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Except the birthplace of Matthew H. Fish! I hope there's a plaque.

Yeah, I'm a born skeptic, but it sounded like this wasn't pure "brand boasting." If the LSG manager's remark that Aramark doesn't do meals-in-motion very well is correct, it could be an astute observation. I think of Aramark as ballpark food. Aramark's own website advertises that it "provides...

Superb trip report, Trainman, and I'll be sure to be careful of my fishing poles and helium balloons when in Wales.

I'm sure it has changed...but my "adult" experience with the European version of what we Americans call Blue Laws (I recognize 'em from growing up in Prudish Pennsylvania) came in Scotland. A rainy, foggy, gloomy, Sunday night in late October 1982. I had traveled up that day on the Flying...

I adore Miles and applaud his parents who had the foresight to name him...Miles, on which he's capitalized so cleverly. What would be yours? "Fishtailing?"

There is no Mr. Trollopian, but if he hypothetically liked trains, opera, baseball, classic English novels, and vegetarian food, great. Three out of five would be good.

That sounds like the right quantity of "Adult Beverages," as our friend Bob Dylan would call them, for a 5-day rail journey!

Thanks, PaTrainFan, for the shoutout, and here's the link to my earlier post: Pittsburgh Amtrak Station past, present and future, with glorious vintage photo of Pittsburgh's, er, Pittsburg's*, Pennsylvania Station in the golden era of rail travel. Of course in Pittsburgh that would've been the...

I can't remember which puddle-jumper itinerary it was, but I vividly remember once a pilot emerging from behind that curtain, visually guessing everybody's Body Mass Index (BMI), and reassigning folks to other seats so as to "balance the load." It, um, really boosted confidence. Not. I'm a...

My cat, Black Bart, is following this discussion with keen interest.

But, but, but...what do you do on the return trip, if you've traveled from the pop to the soda belt? 'Soda,' 'pop,' or 'coke': More than 400,000 Americans weighed in, and a map of their answers is exactly what you'd expect

Ah, I was trying scrupulously to be nonpolitical, but I'm glad someone caught the callout to a classic campaign cringe moment ;). Embarrassing that passengers on Vietnams's poky "Reunification Express" eat so much better than Amtrak's...

Consider bringing a variety of "crudité" (Dr. Oz)/"vegetable tray" (Sen. Fetterman), whichever you call it, and a tub of hummus and/or baba ghanouj. Very healthful and no worries about refrigeration. Add some pita bread for scooping every last bit.

Amtrak's in-station and on-board announcements will probably be about as intelligible as they were in Mongolia. But less jocularly...are you returning the same way? Norfolk isn't a particularly busy station and the boarding process will be very clear. I'm less sure if that's true of Boston...

Another tidbit to whet your appetite, er, interest: "What I didn’t end up needing was the emergency banh mi, crackers and package of cookies I packed. You’ll never go hungry on the Reunification Express, as the food and drink carts come by often." Sigh.

From the Washington Post. "I wanted to see the country in a different way, so I decided to skip the short flight from Ho Chi Minh City [former Saigon] to Hanoi and take two overnight trains over three days instead...The result was just as I hoped." First leg was on the 22+ hour "Reunification...

Welcome to AU. Hope to see yinz on the Capitol Limited someday.

I surfed over to the international forum (AU fans: the post is Snow and Cognac in 1971), followed the links, and read every word. It's truly evocative of time and place, parts of which endure (the Basque country remains poor and sparse), some of which such as Fascist Spain and divided Berlin...

Now we clamor to hear more about that "adventure," Willbridge. C'mon, you're the best raconteur on AU.

Cheer up, I think you can also eat alligators and snakes and muskrats and crawdads. ;)