From Washington, DC to Chicago on The Capitol Limited
When I was a child, my grandfather, who, in his boyhood, regularly ran away from boarding school to illegally ‘ride the rails’, would take me on safaris to the train station in his small West Virginia town. Dapper in a long black coat and a jaunty Fedora, and often inexplicably followed by the family cat, he would produce a gold pocket watch, check each train’s arrival time and consult with the conductors about its progress along the way.
Thus inspired to become a fledgling ferroequinologist (student of the iron horse), I eagerly accepted a recent invitation from Great Rail Journeys to sample one of its US rail tours: a 764-mile/1,230-km trip on The Capitol Limited from Washington, DC to Chicago, with overnight hotel stays on each end of the journey plus a tour of Chicago.
Boarding in DC’s grand Union Station, within viewing distance of the US Capitol, I was soon ensconced in a comfy upper-level roomette from which I overlooked the passing scenery of the Maryland countryside. In just over an hour we were at the picturesque West Virginia river town of Harpers Ferry. Popular with hikers along the renowned Maine-to-Georgia Appalachian Trail, it is best known as the site of the 1859 raid led by abolitionist John Brown, which helped ignite the American Civil War.
Now deep in the Appalachian Mountains, with a stop at Martinsburg, site of the oldest working railway station in America, The Capitol Limited returned to Maryland where passengers disembarked at Cumberland, a major stop on one of the first, pioneering routes west (US 40) as well as the terminus of the Washington, DC-originating Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, now a National Park.
Over dinner, I joined a Washington guitarist travelling with his wife to a gig in Chicago and a retired tourism executive headed back to his hometown of Monterey, California. We agreed that our rail travel beat air travel by its superior food – in my case, a juicy steak with all the extras – plus great views and the opportunity to enjoy the company of several interesting fellow passengers.
Pittsburgh is sited where three rivers meet
Back in my roomette, I was lulled into a deep sleep by the train whistle’s mournful lullaby as we passed through Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and along the shore of Lake Erie through Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. Awaking at dawn, I discovered we were at Waterloo in the middle of the lovely, lush Indiana countryside.
I joined a middle-age couple from Manhattan over a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, sausage and fluffy biscuits to discover they were due to join the second part of my originally-proposed but time-challenged trip on The California Zephyr to the West Coast. Disembarking in Chicago, I vowed to put it on my bucket list for the next Great Rail Journey.
Travel Notes
HOTEL PARTNERS
For the Great Rail Journey’s Coast to Coast tours, Washington, DC – The Fairfax at Embassy Row near Dupont Circle. Owned by the politically-prestigious Gore family, it was the boyhood home of US vice president/presidential candidate Al Gore who as a child, I was told, used to drop water-filled balloons from its roof on unsuspecting passers-by. Chicago – The Cambria Chicago Magnificent Mile sited near Michigan Avenue, the city’s most famous shopping street, and attraction-lined Navy Pier.
FURTHER INFORMATION ON GREAT RAIL HOLIDAYS: www.greatrail.com, 01904 527180.
