Amtrak train and rollercoasters

Last weekend, I rode an Amtrak train from Winona to a suburb north of Chicago. A major objective of the trip was to meet up with my sister-in-law so that we could go ride rollercoasters at Six Flags Great America.

 

The rollercoasters were exciting, of course, but here I want to tell about my train ride.

It was very pleasant. I managed to get a window seat and spent a large share of my ride looking out at the passing countryside.

 

At times, the train moved impressively quickly. For a while, I had a good view of a section of interstate highway which followed a parallel route. Thanks to a particularly distinctive semi truck which I could always easily spot, I estimated the train was moving slightly faster than the traffic on the freeway. But the vehicles didn’t stop every 40 to 80 miles to deboard and take on passengers.

 

Speed wasn’t the objective, though. I knew what the train’s schedule was and had planned for the five-hour ride. 

 

I greatly enjoyed the view between Winona and LaCrosse–there, the tracks are parallel to the Mississippi River, sometimes right along the shore, sometimes a couple of hundred feet back. In places, the cabins and boathouses along the river were weathered and humble. Then, as we came closer to towns, they would quickly become more modern and luxurious. 

 

Of course, everyone knows railroad tracks often run through the more industrial parts of town. Back when railroads were the main way of transporting goods, it happened more or less automatically that factories and shipping companies located along them.

 

Since it was a passenger train, it also rolled through more urban parts of town to the historic train depots. Having often been in a car that had to wait while trains rolled past, it was a fascinating change in perspective to be on the train looking at lines of cars waiting for the tracks to be cleared. It was an indicator of the size of the town we were passing through to see how long the lines of vehicles became.

 

I felt the frustration of the drivers below me at one point when the train was stopped at the depot to serve passengers, but extended across nearby streets. There we sat, me looking down on them from invisibility in the train, them looking around impatiently, probably expressing their frustration that the train wasn’t moving.

 

The vast majority of the ride was through countryside. I spent lots of time looking at trees, marsh, fields of crops and other common sights. There were occasional changes of scenery.

 

At one point we went through a tunnel that must have been quite long, given that we were moving quite quickly and still we seemed to be in darkness for a few minutes. The wall of the tunnel seemed alarmingly close to the train’s exterior. At another point we had been traveling through a pine forest for quite some time when suddenly I was looking at a sand “pit” of surprising proportions. Long overhead beams carried giant “buckets” which could be seen in the acts of picking up sand from some location out of sight, then dropping it on mountain-like piles under the beams.

 

At another point, a gigantic clear area was visible surrounded by the pines. It was obvious hundreds of cars sometimes come and go in the area, but it remains a complete mystery to me what reason they might have had to gather in such a remote location.

 

It was also great fun to look at the architecture of the thousands of houses we rolled past. Much of the time we were moving too fast to see much detail, but at other times the train moved along very slowly. From the heights of the “upper level” seats in my coach class car, I had an easy view into back yards, even when they were fenced.

 

We must have been in a rather prestigious neighborhood when I saw the waters of three crystal-blue swimming pools in three yards in a row.

 

On a number of occasions, people watching the train pass would be waving enthusiastically.  I wanted badly to wave back, but had to recognize that from their perspective I was just a shaded window reflecting the sunlight. Still, their enthusiastic friendly greetings made me smile.

 

My five-hour ride left me wanting to do it all again. I pictured riding a lot further, possibly into the Rocky Mountains, where the views would be of a landscape outside my everyday experience.