If your trips must be meticulously planned with each step carefully planned out with little room for adaptation, this is not for you,

If you are free enough with plans to roll with the punches so long as you will eventually get home, it is.

In theory, with a USRail Pass, you have thirty days to cover ten rail segments which you can book the night before you intend to go to your next destination whether it was pre-planned or a spontaneous choice. In reality there is reality and the best laid plans of mice or men do, indeed, often “gang aglee”, so spontaneity and the acceptance of modifying plans  are essential.

On the upside, you get to spend enough time with total strangers who, by the time you get where you are going, are strangers no more.

The observation cars on the trains to and from Chicago were great melting pots as, with the train passing scenery that called for comment, passengers would make those comments and conversation would begin.

Passing through the San Bernadino Mountains on the way to Los Angeles, the passenger next to me identified the mountain range in response to a question from someone sitting on his other side, pointing out he knew the mountains well as his daughter had worked at a summer camp on one of them. I was familiar with a camp up there, and in mentioning that just to be friendly, we found that since I know some of the people who run the camp his daughter had worked at the past few summers, we found she and I most likely knew the same people although we had never met. 

Groups of Amish got on and off the train at certain points along the way, the cut of their clothing being similar but with one group wearing cobalt blue shirts and dresses, black jackets and black bonnets and capes, and another lighter blue shirts and dresses with white bonnets and casual shawls. Passengers came to realize that those in darker clothes were going to or returning from funerals while those in lighter colors were going to and from other happier events like weddings and Christenings. Even the sketchiest passenger took the cues and acted and spoke appropriately with each group.

Two older ladies drove the conductor crazy as they would go from seat to seat to find better views which made counting passengers and arranging empty seats for those boarding at the next stop difficult. They would always return to their assigned seats as stations were approached, but it was still a little annoying. They were a flash-presence from Chicago to L.A. and were often in the observation car when I was there along with another woman who quietly crocheted little colorful animals as she looked quietly at the scenery.

Polite acknowledgments and greetings gave way to longer conversations.

Four days after arriving in Los Angeles, I was back at Union Station waiting for my train to San Francisco when the two seat-flitters came walking through the great hall and entered into the seating area for ticketed passengers, followed not long after by the lady who crochets. Four people who only knew each other from a train trip sat filling each other in on how our stay had gone and found the crochet lady had been making animals for her young nieces and nephews who would be at her father’s funeral. She never mentioned the reason for her trip was to attend her father’s funeral because people on the train seemed happy and she did not want to disrupt that with her sad news. 

As each train’s departure was posted on the big screen, the small group of no-longer strangers filtered off to our respective trains. 

The romantic nature of the events at Union Station only came about because of the unmentioned side of train travel-the waiting.

Delays.

Along the beginning route of the trip from Boston To Oklahoma city, The trains ran rather regular and on time until we crossed the Mississippi where Amtrak trains must yield right of way to the freight trains whose owners also own the tracks and with some sections of track going from multiple tracks to a single tracks in certain terrains have to wait for clear tracks ahead had to yield.There is a lot of time spent on side tracks as there has to be a safety time as a train approaches and after it has passed with the train itself taking up to ten minutes to actually pass, or there is some construction or storm damage ahead.

Before I left Oklahoma City, the color of the sky changed somewhat, there was rain then hail, followed by a tornado touching down just East of the city. Later that night on the way to Newton, Kansas, the sky was a light show as the storms that accompany tornadoes seemed to be following us. By the time we arrived at the train station in Kansas the wind was howling and if you stood in the wind you were breathing dust. A one hour delay became a multiple hour delay with potential tornadoes and actual tornadoes touching down made passing through the Great Planes impossible.

No sense complaining provided you accept that you will get where you are going just not, perhaps, when you wanted to get there. In scheduling trains and motels, I made sure that there was plenty of time between my arrival in one station and my arrival at a hotel or the connecting train. This worked out well in most cases except when I and others, arriving hours before the scheduled departure, found ourselves ushered out of an Amtrak Station in Oakland until it re-opened in the morning. It took some time, but it became obvious that the suspicious people lurking in the shadows after the last business closed for the night were not not denizens of the night to be feared, but future fellow passengers looking for something to do or a safe place to sleep during the 12 hours we were to wait for the station to reopen. Various places to curl up with luggage were established within eye and earshot of each other, the shared protection acknowledged by nods in the morning as people quietly entered the re-opened station.

I could have gotten a last minute hotel room, or had remained in the hostel for a few hours’ sleep before taking a BART ride and an Uber to the station to get the train, but I was reluctant to spend the price of a room in a hotel to sleep for a few hours, and there was something so fittingly cyclic with me spending my last night in California sleeping on what 50 years ago was a yet to be rebuilt commercial waterfront, close to Jack London’s cabin like a homeless man. 

Yep.

Opting for the hotel room is there for those who want it.

We had arrived in Los Angeles 6.5 hours late, but that was preferable to a train trip to Oz the number of which we were to hear would have been plentiful, and we arrived a time or two late at other destinations, so including enough wiggle room time-wise is important in reducing panic and stress.

There will always be enough room in coach to get a window more often than not and the equal chance not to have to share your space with another passenger for too long allowing you to stretch out to sleep better. You are traveling coach.

I had only three dates and times that were cast in stone, my departure and arrival dates and my having to be at the University of Central Oklahoma at a specific time on a specific day. Otherwise, keeping the rest open and utilizing the internet, I could stroll up to the place I was staying whenever I arrived and be at the train station with time, sometimes too much, to spare.

Bring a book or check your bag and explore where you are if there is a layover.

Throughout the 30 day, I only used 21, and ten segments, I used them all, I got to see quite a bit of the country and in the mountain ranges we passed through and saw the nature that cars blindly whiz by on highways or people fly over in planes. And, yes, you do get to see some of the seamier sides of the towns through which you pass, but that in itself is educational as you see some things only heard about on cable news or seen in stock footage on news segments. You also get to see an America you usually do not see and have no interest in.

The miles and miles of a dead and depressing Gary, Indiana, as you approach Chicago shoots holes in Opie Taylor singing about the place in The Music Man. He clearly had never passed through it on a train.

The experience does bring meaning to the saying about the journey being more important than the destination as keeping on schedule depends on too many factors beyond the control of Amtrak and the journey might force more of itself into your planned schedule, but there is a trade off.

You are on a train with others who cannot do anything about the situation other than complain to other passengers on a train full of people with the same complaint and, so, do not want to hear people complaining in a controlled environment from which, although you can walk a number of train cars, you can’t escape, you talk about other things and, unlike the backs of the heads in front of you on a plane, these people have faces you pass on the way to and from the restroom, the snack car, the door at a smoking break station, or to and from, if not for a while within, the observation car whether at tables or the chairs facing out in that section of the car.

You might be three days on trains with the same people. It is only human to talk.  

So, although I highly recommend the RailPass to anyone who has the thirty days or any part thereof and can use the ten segments for long or short trips, it is something to try knowing full well you will need to roll with the punches, adjust on the spot if necessary, and go with the flow knowing there is nothing you can really do but adapt. I had to big time. I got to see what happens and what you might need to change, and just making sure you have enough segments to get home.

Of course, if you need the hotel with all the fixins, you might want to pass. I was just happy to cover the distance between Winslow, Arizona, and Needles, California, inside the train not under it this trip.

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