatures I…
The Cardinal is Number 4 on my list of Most Scenic Amtrak trains. It really is a wonderful ride and, I’m delighted to say, I’ll be on the eastbound train in about 10 days. It leaves Chicago around dinnertime and takes a 28-hour meandering southern route, passing through Indianapolis, Cincinnati, White Sulphur Springs (home to…
From time to time, I’ve complained here about the folly of operating trains on a less-than-daily schedule. Amtrak has two such trains in its long-distance system: the Sunset Limited running between New Orleans and Los Angeles, and the Cardinal, which takes a southerly route between Chicago and New York. Both trains run in each direction,…
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…