Confession time: I’m struggling with our decision to give up our car. I don’t have any regrets about doing so, but let’s face it–despite my desire to be, I’m not the most pious human being and learning to change my thinking and habits about travel have been quite an adjustment. The truth is, I’m already longing to be out of the city in wilder places again. (As it turns out, to my surprise, I’m a bit of a country girl…and the city ain’t singin’ my song.) This is why we jumped at the opportunity to get out of the city for a day by train to visit the Indiana Dunes. It was then that I had what I’m calling a “conversion experience”: I fell in love with train travel.
I’ve always thought that trains were useful and had a sort of nostalgic longing for the days when the Inter-urban connected the small mid-western cities where I grew up, with the larger metropolis areas where I wished to escape. Since that was not the case, I mostly viewed trains as an efficient means for freight transport and for slowing my commute (by car) through town. Until our recent move to Chicago, I had never experienced, first hand, the usefulness of train travel. I’m not talking about subway or “EL” travel. In a large city, that’s just the way you do things: avoid the traffic, parking and general headache of having a car. I’m talking train travel–regionally and nationally. Now there’s something Joe Biden and I could talk about!
Train Travel for a New Century
In a world where our oil future is less certain, I am convinced that regional and national rail will be the solution to passenger travel as it was for freight travel in the 1980s (the last time oil got really expensive) and with fewer people who can afford to continue driving, we will have the critical mass necessary to support such a system. (Of course there will be other challenges to overcome besides travel–not to mention the fact that going without a car in most cities and towns in this country is almost impossible at present either because of safety, zoning/design, geography, etc., but that’s another discussion!)
Why Train Travel is the Bees Knees
There are many reasons to love train travel. Here are a few that stood out to me on our trip (in no particular order):
1. Not DRIVING–I know, this is a bit obvious, but seriously–we were not stuck in traffic with other harried drivers. No one cut us off or gave anyone the finger. We arrived at our destination relaxed and excited.
2. Spending time with the people you love–River hates, I mean HATES being confined in a car seat. You’d think we were torturing by putting him in the car by the way he cries until he’s lost his voice and is too exhausted to go on. (This is only a slight exaggeration.) By contrast, on the train he can sit on my lap, look out the windows, talk about what we see, play games. Since no one is driving, we can all give each other undivided attention. And as they say: time flies when you’re having fun.
3. Being good to Mama Earth–getting to enjoy nature with far less environmental impact than if all the people on the train each drove a car to their destination.
4. Everything is within reach–as I mentioned, it’s been difficult to feel like we have the same access to the kinds of outdoor spaces that nourished our spirits in the past; so the best part of train travel for me is realizing that everything is still within our reach. If we can build up the train infrastructure and expand rail transport across the country, I get giddy thinking of all the places we could go!
The New Rustic Life 