Opinion: Amtrak's divine lounge car comes to the rescue
(The following story by Josh Noel appeared on the Chicago Tribune website on November 6, 2009.)
CHICAGO — I'm in my seat in a dim Amtrak car, beside an aromatic guy and in front of a woman who speaks so loudly into her cell phone that she must assume everyone is interested in her conversation. Likewise, a row ahead, a man using one of those walkie-talkie phones shares both ends of his conversation about when he will arrive in St. Louis.
"No, no!" he screams. "We get in at 7:20. Seven-twenty!"
Save me, Amtrak.
I rise and push through the cabins, looking for I'm not sure what, passing travelers sprawled in sleep or surly in their sardined experience. Four cars later my eyes go wide. I have found my oasis. Its name is the Super Liner Sightseer Lounge Car.
Every Amtrak train has some sort of lounge car, but this one is different. It is wide, it is bright, it is serene. The air is better. The light is better. Everything is better. Eight blue booths sit at one end, and at the other, about 30 seats -- some individual, some love seats.
And here is the best part: the windows.
They go from floor to ceiling -- past the ceiling, actually. They curve into the ceiling, which opens the car brilliantly. At the peak of day, when the regular seats are dim and crowded, light pours in here. By late afternoon, when everything turns golden outside, it turns golden in here too, the warm rays and long shadows flitting in and out while America flies by: green fields, brown farms, weathered silos, crooked trees, creaky farms, rusting pickups and brick homes with aboveground pools out back. Sightseer Lounge cars ride just eight routes, all overnighters: five out of Chicago and one each from Los Angeles, Washington and New Orleans. I spend six hours there, with a laptop and a book.
"Some people spend most of their trip in that car," Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. "Through the Rockies or the Sierras that car can be standing room only. I've seen people with guitars and harmonicas doing a little jam session there."
Even the man who had been airing both ends of his phone conversation knows to be reverential here. Sitting at a booth with his wife, while she flips through a Ladies' Home Journal, he sits quietly, gazing through those windows, listening to the train's clatter and its occasional whistle howling into oblivion.
Friday, November 06, 2009
