Trainblogging, American edition

En route from Durham NC to Trenton NJ, driving up the eastern seaboard (though at present far inland) in overcast and light rain; it's 10:45 a.m. and the carriage is close to full. The train is small by European standards, for such a distance: two locomotives, baggage car (how quaint), cafe car, six coaches. There are no tables on Amtrak, all seats are in airline-like pairs, all facing the same direction. The fold-out tables are oddly high, about four inches too far above my lap for comfortable typing.

There are no over- or underpasses on train routes in the US (outside of major urban areas), every road we've passed so far has been a level crossing with barriers and flashing lights, which means that the train has been whistling pretty well nonstop. I like listening to the strange moaning roar of a train whistle, when I hear them at night or in the city, but this constant noise is going to get old pretty fast.

Raleigh NC.

On the other hand, given that there is only one train per day and direction on this section of the route, it would be absurdly expensive to build and maintain overpasses at every road. (Oh, that's right, Americans don't maintain infrastructure; but even so…) This stretch is single-track only, there is no provision for more than one train at a time to travel here. This means that the stations all have only one platform, which I find really odd: in Europe even hundred-person pissawful villages on the far periphery of civilization have two platforms.

I'm listening via iTunes and headphones to music that I acquired (cough piracy cough) in Milwaukee at the wedding. The song of the moment is "Willie the Pimp" by the late, sorely missed Frank Zappa. This song may need to go onto repeat for a while.

Well, that was interesting. In addition to the working train staff who punch tickets, there is a Volunteer Train Host on board, who seems to be here to walk about and chat semi-idly with passengers — no, sorry, I meant customers. I'm not sure why we are not "passengers" but it is clear that we are not, that word has not yet been used today. Presumably there is some dire legalistic-horseshit implication in the difference. Bah.

Wilson NC. Wow, quite a crowd waiting to board. I shall probably lose the empty seat where my backpack rests. On the edge of town, a huge and largely empty cemetery. No European cemetery would have so much empty space between stones, nor paths between the rows that were large enough to drive a golf cart down. [Later: having seen several cemeteries, I think that the difference is not the spacing but the typical size of the average memorial, which in Europe would be much larger.]

Outside Wilson, there is a double-tracked section. We waited ten minutes for a southbound freight train to pass by, then continued north on the single track.

Rocky Mountain NC. Boxy building by the roadside proclaims itself the home of the Improved Order of Redmen. Yeah, whatever.

Petersburg VA. Had lunch (hawt chickn sammitch) and a coffee from the cafe car. It was adequate, reminded me of British Rail food (which is not a recommendation).

Just saw my first kudzu infestation, a whole creekbed covered in the stuff. I can't figure out why people aren't worried about it. But then, there is much that I can't figure out, for instance why nobody seems interested in the sudden increase of food allergies during the last two decades. There was no such thing as being allergic to food when I was a kid, people would have thought it was a joke. Today, every second child is allergic to nuts. Why does this not strike anyone at all as being unusual and potentially significant? Is it that worrying might interfere with the food industry's dividends? Bah.

Richmond VA, and the smokers are stepping out to get a fix. Amtrak doesn't post the names of the stations, presumably they are so few and so far apart that there could be no possible uncertainty (hollow laughter). For a country founded by immigrants and whose national mythos is of the Drifter, it is surprising that America cuts absolutely no slack for people who lack local knowledge. Signage in public spaces (parking lots, streets, airports) is minimal by European standards, and worse it is sometimes false. It took my parents and I twenty minutes to get out of an underground garage in Toronto last week, because the way to the exit was not signposted. "Everyone knows that!" seems to be the attitude. Bah.

Fredericksburg VA. A pair of buzzards circle low over Main Street.

Quantico VA, home of the FBI and the Marines. Steward tells a pregnant woman waiting to disembark "You know we don' actually stop here, right? We jus' open the doors an' you jump an' roll." Hilarity ensues.

Alexandria VA. A real city, with suburbs and double-decker local commuter trains.

Washington DC, where half the passengers customers disembark. I'm surprised what an enormous city Washington is. Coming into the city from the south, past the Lincoln Memorial and the Needle, I find myself thinking of Lincoln, King, Kennedy and yes of Obama, and choking up.

Remind me to look up "Acela," that looks like a long-distance high-speed train in the European sense, which this sure ain't. We have been travelling at 60 mph or below for most of the day.

Population density is increasing rapidly as we get further north. Maryland is at least one order of magnitude more densely settled than NC.

Baltimore MD. Good god, this is a bleak city, entire districts seem to be boarded up.

Several long causeways across water; are these estuaries? Google will know.

(At this point I had to pack up and prepare to disembark. The post is (a) missing the last three or four stations, but (b) already quite long enough. It remains only to say that despite dire predictions of Amerian friends, the train arrived in Trenton nearly 10 minutes early.)