We’ve just received a message from a friend—a very young woman, born into a world of air transportation. She writes:
Half past ten at night on the first of January, 1977, at the Amtrak train station in Cleveland, waiting to catch the eleven-five to New York. But the eleven-five will be at least an hour late, so I join the rest of the roomful of travellers in cursing the people who run the trains. At twelve o’clock, the train actually arrives, and everyone tries to get on first and so possibly install herself or himself in a window seat. I manage to get a window seat, but my overhead light doesn’t work and I am not able to read. For the first ten minutes that I am in my seat, the seat beside me remains vacant. I throw my coat in it, so that it will look as if the occupant just went for a stroll into another car, and then I put on a tremendous frown, hoping to look so unpleasant no one will say to me, “Is anybody sitting here?” This way, if I feel like it later on, I can curl up and sleep comfortably. My little ruse doesn’t work: a young
woman comes along and asks, “Is anybody sitting here?” She sits down, and I look out the window. It has been snowing for days, so there is much snow on the ground, and it is white and beautiful and the night is clear and beautiful. I look at the woman seated next to me. She has open on her lap a large textbook, and I can see that it has something to do with natural childbirth and progressive child care. The woman turns to me and asks me my destination. When I tell her, she says, “That’s where I am going, too,” and then “Do you know that it took them three hours to get from Toledo to Cleveland?” And, without knowing what the normal time is for getting from Toledo to Cleveland, I join her in criticizing the people who run the railroad.
At half past two in the morning, the train makes its first stop since leaving Cleveland—at Erie, Pennsylvania—and many people get off, but I don’t see anyone boarding. From the train I can see nothing with color in Erie, Pennsylvania, except, in the distance, two glowing golden arches. The woman who was sitting next to me has gone off to find a double seat she can sleep in. I decide to walk around. The car ahead of mine is in complete darkness. All the blinds are drawn, and all the people are sound asleep. It is very snug and warm in this car. Later, the conductor tells me that the lights in this car don’t work at all, whereas the heating works too well. I walk up to the dining car, which is four cars away and open only for lounging. There are two waiters in the dining car, and the moment they see me they start saying almost crude things to me. I am not flustered at all—I just look at
them and start barking like a dog. They shut up and leave the car. To myself I say, “Those two men are lucky I am not God.” The train, which is going much faster than before, seems to be the only thing alive at this early hour of the morning. I go back to my seat to try to sleep. I take a pillow from an overhead rack. The pillowcase is white, but it looks and feels exactly like Handi-Wipes. I fall asleep, and this is what wakes me up: a man going through the car saying over and over, in a singsong way, “First call for breakfast.” I like the way he says this so much that I would like to be able to push a button and have that very man appear and say those very words whenever I want. This is the first time I can actually feel myself having a good time on the train. And then I remember how much I like trains: that I like trains because they seem to be one of the more civilized ways to travel with a lot of other people; that I like to say to people, “I’m going by train,” just because of the way it sounds; and that being on a train makes me feel important, and the nice thing about this feeling of importance is that no one need ever know about it and so ruin it for me. I go off to have breakfast, and find waiting on me the two waiters who were so rude the night before. And now they are addressing me as “Ma’am” and “Miss.” For breakfast, I want to have pancakes, but when I see that they are regular-size pancakes, and not the silver-dollar size, I order French toast. The French toast arrives—three huge triangular hunks of crustless bread soaked in eggs and milk and then deep-fried. I eat it, and in a way it is the worst French toast I have ever eaten and in a way it is the best French toast I have ever eaten. It is the
worst French toast because it is just plain not good food. It is the best French toast because the time is half past seven in the morning and I am on a train that is on its way out of Buffalo and heading for New York.
I get to New York fourteen and a half hours after boarding in Cleveland. I know that people can go to Europe and transact business and return in that span, and I think that’s very nice. But I have had a neat old time just sitting at the train window looking at snow-covered farmhouses, frozen rivers, and miles and miles of snow-covered roads as they went by. And I have enjoyed myself so much that at the end of my trip I forgive the people at Amtrak for not running the trains on time, for not having good food, for not having the nicest waiters, and for just generally not being on the ball, and the next time I go anywhere I want to go by train.
—January 17, 1977