Word: amtrak
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...York City we are close to three days late. But no one is eager to say goodbye. It does not seem to matter that the whole experience seems as corny as a 1940s movie. Roughing it, sharing everything from spare cash to toothbrushes, has formed bonds unheard of on Amtrak. Jerry, Ted and Susie stay aboard, heading for the last stop in Boston. As the bus pulls out, the traveler, walking away in the snow, hands jammed into pockets against the cold, finds that someone has slipped her the jack of hearts...
...Amtrak. Since its beginnings in 1971, the federally supported passenger rail system has been a money loser. Yet people in towns and cities that benefit from the service have made their will felt on Capitol Hill. Government subsidies have steadily swelled, reaching $779 million in the last fiscal year, or about $2 in federal funds for every $1 taken in at Amtrak ticket windows. Insisting that Amtrak will have to improve its management and save money, OMB proposed that the subsidy be cut to $634 million...
...gleaming rails. With this in mind. Donald Crews has used an artist's airbrush and a designer's eye to link up his unique Freight Train (Greenwillow/Morrow; $6.95). The text is as unadorned as a coal car, but the pictures have a purity and force that Amtrak would do well to emulate...
...Southern Crescent is "lavish," it is by default only, mostly because of lowered standards of service in America and particularly on Amtrak. The Crescent is the typical 1960-era passenger train, and no better. It just lasted longer. In defense of the much maligned private railroad operation of passenger service, I wish Americans had supported good service when we had it, rather than rhapsodize now that it is gone...
However that may be, no funeral vapors suffuse Platform 14 at New York City's Penn Station, from which the Crescent pulls out each day at 2:45 p.m. under Amtrak's auspices. (Southern takes over at Washington.) Rather, for the passenger embarking on the 1,378-mile, 28-hour trip to New Orleans, the Crescent City, there is the comforting scent of soap and polish, the promise of solicitude, of pride and punctuality. Not to mention a rockaby sleep, punctuated by the occasional hissing stop, and a glimpse of some dimly lit Southern station in the dark...