favorite places #5 riding the rails

I love riding the train. I've ridden Amtrak up and down the eastern seaboard between Savannah and New York and all in between. I've ridden trains in Ireland and been stuck on the tracks for hours outside of Dublin. I've ridden trains too many to count crisscrossing England back and forth, up and down, through the Yorkshire Moors, down to Brighton, over to Bath and in and out of London. I've had some of my favorite train rides ever in Scotland, through the Highlands on an old train with the windows down, the cool air in the car and the clouds covering up the hills. I've learned a little bit of french riding trains in Northern France and Paris and whizzing under the channel through the chunnel. I'll take the train over a car or a bus or a plane any chance that I get. There's an old fashioned romance to riding the train. The sound of the whistle in the night, the conductor announcing "all aboard", sitting back and watching the scenery go by.

I'm a sucker for train songs too. There are alot of them out there but here are two of my favorites...

 Johnny Cash - Orange Blossom Special

Elvis Presley's version of Mystery Train

Here's Jordan as we rode through the Scottish Highlands. What these trains lacked in comfort they made up for in atmosphere. I have wonderful memories of being tired from exploring, sitting on the train, windows half down, cool air breezing through, car almost empty of people, rumbling through the fog and the hills and the green fields and feeling as if I was in some sort of suspended animation that I never wanted to leave.

My introduction to Paris,  Gare du Nord. It was confusing, a little bit scary but oh so exciting to be in Paris. If only for a day. Robin and I rode the eurostar from London through the chunnel and walked Paris for hours. I knew that I would go back one day and I did, two years later. And now three years after that second trip I am going back again soon.

Caleigh and Jordan and I headed to DC for a daytrip by train. We used to do this every year for their birthday but they got big and busy and well, we don't do it so much anymore. Schedules get crazy and time flies by. But I am glad that we did it together as often as we did.

Union Station in Washington DC is amazing. The architecture, the people, the commotion. Everything you could need is there. Even though they did close down the movie theatre, which was one of the coolest ever. But I guess you can't have it all.

Paris the second time around...Gare Saint Lazare. Penny and I passed through here briefly on our way to Tours and Rouen and then returned to Paris at the end of our trip. It was here, in a Paris station, that my mother remarked to me how she felt like a pebble in a stream with the rush of people parting all around us. Such a perfect description of the masses of commuters filling a big city station.

Waiting at the station in Tours, France. We had some time to kill before our train to Rouen and I enjoyed seeing all of the little french schoolchildren headed out on an adventure. Too bad field trips in the US don't include a train ride.

Paddington Station at Christmastime, England. Mose and I ended up at Paddington alot during our visit to England in 2008. We even saw the Paddington Bear statue. He hangs out near Krispy Kreme in case you needed to know where to find him ;-)

Paddington. I love the efficiency of European trains - at least in the spots that I have visited. You figure out your train, your track and once it gets there you get on. End of story. So simple.

Train stations are great for people watching, Paddington is no exception. From the train station to the underground station, travelers are great for photographing.

I've never actually caught a train from Grand Central in New York (trains to and from Richmond use Penn Station at Madison Square Gardens) but it's worth a visit just to see whether you're catching a train or not.

Grand Central, New York. I'd like to go back again and explore some more.

Mose and I took a daytrip to Philly a while back and had a little time to kill at the 30th Street Station.

Philadelphia. Not the easiest of daytrips from Richmond - four hour train ride with a limited time table - but still totally worth it.

Union Station, Washington DC. Most of my train rides are between DC and Richmond. It's an easy daytrip.

If you live in Richmond and feel like heading to DC for a day and don't want to drive and park and deal with all of that hassle, take the train! I recommend taking one of the regional trains (they just run in the northeast corridor) that are alot less crowded than the trains that run to New Orleans or Miami or the Carolinas. You can catch a train at around 8AM, be in DC at a little after 10, spend your day doing whatever you choose, be back at the station before 7PM and home at around 930PM. A good fun day.And oh yeah, if you plan in advance a little bit then you can do this little roundtrip for right about at $50 or less. Not bad!

The best thing to do on a train is to relax and enjoy the ride. Take a nap. Look out the window. Read. Listen to your ipod. Daydream. Strike up a conversation with a stranger. Or take photos out of the window and see what you end up. Which is what I tend to do, alot.

Sharing rail space with the Metro as we get close to DC.

 A glimpse of the Smithsonian Castle on a ride out of DC.

 From the window somewhere around Oxford, England when Mose and I were there in 2008.

 Another view from the train leaving Oxford.

 Riding through the Yorkshire Moors, leaving Whitby, England last fall with Patience.

 Outside of Whitby, somewhere in Yorkshire, headed towards London.

 Crossing the Potomac, headed into DC for the day.

 Also headed towards DC, this time crossing the Rappahannock while passing through Fredericksburg, Virginia.

 Somewhere in Virginia, headed to DC. I'm bad about keeping track of where I take pictures, I just snap away.

One day, on my list of things to do, my dream is to ride the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow and then on into China through Mongolia. One day...

Coming next in my favorite places...the Outer Banks