When I told people I’d be traveling from New York to Chicago by train, reactions ranged from confused stares to best wishes: “Good luck, that is a long ride I could never do” and “that is just like ‘North by Northwest!'”
I then had to admit that I had never seen Hitchcock’s 1959 spy thriller with Cary Grant but was still thrilled that this was somebody who understood the drive that pushed me to pick a longer and more expensive way to get to a destination. People with a travel streak often do things just because. For the adventure.
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I am hardly the first person to romanticize the train journey but the part that truly left people asking “why would you do this to yourself?” had a lot to do with my coach ticket.
The view from my coach seat.
Veronika Bondarenko
19 hours on a train moving along the Hudson, Berkshires, Erie Canal and Lake Michigan
While Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited 49 route has plenty of roomettes and even suites worthy of the glamorous and mysterious spy agent played by Eva Marie Saint in the movie, I was a lot less willing to shell out upwards of $500 for a real bed. The $173 ticket I bought would have to do — it was just slightly higher than what a one-way flight booked at the last minute would have cost.
I have been on 15-hour-plus flights to Asia and Australia in the past and figured that just under 20 hours in a coach train seat couldn’t be drastically different. At least you can walk up and down the aisles, switch seats and hang out in the dining car.
So off I went!
I boarded at New York City’s Moynihan Station without significant setbacks aside from the fact that I waited too long for the gate to be called. Truly seasoned train riders know exactly which entrance to stand at even before it’s announced on the screens. As such, I was one of the last to board and had to pick between significantly less desirable seats.
I was eventually able to snag a window seat on my Amtrak train.
Veronika Bondarenko
Seat choices and the start to the journey
It didn’t help that many of the travelers were placing bags on the nearby seats in their not-so-covert efforts to have others pass them by and be left with more space once the train had boarded. This works occasionally when the train is not so full; I can’t say I’ve never tried the same on past train and bus journeys.
But the coach seat you pick isn’t actually that important. It is a long train ride, travelers get off and on at different spots, and you can always find another place to sit later in the ride. The Lake Shore Limited route is advertised as crossing some of the “most beautiful shorelines of the USA” and the out-the-window views rolling out of New York City first by the Hudson River and then along the lakes of the Berkshires, the Mohawk River, Erie Canal and eventually toward Lake Michigan was exactly what pushed me to take this journey.
It might sound like a cliché but the scope and beauty of some places cannot truly be understood by flying over them. I don’t drive, so the train is the best way for me to see things roll on by slowly.
Views of Indiana from the window of the Lake Shore Limited 49.
Veronika Bondarenko
Frozen time, interesting conversations and views, but no ‘Great American Novel’
It’s hard to write about trains without another romanticized idea: talking to fellow travelers. If you’re a solitary city-slicker who spends a lot of time reading like me, the idea of the talkative stranger with a story to share holds a certain appeal. As does the idea of putting all those hours of uninterrupted train time to good use by writing the next “Great American (I’m actually Canadian) Novel” that lives in your head — theoretically wonderful yet unlikely to happen.
But even with smartphones, the circumstances of frozen time aboard a train does push people to be more talkative. Fellow travelers included a group of Irish university grads spending several months in the U.S. and hoping to find a lower cost of living in Chicago and an older woman who asked “but what do you do for work?” when I told her that I’m a journalist. There was also the group of women inviting everyone to join their card game in the dining car. It looked fun but I kept moving.
Between all of that and checking out the dining car for a $9 glass of wine (I had brought my own sandwich and snacks onboard), the time passed quickly. I got sleepy earlier than I normally do when not in motion and settled in with a blanket I had brought along for the ride. I worried that my difficulties falling asleep on airplanes would also extend to the train but I nodded off and woke up at around 7 a.m. during a stop in Toledo — seven hours is, by most accounts, a full night’s rest even if I did feel some of the soreness that comes with being in a seated position overnight.
Somewhere close to Chicago.
Veronika Bondarenko
Chicago is almost here — so would I do this again?
The rest of the time aboard the train flew by, lost to one’s morning social media scroll and knowing that the worst, and longest part, of the journey is behind you.
I saw more scenic glimpses of Indiana during those golden hours of sunrise and wondered whether the time the train spent stopped in a state I have never been to should give me the right to count Ohio when people inevitably ask how many states I have been to. Maybe if I had gotten out to stretch my legs. But I was too afraid to get left behind; I had once seen it happen to a passenger when living in France and taking advantage of the country’s train network.
By 9 a.m. of the following day, the train started to pass the sights indicating that a big city is nearby: factories, warehouses and suburban single-story houses that eventually gave way to multi-story ones. We were pulling into Chicago’s Union Station shortly thereafter and it felt surreal — all that time and territory that had passed while I was (largely) in one seat.
You feel how small you are compared to distances when crossing them by train. I am really glad I did this journey. I am equally glad to have booked a flight back to New York.