I’m writing this somewhere in a swamp in Georgia, chugging
northward on the Auto Train, the world’s longest passenger train.
At full capacity, the train carries 650 passengers and 330
vehicles, its 18 passenger cars and 33 vehicle carriers
stretching for three-fourths of a mile.
Amtrak runs two Auto Trains, each scheduled to depart at 4 p.m.,
one from Sanford, Florida, the other from outside D.C. in Lorton,
Virginia. With everything on schedule, the trains pass each other
at 11:30 p.m. at the half-way point in Florence, South Carolina.
Ticket prices depend on demand, like concert tickets. With the
train packed with snow birds on our way down to Florida after
Christmas, we paid $782 for a bedroom with a restroom/shower
combination and a couch and chair that converted into bunks. The
larger one’s on the bottom. Forget feminism and equality — I get
the top bunk every time. I feel like a tuna in a can.
Coming back on a less crowded train, leaving most of the
snowbirds in Florida, the price for the same room was $406.
The car, additionally, is $152 each way, plus there’s a $70.65
rail fare each way.
Altogether, that’s $1,633.30 — not bad if you’re staying for the
winter and saving the cost of a car rental for 15 weeks or so. If
a car rental is $200 a week, the train ends up as more than free,
plus there’s a complimentary wine tasting party in the lounge car
during the first hour (this time with salmon appetizers —
usually it’s only carrot sticks and those little cheese
crackers), a free dinner at five or seven o’clock, a movie at
seven and nine o’clock, and a complimentary continental
breakfast (orange juice, coffee, a banana and those little
boxes of Special-K and Rice Krispies).
It’s nice, but maybe not as good as Amtrak sells it, i.e. “The
journey is every bit as much fun as your destination!” That might
be true if you’re jobless and going down to pick oranges or do
some guppy scooping before the next frost hits.
They also promote the “panoramic views of America’s southeast
through picture windows.” Except it was dark after the first two
hours of the 17-hour ride, so what you see are red blinking
lights at railroad crossings in five states.
But it’s efficient. Where else can you simultaneously read,
drink, smoke, eat, talk, write, e-mail, and meet dozens of new
characters, all while going 70 miles per hour? Plus you
aren’t blasted out into the air at 35,000 feet if one of the
co-passengers ends up as a successful crotch bomber.
For trivia fans, Amtrak provides some details on the towns we
pass through. Heading north, the first town is Deland, Florida,
home of Stetson University, named after the hat guy. Next is
Pierson, “the nation’s fern capital” (all you see are miles of
black tarps; the ferns are underneath). Then it’s Palatka, “a
haven during the 1850s for invalids escaping northern winters.”
The last town before leaving South Carolina is Dillon, the place
where financial non-guru Ben Bernanke went to high school and
worked as a waiter at South of the Border, a road stop near the
North Carolina border.
The last town is Lorton, home of the Lorton Reformatory, a
correctional facility that produced fire hydrants and fire call
boxes for D.C. “In 1917, it held 170 women arrested and detained
in the suffrage movement for marching in Washington.”
The facility closed in 2001, so there’s little chance that Obama
will be sending over any tea-baggers to make fire hydrants,
unless he decides it’s a good spot for some “shovel-ready”
stimulation.
