Over the many years I’ve been visiting the United States I have developed a fondness for driving around that vast country, particularly in the magnificent landscapes of the south-west and the cultural and physical geographies in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas among other states.
Some years back I read Don Watson’s American Journeys, a loving tribute to his rail travels in that country written “with gentle power and sly humour.”
Until 2024 I’d mainly driven and flown my way around the continental USA but, following Watson’s lead, after a conference in St Louis I decided to let the Amtrak services (the Lincoln, Floridian and Pennsylvanian respectively) carry me through Chicago and Pittsburgh and into the arms of old friends in the hamlet of Tyrone, “gateway to the Alleghenies” in central Pennsylvania.
After a week or so in the hollows and hills of Blair County I caught the Pennsylvanian to Philadelphia where I alighted at my (now) favourite rail station, the truly awesome William H Gray III 30th St. Station, a neo-classical pile through which I’ve had the pleasure to pass on a few occasions since.
Later in 2024 I took a longer trip through the eastern seaboard, with a run down from New York to a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina and back via Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and back to Tyrone and the nearby railway town of Altoona.
I missed travelling to the US in 2025 but made up for that omission by spending all of last month travelling through the mid-west and south, starting in Chicago with a short run to Carbondale on Amtrak’s Illini service, followed by ten days in Mississippi (more on that later).
From the Mississippi capitol of Jackson I caught the City of New Orleans down to The Big Easy and after a more than pleasant few days was carried away in a sleeper cabin on the Crescent service to Washington DC, then to Phildelphia onboard the Northeast Regional.
After a welcome few hours in the William H Gray station I caught the Pennsylvanian to Tyrone, where, after a few days in the arms of friends in Plummers Hollow we took a short drive to Pittsburgh, before I caught a flight to Chicago and then homeward via Japan.
As is my wont, while on board the train I’ve taken to photographing the passing landscapes, a pleasure largely denied the driver of a motor vehicle or the passengers on a plane.
Over the years I’ve become particularly drawn to the many railroad crossings through which the Amtrak trains pass.
Most of these are regulated by and automated swinging booms, flashing lights and chimes and the familiar crossed “RAILROAD CROSSING” signs. Some of the smaller crossings are unregulated.
Onboard the only indication of an approaching crossing are the plangent moans of the train’s horn.
One thing I like best about travelling by train are the vicarious glimpses into the backyards of houses, businesses and all manner of activities and views you wouldn’t otherwise see.
We build with a mind to views from and to the road but not, it seems, to the rail.
What else you get to see from the train is the ordinariness of life as viewed from an uncommon perpsective — what cars people drive, when a lawn was—or wasn’t—mown, the dereliction and decay of the city and the country, the roads dirt and tarred, all of this and more.
All is there plain to the eye.
Sometimes when the train has a head of speed up you get a lot of movement.
Other times less so.
I do like it when people appear, as if by magic, walking a dog, stretching a tarp on a trailer, taking a photo of the passing train.
Glimpses of rural life speed by.
Here a ploughed or harvested field, a full grain elevator at a rail siding.
There a beloved but now-closed cafe, a corner of a dirt road.
What lives are lived in a single-wide trailer on a corner on the edge of a small town …
Places on no maps but named nonetheless.
And of course, truck drivers cursing the train’s slow passage.
All this and more I saw …
This week is Rail Safety Week and the government tells me that the NT has over 1,600 km of rail line that includes 211 level crossings, of which 51 are on public roads, with the rest on private roads, tracks or in pastoral leases.
Hit this for more information.
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