Oh, the trains we had

I could write a whole bunch about trains - come to think of it, maybe some day soon I will. I love riding on trains. Even today, the trains Amtrak operates on the East Coast - the ones with the concrete seats - are fun. Congress splashed a bunch of money on Amtrak earlier this month, belatedly catching on to the fact that rail transport is a good idea and we're way, way behind the curve in the US now. I hope it does some good. But it'll be a long, long time before we get back to where we were in the 40s and the 50s - if ever we do.

As a kid in the 40s I rode on a Zephyr twice, at least - maybe three times, but it's hard to say because we came to call any streamlined train a Zephyr. (Zephyrs were branded trains operated by the Burlington (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy) RR.) They were the epitome of stylish travel back then and, as far as I'm concerned, still are - akin to the steamship, another conveyance obsoleted by the flying busses of our age. But I digress. Trains are cool.

The photo: Zephyr at Union Station, Chicago, from the Library of Congress via Wikipedia. (I rode Zephyrs both leaving and arriving Union Station, looked just like that.)