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Train travel always sounds like such a romantic way to get from point A to point B. It's like that scene from White Christmas where Bing Crosby and the gang board a train, dressed in their traveling best, (no sweatpants allowed) and gather in the dining car for a little after-dinner serenade about snow.
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But sometimes, things aren't quite so quaint. Remember when Carrie and Samantha take a train to California on Sex and the City? They expect Bing and ballgowns and end up with cramped quarters, motion sickness, and unsavory company.
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I've had a little bit of both extremes in my train travels. I took the sleek, modern Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Nara and the whole trip felt though we were barely moving at all. It was like riding a train in the future.
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The opposite experience was riding the historic Durango and Silverton Railroad in the mountains of Colorado. The train, built in the late 1800s, was all glossy wood and bright yellow paint, hot from the coal engines that left smoke trailing through the air.
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On the not-so-great list: When I was a kid, we took a family trip from Indiana to Glacier National Park in Montana -- on Amtrak. One night, late, a train-hopper got on and drunkenly sat down next to my grandma. The next thing we knew, she was covered with puke and the man was being escorted off the train.
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| A rare moment of sleep in the train. |
Even worse was a two-day trip on an Indian sleeper train. The trip involved police searches for a suspected bomb (it was fertilizer in a gallon bucket), whispered warning of a thief with a knife in the next cabin and little to no actual sleep. Additionally, in India, beggars are let on the train for free or a small fee. They spend their rides passing through each cabin, waving their hands wildly in tired faces until they are paid to leave. On our trip, we were encountered by a beggar with no legs who scooted himself around from cabin to cabin on his hands, filling his pockets with rupees.
So let's just say I am cautiously enthusiastic about trains. But there are a few amazing train trips that would bring me back on the rails again:
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How adorable is this car on the Shangri-La Express, which travels along the historic Silk Road? Sign me up.
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| here This is called the Tunnel of Love, in Kleven, Ukraine. I don't know anything about these tracks, but I want to be there. |
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Finally, a dining car worthy of a pillbox hat, gloves and champagne on the Pullman Orient Express. Let's go!
Have you traveled by train? Would you? Do you have a train case just waiting to be used (I do!)
