Americas Great Loop

I take it easy on another humid 35ºC day and head to Union Station early for what is supposed to be a 6:40 pm departure to Washington DC on the 'Floridian'. The weather has affected the train coming in, and Amtrak have a big problem at the moment with a shortage of cars. So, there's no rollingstock 'buffer' for Amtrak to make up a train consist. Therefore, we wait for our train (which arrived late) to be taken to the servicing depot and then returned to Union Station for us to board. We're finally called from the lounge sometime after 10:00 pm, and everyone struggles listlessly off to follow the agent to the South Concourse, then Gate 18, then Track 28. And there our train awaits... the locomotives staring at us, since we'll be pushing backwards out of the terminal. Of course, being in a Sleeper, I have to trudge 9 cars back to the last car ahead of the baggage car. I settle in, open the salad I bought with the Amtrak voucher, and crack the bottle of wine I've smuggled on (you can bring alcohol onto Amtrak as long as it’s unopened. Nothing stated about how long it must remain unopened).

We eventually move smoothly backwards without fanfare and retreat out of Union Station, through the Amtrak and BNSF yards, and to the wye where the western line for trains to California turns away. This movement positions us to head east - in our case for Cleveland, OH.

We're soon doing 130 km/h (from my GPS Speedo app, but might be questioned) and within 90 min are making a brief stop at South Bend, IN. I go to sleep and awake in early dawn as we depart Cleveland at daybreak and turn away from Lake Erie to traverse the Allegheny Mountains (part of the larger Appalachian Mountain Range), crossing Ohio and a northern corner of West Virginia to Pittsburgh, PA, for a 30-min stop to water the train and fuel the locomotives.

Departing the Steel City, we follow an extremely scenic and serpentine route, first alongside the impressive Monongahela [Min-ONga-hayla] River and then the Youghiogheny [YAHK-a-gainey], a lesser stream. Riverside foliage obscures a clear view of much of the latter, although I see glimpses of kayakers, canoeists, and rec fishers as we wind along beside it for many miles, curving through numerous semi-derelict coal-mining towns. Speed varies between 50 and 80 km/h. I'm called for the 1:00 pm lunch sitting in the diner.

Connellsville passes and we make a stop at Cumberland, MD, where I’m on the wrong side of the train to see the big CSX yard and engine terminal. We enter several crossing loops to cross long CSX freights, including double-stack container trains with mid-train Distributed Power.

Departing Cumberland, we cross the North Branch of the Potomac River and in so doing, enter a storied part of why I’m travelling this way… the ‘cradle of the Civil War’. The air-con in my sleeper has failed and this has driven me from my Roomette up several cars to the Café. I’m sitting there with my laptop and working on this narrative when we roll into Martinsburg for a passenger stop. Almost before I can recognise it, the famed Martinsburgh locomotive roundhouse [Google it] has passed. I shall have to return here.

After another hour of winding along through a verdant landscape beside the Potomac River (you could ride a horse across most parts of it in this area) and through the parallel ridges of mountains we arrive and stop at Harpers Ferry, WV, and the confluence with the famed Shenandoah River. Evangelical Christian, John Brown, an abolitionist, raided the federal armory here and was eventually caught (by a U.S. Army Engineer named Colonel Robert Edward Lee) and eventually hung for treason. This contributed in its own way to the southern secession from the Union and therefore the advance toward civil war. I wonder if his body is ‘a-mouldering’ in a grave hereabouts. I’ll have to return here and find out.

We soon emerge from the Blue Ridge Mountains onto the broad Piedmont landscape for the 50-mile run across to Washington D.C. I'm called for a brought-forward 5:30 pm dinner sitting (under normal on-time circumstances, dinner would not be served on the "Floridian" until it had departed Washington DC). Arrival into Washington Union Station is around 4 hrs late and I Uber to my hotel, 4 miles from the station. Departure for Charleston tomorrow is scheduled for 9:59 am.

Zzzzzzzz….En savoir plus