I've long been intrigued by locomotive travel. There is something so cool about a train with cars attached racing through the night with sleepy people inside, watching the dark horizon zip past.
When i was little I took every opportunity I got to ride a train, or play with an electric train set. When ours broke it was maybe the saddest Christmas in my memory... no little town scene and locomotive zipping around the Frazier Fir that year.
Even today I find this mode of travel enticing. I may or may not (on occasion) ride the subway in Pittsburgh for the short three stops that it is free... and i may or may not do this for the shear thrill of taking rail travel. A couple years ago my friends and i were celebrating the New Year at a friend's place in the city, so i ran a little experiment. I had my mother take me to Latrobe, and I took the train from there to Pittsburgh. (That trip ended up being free because the engineer didn't see me and blasted through the station, so the porter gave me a wink when i got on board, and thanked me for my ticket... a piece of paper i had yet to purchase.
The following year, i was invited to the wedding of my best friend's older brother in Washington D.C. I caught the train in The Burgh this time, and rode it right into downtown DC, where i walked to the other side of the station and caught the subway to the hotel where the wedding was being held. I'll write the story of that trip later (it was a fiasco mixed with pure joy).
All of this combined with my passion for film work has lead me to want to pursue a new project. This idea has been with me for a while, but now i'm thinking about really making it happen.
I want to board the train here with a rucksack, a camera, a microphone and tripod and ride the train to the West Coast and back. Along the way i'll interview passengers, and anyone i can get permission to talk to; engineers, food service personnel, porters, station attendants (did i just make those people up?), the corporate heads of Amtrak... whomever i can.
I want to explore the American Rail system, and do it from within. Not trying to take Amtrak down, but to explore why people don't use it, and what could make it a more viable means of transportation.
When i originally pitched this idea to a professor he suggested i "hobo it"... by that he meant hopping a freight train in the middle of the night. He then retracted his suggestion stating that he couldn't actually encourage me to do something dangerous on the record. But, he liked the idea. When i called Amtrak to ask permission to bring the equipment on board they said that all i needed to do was to have a letter signed by a professor delivered to a certain person at their head offices, and they would send me a letter of approval.
So, now all i have to do is really read up on the research end, get an accredited someone to write me the letter (since i'm out of school now) and scrape together the money... 500 dollars or so for the tickets... maybe that is one of the problems with train travel right there...
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