Trains, train travel, and all things railroad-related.
This is the first piece of content on this site that I didn’t really create. It’s more of a “blog post” than the other, mini-features I have created about places I have traveled on a train (and sometimes not on a train). Instead, I’m talking about photos from somebody else’s train trip.
…RFK’s Funeral Train – Photos by Paul Fusco (via <i>The Atlantic</i>)Read More
Iceland is another country that does not have trains. Wikipedia says there was a narrow-gauge railway in the early 20th Century used in the construction of Reykjavik’s harbor and that in the future there is a possibility of light rail in Reykjavik and a train to Keflavik airport (a distance of about 50km). But because of Iceland’s rugged landscape, the concentration of most of the population in the Reykjavik area, and cars, even those two projects may never happen.
…The Trinidad Government Railway ran from 1876 until its closure in 1968. Like many railways around the world, it was shut down because of competition from cars. Today its old central station in Port of Spain, the Trinidad Government Railway Building, also known as City Gate, is a bus terminal and home of the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC). It sits across from the South Quay Lighthouse on Port of Spain’s waterfront, down the street from Independence Square and a Kentucky Fried Chicken location rumored to be one of the busiest KFCs in the world.
…We rode Amtrak’s Palmetto in October 2015 in a two-day stretch. On Sunday we got on at Savannah, Georgia, where the Palmetto originates daily around 0820, and rode to North Charleston (Amtrak does not have a station in Charleston proper) and spent the night in Charleston, South Carolina. The next day we took Monday’s Palmetto from North Charleston all the way to Philadelphia.
…We visited Glasgow in 2010, but the purpose of that visit was to ride the West Highland Line, so we did not get to see much of the city. We did walk from our downtown hotel near Sauchiehall Street to find a well-known Scottish restaurant, Stravaigin, in the Kelvingrove neighborhood. When we decided to go to Glasgow in 2018, we decided to stay in that area. It’s a lively place, with lots of shops and places to eat along the main thoroughfares of Great Western Road and Byres Road. The area also features footpaths along the River Kelvin, the University of Glasgow, and the Glasgow Botanical Gardens. It is not far from the center of Glasgow, and you can get downtown very quickly on the city’s compact subway system, the SPT (Strathclyde Public Transport) Subway, which is locally known as “A Clockwork Orange” for the SPT’s orange branding and because the system is a single line which runs in a circuit around central Glasgow.
…I did not own a car until I was 35 years old (in 2016). And when I got one, I used it to explore parts of my region that I could not get to by train. I was driving north from Reading, Pa., when I saw the railroad bridges over Route 61 that were painted to advertise the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad’s passenger excursions. I was not interested in a steam train full of kids, but I was interested to learn that they were having a different kind of passenger excursion, one from Pottsville, Pa., down to Reading, on two refurbished RDCs (Rail Diesel Cars), which I found much more appealing. According to various railfan sites, the two RDC cars were by the Budd Company in Philadelphia in the 1950s and were used by various railroads, including the New York Central and the Reading Railroad, as commuter trains.
…An Excursion on the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern’s RDC CarsRead More
In October 2014 we took a trip to Boston and Portland, Maine, on Amtrak. This was only my second time to Boston, and it was my first time riding all the way to Boston on Amtrak from Philadelphia. I’m very familiar with the Northeast Corridor between Philadelphia and New York, but I haven’t been past New York too many times, and everything past Penn Station was a new (or almost new) experience.
…I had been to Manchester when I was about 20, but I didn’t remember much about it. All I can say is that the area has definitely changed, and a building boom in Manchester, started, in part, by the IRA bombing of 1996, but accelerating through 2018, where condo-style high-rise buildings seem to be going up everywhere. We spent three nights in Manchester, and I found the city much more walkable and interesting than I expected. A lot of our time was spent in the Ancoats and Northern Quarter areas, with much of the first full day was spent visiting some family near Wigan.
…Abraham Lincoln, Pizza, and Other Hidden Gems on the Streets of ManchesterRead More
Scotland’s West Highland Line is one of the most scenic rail journeys in the world, and I think it must be the best one-day scenic rail journey, period.
…The West Highland Line: Lochs, Moors, and Scotland’s West CoastRead More
The Peak District, located primarily in Derbyshire County, northern England, halfway between Manchester and Sheffield, is one of the UK’s top destinations for outdoor activities, scenery, and walking. I first visited the Peak District in August 2000, when my father and I took the train from Manchester to Dove Holes and walked north towards Bradwell, and the next day walked to Bakewell (home of the famous Bakewell Tart), carrying our luggage in backpacks and staying at bed and breakfasts.
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