Take the Train

Next week we are flying to Philadelphia. I wish we could take a high speed train. There are high speed trains everywhere in Europe so why don't we have them here. It is like we live in some backward country out of touch with the modern world. China and Japan have incredible high speed rail systems that make America look like some third world backwater.

During our trips in Europe before the pandemic we took that high speed train from London to Paris and it was a wonderful experience. Fast too. We also took had a very nice train ride from London to Edinburgh during another trip. Back in 2006 we took a train between Rome and Florence and the back to Rome again. We loved it.

We are planning another trip to Europe next fall. We plan to fly to Barcelona and take a high speed train to Paris. It should only take an hour.

So why can't we do that here in America? There should be a high speed between Buffalo and New York that should only take a couple of hours instead of the slow lumbering that currently takes eight hours. We should be able to take fast high speed trains all up and down the East Coast and across the country too. 

We can't because of the right wing oligarchs and their control of the oil and gas industries with their need to keep gas guzzling cars on the road. The way the airlines have been operating lately proves the point that we should be riding trains like the rest of the world. 

During out upcoming Philly trip we will be taking a side trip to New York City on an Amtrak train. It will take a couple of hours including the connections. We will walk to the train station two blocks from Kate's house and ride downtown to 30th Street Station and pick up the train to NYC. We're looking forward to spending a few days in Manhattan and then we take the train back to Philly and Katie's house to spend a few more days with our grandchildren. 

As we get older and not looking forward to that seven hour drive to Philadelphia to see the kids it would certainly be nice if we could be able to hop on a high speed train anytime we felt like going there. Especially in winter. We should also be able to take a train to Albany to see Sean and Ashley without it being an all day trip where we would need to leave at 6 am in the morning.

I also do not like to fly either. It's one thing to fly to Europe or California but the short trips are a waste of time and money. We should have fast trains. We're flying next week because we had originally purchased tickets to fly to Philly for the birth of our granddaughter that had been scheduled for a C-section in mid January but she came early and instead we drive down on December 30th. We cancelled our January flight but we had until the end of the calendar year to use tickets. We decided on late September because we did not want to fly anywhere need the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays. We also did not want to do the side trip to NYC during those holidays either. So next week it is but I still we were taking a relaxing train ride.