Still delayed

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. – As was the case yesterday, I set the alarm clock this morning for 5:45 a.m., but it never went off. That’s because the sun woke me up 15 minutes early, as it began to creep over the mountains in the Great Basin. Though part of me definitely wanted to sleep some more, [...]

Rocky Mountain High

(Did you really expect me to use anything else for the headline?) We finally reached Denver at around 11:30 a.m. MT. We spent about 20 minutes there, during which time the train was cleaned a bit and some supplies were restocked. We also got newspapers delivered, in this case the Rocky Mountain News. I was [...]

The scene changes

FORT MORGAN, Colo. – I had a hunch that we wouldn’t be able to make it all the way across the country without running into rain somewhere. And so it was overnight, as I rolled over at one point and saw two bright flashes out the window. Once my ears woke up, I could tell [...]

Slowing down

OSCEOLA, Iowa – A couple of things happened this afternoon that were reasons to pause and think for a while. The less prosaic events were delays, a few of which were considerable. Two were the result of stop signals on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe-owned tracks, while a third was the result of tugboats traveling [...]

Ohio and Indiana

WATERLOO, Ind. – Good morning… I set the alarm clock on my phone for 6 a.m., and rolled out of bed not too long after that. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, but we were pulling into Toledo. Which meant I had to make sure the window curtain was totally shut, and it was. We [...]

Bathroom reading

PITTSBURGH – I did manage to stay up this far, and as we pull into the Steel City we’re rolling past a neon sign-bedecked Heinz factory. The central marquee is an animated ketchup bottle. It’s pretty cool. Speaking of designed things, I studied a lot of planning and design stuff in college and that part [...]

With all due respect to John Denver…

MARTINSBURG, W. Va. – I never really have been much of a country boy. I was born and raised in one big city, then went to college in another and still live there. I prefer carrying an iPod and a subway pass to a fife and a fiddle. But the scenery as we’ve rolled through [...]

The waiting game

One week from today, I’ll be setting off on a journey I’ve wanted to take for a very long time. I’ll be traveling across the country from Washington, D.C., to San Jose, Calif., by train, with a three-day stop in Chicago along the way. And in that peculiar way that only the Internet can foster, [...]