I just received a very nice email from a reader who’s about to leave on a wonderful, extended rail journey: Starting from Washington, DC, he’s taking the Capitol Limited to Chicago, the Empire Builder to Seattle, the Coast Starlight to Sacramento, the California Zephyr back to Chicago and the Cardinal from there back home to…
Amtrak’s on-time performance has been steadily improving, but anyone who has traveled by train more than a few times has had a trip when something has gone wrong. The locomotive breaks down. Your train is delayed over and over for freight traffic. Or there’s bad weather or a mudslide. Let’s face it: stuff happens. Losing…
In an earlier post I mentioned that I’m planning a trip to Europe. So far, I’ve been trying to decide which cities to visit and how long to stay in each. Little by little, and with the help and expert advice of Matthew Foy at Railbookers in London, I’m beginning to develop an interesting itinerary….
The Cardinal is not a big train – usually just one sleeping car, three coaches, and a diner – and it runs over a meandering southerly route between New York and Chicago. But in between those frenetic metropolitan centers, the Cardinal passes through some of the loveliest rural and wilderness areas in the entire eastern…