Since the state of Rhode Island is officially a swamp, I’m currently stuck in Philly… standing in 30th Street Station, in fact, trying to get as close to Boston as Amtrak will let me. I wrote the following stuff on the train from Boston to Philly yesterday, as I made my way to my uncle’s funeral, which was this morning. How long ago yesterday seems…
It’s been years since I’ve taken the train to Pennsylvania. Amtrak is an economical and reasonable way for a single person to travel the 350-mile journey from MA to PA, but since I climbed aboard the Mr. P express, driving has become the preferred mode of transport. When round-trip train tickets cost anywhere from $225-$350 per person (depending on if you want local or express), it’s more logical for two people to split the driving and not have to worry about who you will inconvenience for a ride to and fro the train station.
But since Mr. P wouldn’t be coming with me to my uncle’s funeral — and since the rain of the century had turned New England’s roadways into one giant interconnected puddle — I jumped at the chance to take Amtrak. I’ve always been sort of a train dork. I remember taking the Acela train to New York City soon after it began service, and telling my seatmate how exciting the Acela was to me, because I just loved train travel! (I think he thought I was “special,” but he did give me his number.)
I decided to take the regional train that made local stops so that I’d have as much time as possible to spend on the train (plus, it was significantly cheaper). The train was less than half-full. I was a little fearful of what the regional train cars would look like — I have distinct memories of trying to sleep on a vinyl-coated bench with unidentifiable, internal clangings. But the train boasted modernized, fabric-covered seats (like an airplane, but more legroom).
The train was going pretty fast at first, then suddenly slowed down to 2 miles per hour as we approached Providence. I peered out the window and thought we were crossing a river. Then I realized that we were in the river, that the tracks had been totally flooded by the rain. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said a voice on the conductor’s radio. And then, in disbelief, “I can’t believe we made it past the switching station.” Yes, that is a relief.
As soon as we cleared Providence, the train trundled ahead at a pretty good clip (making all local stops). Periodically, an automated voice would make announcement about how “track one has no defects.” Again, what a relief.
I settled into my work. I purposefully brought along the most mind-numbing project on my burgeoning docket of work tasks. You remember those classroom worksheets that you did when you were learning how to read, when you had to fill the sentence with the most appropriate word, or string together a prefix and word stem to make a new word, or sort words by their suffixes? Well, I edit those. More precisely, I take the raw educational content dreamt up by some lady in England and work my magic within Microsoft Word to hammer out bonafide classroom busy work. Yes, I grew up, and I became the antichrist.
Byt the time we cleared New York, the train was running late, and I was running low on energy. I reminded myself how much suckier it would have been to drive as I stared out the window into the night, into New Jersey’s vague industrial wastelands.
