A fascinating part of train travel is the people you meet and the many places, events and activities you can reach with little effort. Whether passenger trains or travel destinations I combine both to show how you can travel by train to some of the best experiences located close to train stations.
Trains connect. The certainty of a route’s beginning and end gives you a slice of time to embrace the experience. A train trip doesn’t need to stop at the station. Who’s Taking the Train? is for people who want a sustainable travel option and great places to go upon arrival. Enjoy your trip without the hassle of airport lines and road maps.
My train thread
Before going to sleep at my house two blocks from the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, I could hear the trains’ night moves – brakes clanking, cars bumping, wheels rolling like distant thunder. It was my lullaby. My grandmother always arrived for visits via the Amtrak train from her home in St. Louis. My first kiss as a teenager was inside a warm, lit rail station on a freezing cold January evening. The City of New Orleans train was my primary mode of transportation to and from the university I attended.
I worked in the rail industry for a number of years. Starting as a grade crossing design technician, I became editor of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad magazine and managed media relations for the Class 1 freight railroad. I explored many facets of railroading – from tracks, signals and bridges, to the people who run railroads – from brakemen to boardroom executives. I worked for a manufacturer of electronic fare collections systems for the transit industry. Chicago commuter trains carried me back and forth from jobs and 
events across the city. My mother’s apartment had a window that overlooked Chicago’s Union Pacific Metra line. We would watch the trains and imagine where everyone was going.
Moving forward
After my marriage of many years ended, I felt drawn again to trains. I packed my laptop to journey on what I consider a privileged path. Trains travel terrains unreachable by car and unapproachable by planes. My training as a journalist and experience in business communications allows me to make my living as a writer. I can work from almost anywhere. Psychologists say that transitions make us more malleable. Maybe. After failing at what others wanted them to be John J. Audubon and Henry David Thoreau walked into the woods. I got on a train.