Steel gods of a bygone era
The California Zephyr, a train route running from Chicago to (just across the bay from) San Francisco is one of the most beautiful train trips in all of North America…not that there are a whole lot of them. Appropriately named after the Greek god of the western wind, the route is famed for its awesome scenery and Vista-Dome cars. I wonder what new Zephyrs or other scenic routes might emerge from the high speed rail that was promised to us in the recovery package. (And, yet, somehow doesn’t appear anywhere on recovery.gov)
Amplify’d from travel.nytimes.com
Riding the Rails
On both sides of the train window, American scenery unfolded. A dirty layer of ice and snow subdued the still cropland to the distant horizon. At the next table a woman stuck her nose in a novel; a college kid pecked at a laptop. Overlaying all this, a soundtrack: choo-k-choo-k-choo-k-choo-k-choo-k — the metronomic rhythm of an Amtrak train rolling down the line to California, a sound that called to mind an old camera reel moving frames of images along a linear track, telling a story. Read more at travel.nytimes.com
