Today, after a brief appearance on campus to teach one class, I begin a convoluted trip to Pittsburgh to attend a conference for work. As this trip has gotten closer, I’ve looked at the details of my trip and slowly realized that I messed this up good in terms of deciding how to get to Pittsburgh and back. This post is a confession of my sins! I’m fairly transport conscious—at least for an American.

Wild article. We once knew how to do trains, so why can’t we figure it out better now?

Fitting that I’m reading this the day after booking Acela tickets. Fits with what I’ve said in the past: Northeast Corridor is great, but lets bring trains elsewhere too.

Whenever I book travel for work, I pull up the Amtrak website to see if it would be in any way practical to add a rail component to the trip to replace flying (or driving, but it’s rare that I drive for work travel). Given the state of American rail, this is most often an exercise in disappointment. My only success story in four years at this job was when I attended a conference in Bordeaux; I flew into Paris and then took a low-cost OuiGo TGV for my trips between Paris and Bordeaux.

Northeast Corridor is great, but more trains in Kentucky, please. I don’t mind waiting.

I have been enjoying these posts from a Micro.blog user documenting his cross-countey Amtrak travels.

Just booked family Amtrak tickets and I’ve never felt so alive.