The sunset just west of Meridian, Mississippi, glowed fiery-orange, the sky draped with wisps of pink clouds above a silhouette of treetops and geometric rooflines. It was an award-winning photograph, I thought, but couldn’t find the right angle for the shot through the window of my train compartment.
I contented myself with simply enjoying the scene — one among so many as the kinetic panorama of the South passed by. I began to consider it an old lady’s version of video entertainment.
As a child in the 1950s, I often rode the fabled Illinois Central roundtrip between New Orleans and Memphis to visit my grandparents, and on to Chicago in the summers. Since then, however, I’d become a devoted frequent flyer, replacing long overnight train rides with air travel.
When my anxiety about flying home from Washington, D.C., flared during the government shutdown, I wondered if there might be train service home instead…