Charles Dickens and the Main in Seat 61

Everybody knows that Dickens hated trains. They were new when he was a little boy. He remembered the countryside from before the invention of the train, and he preferred it without them.

My mom's family owned 206 F Street, N.W., (demolished in 1963 for a highway) since the 19th century. It was a short walk from 206 to the Union Station.

My grandpa, his dad, and one of his sisters (Alice) worked for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. I don't know about the other sister, Grace? She may have also worked for the B&O.

My mom (also Alice, after her aunt) and I  traveled by train between Pittsburgh and D.C., to visit her family. When I got a little older, I traveled by myself, mostly in the summer. There was the Presidential Limited and the Congressional Limited.

There was also the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad, though. They had coach service between Pittsburgh and the District. I'll never forget Chessie snuggled for the night with his little pillow.

My mom never really did get over her love of train travel though even when train travel became old-fashioned, expensive and mostly out of-style. (I guess that was the '70's and '80'? Hard to say, though.) She liked to travel by train from Chicago to Pittsburgh and back again. 

Long before her death, she had told me about the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago's Union Station. I was afraid to travel to Chicago en route to Pittsburgh and so never did travel to Pittsburgh by train, once I moved to the midwest.

Many seem to feel that Pittsburgh IS the Midwest anyway. It was not even a part of Pennsylvania originally, as readers know.

One of the reasons I never traveled to Pittsburgh by rail is this:   --- There's no way to get to Pittsburgh without starting in Chicago. My mom wanted to help me get over my fear of Chicago by telling me about this Metropolitan Lounge. I did not know what it was like, and I never went to it.

Back to Seat 61.

Well, the man in Seat 61 has a photograph on his blog of that Metropolitan Lounge.

Sad to say, the man is in England, which makes sense. That's where the railway originated, much to the chagrin of Mr. Dickens.

However, there is a U.S. version, also, of Seat 61, but not nearly as good.

The main point of the U.S. version is traveling coast - to- coast by train.

But, I'm already in the Midwest, and have no use for any coast. So, where to travel to?

How about north to south? I'm already near Chicago, so why not just get one of those routes to the south, along the Mississippi River?

Of course the railroads are better in the U.K., and always have been.

Charles Dickens himself verifies this --- despite the fact that he didn't like trains at all. He still dislikes the U.S. trains even more.