Devil's Advocate
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A couple years ago I was riding the Sunset Limited and had a family remark to me that they were sick of being couped up on the train. I was sympathetic to their complaints but figured this wasn't something I'd ever have to worry about. Well, as it turns out, I may not be as fanatical as I first assumed. Prior to this journey most of my train trips have been relatively short. I generally rode half or less of a single route's distance and then got off to visit with whoever or explore whatever before flying back. Or sometimes I flew in and rode the train out. Either way these trips were rarely more than a day and a night. In places like Germany and Japan the time I spent on the rails was maybe an hour or two. This trip saw me ride from Texas to Southern California and on to the Pacific Northwest and finally here to Toronto. This morning I arrived on what is generally considered the best passenger train North America has to offer and yet I was so very thankful to be disembarking the last and final train segment on this trip. Don't get me wrong, it's been a great trip with lots of enjoyable experiences and fun memories, but it's also been a lot more stressful than I expected. This was due in part to work related issues and last minute changes that necessitated a lot more re-planning than most of my trips require. It also made my costs increase substantially. But part of it may have simply been too much train riding. By the time I boarded The Canadian in Vancouver I was already a little drained and almost ready to head home. But of course that was never going to happen. Who could say when I might ever get another chance to ride it? Not to mention there was probably no way to get my twelve or thirteen hundred dollars back to use toward the cost of a last minute international flight. So I rode. And rode. And rode. This is one heck of a long journey if you've already been traveling on multiple trains and you're starting off with less than a full tank of energy. Each day saw me take longer and longer to get up and running. I met some great folks on each of my trains and had a good time but my interest in the trains themselves was fading quickly and by the time we finally arrived in Toronto all I wanted to do get as far away from the cramped and noisy quarters of the train and decompress. I don't feel the slightest bit burned out on the Pacific Northwest where I spent the bulk of my non-train time. In fact I feel like I've barely even seen it at all. But spending day after day, night after night, on train after train finally began to take its toll. Even when I laid down in my perfectly stationary hotel bed I could still hear the tracks and feel the motion of the train in my head. And then I think back to the even longer trip I had originally planned and wonder how I would have ever completed it without getting completely sick of it. Is there some sort of trick to managing super long train journeys or is it fairly common to get a little (or a lot) burned out after spending several days on the rails?
