The romance of traveling about by train

OK - maybe "romance" might be overstating it a bit, but I do like train journeys. In my twenties I traveled by rail all over Europe and through India. And though not always exactly a glamorous experience, it was romantic. Or at least it seems there was a romance to the journey, now that the specifics of the bathroom facilities have faded. Arriving at the Venice rail station from Milan, leaving the train, and realizing that the taxis were water taxis and the canals were right there, at the end of the platform. Or looking at the passing landscape in Northern India through the iron slats of the rail carriage and arriving in Agra from Dehli to see the sublimely beautiful Taj Mahal.

Clearly Amtrak is selling the same concept of the romance of the rail too. And on a recent trip from NY to Washington DC, I was amused to see this rather optimistic tag line on my coffee cup:
"Enjoy the taste of a better world". Huh.

Well call me a cynic, but the view from the train that day was not exactly "America the beautiful". The kind of images not usually used in the tourist brochures whizzed passed my view - the Baltimore neighborhood that looked like a war zone; the disused and decaying factories; the quarries; the urban decay; graffiti.

But then ...

...nearing Wilmington DE, we crossed a body of water and there was this: The Susquehanna River Bridge - gorgeous, and quite lovely at sunset. And that is the image that I will remember, that will stick in my mind. And that is the romance of traveling about by train.