Ride On

I Remain a Cross-Tie Rider

Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain’t nothing sweeter than ridin’ the rail.

- Tom Waits, Cold Water

The loneliest place in the world is the Erie, Pennsylvania train station at 4 o’clock in the morning. For the record, the Erie, Pennsylvania train station is open only between 2 and 6 a.m. It is decidedly not Chicago.

From the Way Back files.

That’s when and where I fell in love with trains in the winter of 1988 - standing on the platform in a winter coat clutching two suitcases gazing at the engine's light as it bore down the track, my mother’s silhouette swallowed in its glow.

AMTRAK’s Lake Shore Limited route starts in Albany, New York as the big trains come cruising up out of Boston and New York City. They converge there and head west to Saratoga Springs, Utica, Syracuse, and Rochester before they hit Buffalo and the ferocious Lake Erie bluster, snow, and brutal chill. Up on that Erie platform, with the train steaming hard through the snow, or the rain the headlight and steam whistle of that mighty train engine signal all destinations west. How far west? It doesn’t matter. 

Nothing matters in the Erie train station. Where you’re from, where you were, what you did, what you didn’t do, none of it makes a good goddamn. On that platform, at that hour, you’re free to do whatever you please. Have a pull off a flask. Have a cup of coffee. Smoke too many cigarettes. Do what you please, because no one, and I mean no one is gonna bother you until you arrive in Toledo, and no one knows when that is gonna happen in the Lake Erie winter. 

I grew to love the train when I was eight years old and have adored it in all the years since. It’s my preferred mode of travel. There’s enough legroom to satisfy me, enough privacy to disappear, and enough cars to meet anyone I want to meet. What’s more, there are viewing cars when I want to watch the country roll by, café cars when I want to have a sandwich and chat, and dining cars when it’s time to dine. The best part is, and I cannot stress this enough, I am not in control of a damn thing. 

So much of my previous life in the military was dictated by the clock. Reveille, morning chow, quarters, watch times, this meeting, that meeting, duty turnover, watch itself, knock-off times, afternoon muster, evening chow, evening watch, mid-watch… all registered and counted by the unholy clock, and on that train, none of it matters. Flight times are all based on when you’re supposed to arrive at the airport, and we’re all worried about making good time, and time and time, and still more time. The train doesn’t give a damn about it. You’ll get there when you get there, and in that, there is a tremendous relief. We encountered heavy rains, snow, and ice… deal with it. Chill out in a comfy seat and read your book. The same reason baseball isn’t America’s favorite pastime is the same reason train travel isn’t the preferred method of travel. We find ourselves here and there trying desperately to get there or here at maximum speed and we forget to actually look with big eyes at what’s around us. Our heart rates soar, and our collective patience is consistently marked absent on the daily virtue roster. We wish we had control. 

I have bad news. Control is an illusion. 

The game takes as long as it’s going to take, and the train trip is going to take as long as it takes. 

I rode as many as I could. I paid for rides on the Coast Starlight from Portland to L.A, the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle, and the California Zephyr from San Francisco to Sacramento to Reno, to Denver, to Chicago.

I hopped the Southwest Chief from L.A. through Albuquerque (Bless you Bugs Bunny), Kansas City, and on to Chicago over the course of 40 hours or more, probably more.

The Adirondack took me from New York to Montreal through the mountainside which has inspired better writers than me.  I rode the Midnight Special, yeah THAT Midnight Special, from Chicago to St. Louis, because I felt obligated. I rode the Orange Blossom Special (yes, of Johnny Cash fame) from New York to Miami. I once rode the Twin Star Rocket – from Minneapolis to Houston – to watch a pair of baseball games. I took the last ride of the Wabash Cannonball from Detroit to St. Louis and back again just to see a St. Louis baseball crowd. 

Our collective patience is consistently marked absent on the daily virtue roster. I’m learning to battle these afflictions and roll steady on. I adore these big locomotives because they conjure up images of the American frontier, of lonesome gamblers in the wee small hours of the morning, of heartbroken lovers, of desperadoes, of escape. In short, they are irreplaceable icons in the American narrative, and I am utterly infatuated with Americana. Is this because riding the rails is reminiscent of a simpler time? I doubt it. I suppose that every generation has a conceit that theirs is the generation most beset by troubling times and conflict. I believe it’s about what Marcel Proust once called “the eyes of discovery.” The real joy of discovery is not in seeing new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. My eyes are always clearer, brighter, and more perceptive after a journey by train, and not because someone commented on them, but because I can feel it in my mind and that is enough. Yes, that is enough. 

And the train? The train kept a rollin’.