A short ode to Amtrak
I am on the Amtrak Acela back to New York today (in the past few weeks I have been en route to a place for longer than I’ve actually spent at it, and today is no different). I was greeted by a tall, thin, genteel looking black man in a sharp navy suit. He’s wearing a cardinal red bowtie, a crisp white shirt, a vest, and a gold watch chain that makes an old-fashioned arc from buttons to blazer. He welcomed me by name, called me ma’am, asked me how my travels were going so far. I settled in my spot, plugged in my laptop, connected to free Wi-Fi, awaited my drink, and, most importantly, felt as though I was traveling in a civilized world by people earning the price of their ticket with courtesy, service and respect. I’m delayed 10 minutes so far, despite having a packed afternoon that can’t handle those minutes, and I just don’t mind at all.
If only I could get everywhere by train. As I settle into my journey home, and watch horror stories on the news, of people being molested in airports by frustratingly underpaid and undertrained employees, I wish the world were different.
December 1st, 2010 at 7:37 am
Please come and live in the U.K. forever. Then you can get everywhere by train x
December 19th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Hi! You haven’t posted here in a while, but I wanted to say a couple things.
1) I totally agree about Amtrak. I used to ride the train all the time before I got my car and I miss it so much.
2) I just read your book, Harry, a History and it made me relive all the wonderful things that Harry Potter did for me. So thank you for that. It was wonderful to put a voice and face to the Leaky Cauldron, a website I used to read quite a lot.
3) I’m writing my blog post about it right now!
4) Where is YOUR blog post on Mockingjay?!?! I saw that you were going to write about it in one of your Glee posts, but that hasn’t happened yet! I need to read it, because it sort of sounds like we feel the same way about it. But I would really love that validation!
January 13th, 2011 at 3:51 am
so i did not realize you had this website on top of everything else, (twitter, facebook, Harry A history). Love the layout, pics of Moochka, and the Coffee cup Tribute.
Its funny how we have progressed from trains and have been destroying the tracks for years now and turning them into bike paths and whatnot. But really they are Such a great and enjoyable way of getting around…
Its one of the times that progressing to new technology might have failed us… and it seems trains are continuing to leave us, at least here in the United States, its really quite sad.
Sounds like you had a good trip.
Cheers