The woman is honestly surprised. “Are you real passengers?” she asks. As if the American train operator Amtrak had money to hire passenger actors and group them at a village train station in West Virginia.
No, we really want to travel. To do this, we sit, suitcases next to us, on a beautiful old wooden bench in front of the beautiful old Harpers Ferry station. The woman comes out of the exhibition that the wooden building has housed since the impeccable renovation. The 1931 structure, with the cantilevered roof and turret where Baltimore & Ohio personnel once watched traffic, still serves as a traffic station.
Meanwhile, another real passenger has arrived. She also wants to know something: “Where does the train go to Pittsburgh?” A valid question. For the commuter train, which runs three times Monday to Friday to Washington, you can find the note with the travel times in the former waiting room for men with luck. Nothing points to the Capitol Limited to Chicago.
In the countryside, Amtrak is often the only public transportation option
We know Amtrak train #29 will stop on the other platform. And so the woman from Pittsburgh heaves her suitcases over the rails, on which a loud, rumbling long freight train with open coal wagons has just dusted the station. “Is this the right place?” she calls from across the street.
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Then it gets quiet again in the Harpers Ferry station. You can hear the birds singing in the bushes and the rushing of the Potomac. It smells of the creosote with which the sleepers have been soaked. Views sweep across the tracks to the river bridge and the tunnel beyond. Excited anticipation.
Saved from decay: the station building at Harpers Ferry station has been immaculately renovated and now houses an exhibition. Here the former ticket office. Peter Neumann/Berliner Zeitung
Time to clear up a prejudice. Of course, it is possible to travel by long-distance train in the car country USA. Between October 2021 and September 2022, Amtrak carried nearly 22 million passengers. Okay, the route network has gaps. So is the timetable: on long-haul routes outside the Northeast, Amtrak runs once a day, sometimes just three times a week, and delays are always to be expected. If you want to travel with us, you should make a decision quickly, because the short trains are quickly “100% full” due to the lack of carriages.
Nevertheless: You can not only travel by train in the USA, you should. No billboard, no motorway junction disturbs the view of nature. In small towns, where Amtrak is often the only public transportation option, they roll through residential neighborhoods to stop on Main Street. The passengers are already lined up, kept in check by one or two Mr. Important with radios.
Amtrak train 29, the Capitol Limited from Washington, makes a prompt stop at Harpers Ferry at 5:15 p.m. He’s supposed to be in Chicago at 8:45 the next morning – that doesn’t always work out. Tickets are available from 89 US dollars. Peter Neumann/Berliner Zeitung
The station rituals are old-fashioned, with stools to help you get on. But also pompous, because the locomotive crew pulls off a show with a loud chime at every entrance. There are loud horn signals all the time. On the train, the plentiful staff rigidly allocate seats and clip cardboard signs above them with destination station codes. The soft upholstery and the legroom in the seat cars make German ICE appear spartan.
Suddenly horn signals blared through the valley. And then it breaks in, diesel noisily, train 29 with unfortunately only three double-decker cars, almost 100 percent full. The train driver will have to maneuver because the stopping area is too short. The large boxes in which the plastic containers of microwave food will end up are set up in the dining car. But the bourbon for the sundowner is also waiting. A magnificent sunset cruise along the Potomac River awaits. But this is another story.
2023-07-22 08:13:08
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