The Rail Pass - Segment #1: Crescent

As often and lately frequently is the case, things didn't go according to plan. Instead starting my trip from Atlanta, I needed to travel back to the DMV. Since the California Zephyr was the trip that I really wanted to make sure I completed, I wanted to do it first. As "luck" would have it, after previously being rejected to attend the Microsoft AI Tour in New York and DC, I'd gotten accepted to attend the event in San Francisco, so now I had a specific date to schedule around.

I'd thought about taking a flight to Chicago from Memphis or Atlanta. Another option was to take the City of New Orleans from Memphis to Chicago. Although I'd taken this train before I'd only taken it to Jackson before taking Greyhound to Birmingham. But it wasn't to be. I received time-sensitive paperwork in the mail that I needed to pick up and as I could not spend another 10 months to painstakingly work thru the matter again, I needed to retrieve the documents and finally resolve the matter. This would also give me the opportunity to address another issue that I'd neglected since February between a illness and several projects. It occurs to me now that maybe I could have just grabbed a cheap flight, I'm not sure if that would have worked out as I had three bags instead of my usual one or two.

I'd taken the Crescent multiple times before, most recently six years prior on the way home from a friend's retirement party after getting flight fatigued after having taken 17 flights in the past nine months after moving to Maryland, previously having only flying 11 times in my entire life!

Thinking about it, it is probably fitting that the first leg of my Rail Pass started on the Crescent. This was line on which I took my very first train trip, nearly four decades before. When I was in second grade, my mother and I took the train to Atlanta (with a stop in Anniston to pick up my grandmother!) because she had to attend training for her job.

I didn't expect any breathtaking scenery or grand adventures but maybe at the very least it would be interesting. Even if you've seen something a thousand times, there's always the possibility that this time (time 1,001), you will see something different.

States covered: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia

I was not disappointed, I walked away from the station with at least two new facts to investigate:

• There was a Rockville, MD Amtrak station.

• The station may finally be moved to a new location near Atlantic Station.

For the second juicy bit, while making conversation with an employee while boarding the train, I'd asked about the plans for a multi-modal facility now that I'd noticed Greyhound had built a new standalone station after over 20 years in a temporary station.

Atlanta Amtrak Station Lobby

The Atlanta Peachtree Street Station was built in 1918 to supplement the main station in Downtown. When that station later closed in the 1970s, all passenger rail service was moved to the smaller Peachtree Street station and over 50 years later, despite many fruitless plans to move it, here it remains.

Although the city may not aspire to build anything approaching the Union Stations in DC, LA, or Chicago, even Birmingham and Jackson have multimodal facilities for train and bus service. For the life of me, I can't understand why my adopted home could not do the same.

To my knowledge, there are no commuter trains in Georgia. Despite plans dating before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, plans for a high speed train between Birmingham or even Dallas also have never come to fruition. Jennifer L. Green, a guest columnist at Comeback Town, lists several opportunities that have bubbled forth but that for some reason or another have always fallen through.

Perhaps the rail projects funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will break this streak. In any event, I boarded the train and arrived the next day at Union Station having completed the first segment of my trip.

To help me along my way, one of best friends from Atlanta gifted me with brownies. I also indulged a microwaved Hebrew National hot dog from the Cafe Car for dinner. I enjoyed the scenery and compared it to the path from the Palmetto I'd taken back from my Charleston trip the year before.

During the last hour, I cleared to seat next to be for a trucker. He'd just finished a trip and was on his way back to Pennsylvania. After he took a short nap, we engaged in general conversation until I disembarked in DC.

This is another thing I like about riding the train, even on the most routine and mundane trip, you never know who you will meet.