Humans are wired for social interaction. We want to work with people and have conversations with people. Laura Venderkam, Wall Street Journal Bookshelf (Aug 14^th 2015)

Conversation stations can include: a Restaurant,  a Diner, a Café, a Park.

How about in a classroom? Among fellow students. Back and forth with the teacher. Or in class after the teacher leaves, even.

Waiting in/on line, waiting for a plane, waiting for your laundry, your coffee, your $$$ lottery winnings.

Okay, picture this: A crowded waiting room. “Everybody waiting…old man sleeping on his bags, women with that teased-up kind of hair…kids with the jitters in their legs and those wide wide open stares.” Joni Mitchell, Just Like This Train 

Like Joni, for good talk, I take trains whenever possible.

Why?

Folks are more appreciative on trains. Appreciative of things like TIME. Like lounging, reading, sleeping – folks on a train create a little neighborhood together.  It’s like The little neighborhood that never was. Except right now it exists while you are traveling together.  Where ya going? Through time? Hey, nobody leaves the room do they? Which makes them great places to appreciate conversation.

So get your convo on in the “Club” car, the “Dome” car, the “Sightseer” car.

Ever been?

It’s where Amtrak-Americans gather for observation, games, and opening up. As a folk journalist, I’ve gone coast-to-coast with a cast of characters thousands of miles and over eight-minutes-long for NPR. *

The youngest get excited about stuff like: “Look at the light rail track over there!” (Apparently little kids love light rail. Perhaps post-Millennial Gen Next will popularize mass transit!)

The oldest, who maybe dislike flying or the bus, know rail travel is more civilized. Amtrak was years ahead of the sharing economy: you are forced to share a table in the dining car. But you get to hear about lives. Ethanol farmers from Kansas, rodeo clowns from El Paso – each takes your mind off your laptop and phone, talking your ear off all the way to Union Station in Chicago, LA, Portland or Spokane.

You get to feel their strong handshakes afterwards.

I lucked out once and got seated for dinner while crossing eastern Washington into Idaho and Montana with two nature guides: Bob & Rob.  They came aboard to present a “Rails to Trails” talk.  Soon the history of the Cascades and a couple of Columbia River dams came alive as the apple capitals and pear orchards flying by. The tunnel we’d come through was the second longest in the world – longest being in B.C. just north of here—and by the time the full moon over Wenatchee rose, I’d learned all about Mt’s Baker and Rainier, and Snokomish, too, so I suggested the duo do a “Bob and Ray” routine because Rob was low-voiced calm and Bob taller and more high strung in his descriptions of vineyards and the delights of Washington cherries.

Of course, there are other times, a folk journalist will sit staring out a train window, thinking: “Man I have no life.” Then out the same window, passing Ventura, here comes a view of the Pacific Ocean, sea and sky and mountains and everything in between. And then he realizes: I have all of life! And soon I’m engaged in friendly confabs up and down the California coast again…

Suddenly I hear: “Lookit, Mom! Lookit!”

What is it?

”Bubbles!” the little girl shouts pointing at a polluted river winding down there below the tracks.

“Woo Woo!” goes the train, and all is well.

BACK POCKET BANTER

Where have you traveled on a train or by ship?

What kind of acquaintances have you made on a trip?

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen happen while traveling?

Did you ever learn anything new from conversations on a train, ship or plane?

What is the longest trip you’ve ever been on?

BONUS!

An additional conversation aboard Amtrak is how you are reducing your “carbon footprint” by taking a train instead of flying in an airplane. Which may lead to interesting places and a longer confab in the Dining Car.

ACTIVITIES

Ever ask a diner woman or porter on board what’s their favorite song? They’ll sing it for you.

* A folk journalist walks into an Amtrak 

http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/rundowns/2003/20030516/rd20030516.shtml

Freestylers & Foreigners: Fear and Locomotiving on the Southwest Chief There are only three trans-continental trains in the U.S. And, with Amtrak planning on dropping some of its long-distance routes, you might want to put a choo-choo trip across the States higher on your travel to-do list. Hank Rosenfeld took this to heart when he boarded Amtrak Train #4 at LA’s Union Station with a cast of characters including golden-agers and their grandchildren, Central American tourists and ex-cons let out of Lompoc that morning. And all the while, on his 48-hour trip to Detroit, Hank experiences the romance of the rail.

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