by Peggy Robin
Now that I am going back and forth from DC to Philly on Amtak multiple times a month, I think I've earned myself the title of the "Joe Biden of the Granny/Nannies". While I will never match him for the sheer number of commuter trips (Note 1), as he made it his mission during his decades as a senator to get back to Wilminton in time for dinner with his kids every workday, I do think there's some basis for comparison in my similar faith in train travel as the best way to keep up with home and work in DC and my childcare duties to my baby grandson and his parents in Philadelphia.
I've met at least four other granny/nannies who alternate between their homes in DC and their grandchildren's homes while serving as caregivers in Philly -- but they all go back and forth by car. I drive only when I have too much stuff to haul onto a train (and then, once I've arrived at Philly's 30th Street Station, to cart across the street to the trolley stop and up the steps of the T2 trolley itself) -- with the exception of that one time I drove straight from DC to Philly after learning of a medical emergency in the family, when I hopped into the car and set my GPS destination as the visitor parking garage of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Now after some months of experience behind me, I offer the following thoughts on Amtrak, pro and con:
Yes, Take the Train!
You have so many choices! Choosing a random Saturday -- December 5th --starting at 4:28am through 10pm there are FORTY trains from DC to Philly. After the first handful before dawn, they go every 20 minutes or so, getting to Philly in a little under two hours.
Price. You don't even have to book far in advance or go at an ungodly hour to find some great fares. Sticking with my random example of December 5th, I found a morning train, departing at 8:22am, for $23, and another for the same fare at 10am. If I leave DC in the evening, with the plan of starting a full day of nannying bright and early in the morning, I can take the 8:30pm train, getting in at 10:23pm for just $11. If I wait a bit longer and leave DC at 9:21pm, it's just $7. Of course, that's with my ten percent senior discount; then I always throw in another $2 - $5 to make the fare fully refundable up until boarding time. Occasionally, I pay as much as $37 or $44 -- but considering the price of gas these days, plus tolls, and wear and tear on the car, I still think the train wins on cost.
Time. People may have told you that the drive from DC to Philly is about 2.5 hours....but I've never made it in that time. There's always a slowdown somewhere along the route. It once took me SIX hours by car -- much of that time sitting, hardly moving, bumper to bumper with thousands of other cars over a ten mile stretch of highway. Not only is the train often faster but it's certainly....
Less stressful. You can even nap on the train, as long as you know won't sleep through your stop! Choose the Quiet Car if you want to read, work, or listen to your choice of music or podcasts through headphones, undisturbed. Enforcement of the Quiet Car rules has seldom been a problem.
BYOF&D (Note 2). You are not limited to what's in the cafe car: that tiny $8 packet of cheese and crackers, or the soggy yellow piece of cardboard they call a cheese pizza for the same price. Nor are you stuck with a $15 sandwich from Pret A Manger in the train station. Pack your own lunch or dinner! Eat what you enjoy from home, when you want to eat it -- no waiting in long lines at counters.
It's safer. Mile for mile, being on a train is 15-20 times safer than being in a car. Even if you think you are a very good driver, our roads are full of people who aren't -- speed demons, texters, sleep-deprived truckers, and users of all kinds of judgment-impairing substances -- and you have no control over them.
Reliability. It's true, I've had many experiences when the train is running late -- but I've also been impressed by how often the train makes up for a delayed start along the way -- and manages to come in by the predicted arrival time...or maybe just a few minutes late.
Environmental impact. You know trains are the best when it comes to carbon emissions. (Note 4). Solo drivers in old, gas-powered cars (like mine) are the worst.
...And stay out of the car!
- Is there a more boring drive than I-95?
- You can't read a book or a magazine or play online Scrabble while driving - or do some moderating of pending listserv messages
- The food choices along I-95 are uniformly bad. Even if you're willing to to go a bit out of your way to seek out some homey little diner, you still have to budget the time to navigate to the place, consider the menu, order the food, wait for it, eat it, and pay the check before you find your way back to the highway. What if you pack a picnic lunch? Then you must either commit the act of DWE (driving while eating, which is messy as well as unsafe) or pull over at some rest stop with a picnic table where you can scarf down a hasty meal.
- If you are driving during peak rush hour during a weekday or going at the start or end of a holiday weekend, you will be sorry you didn't take the train...
OTOH....there are a few advantages to driving youself:
- The car has a trunk and a back seat. If you are bringing more than one carry-on sized rolling suitcase -- for example, you are traveling like Santa with a sleigh-load of presents -- or you said you would bring that antique lamp with you, or the gold-framed mirror that you know would be perfect over their dresser, or anything bigger than a breadbox (unless it's solidly rectangular and can sit in a perfectly stable manner on top of your rolling suitcase) -- you really do need a car.
- The train is bouncy. Have you noticed that occasionally unsigned messages make it through to the Listserv? Or there are odd typos? I will tell you the most likely scenario in which that occurs. I'm on the train, my laptop on the tray table, the wifi's working great, and I'm going through the pending messages. Here's one from somebody giving away a perfectly good printer but they forgot to sign their name. And they forgot to put "FREE" or #FFPU in the subject line. So I look up the person's name from the way they signed a previous message, and then I go to their message in the pending messages folder, and I click on "edit" mode. First I add "FREE" to the subject line, but when I go to the end of the message to add their name, the train bumps along -- chugga chugga, as trains do -- and my fingers touch the "enter" key by mistake, which doubles as the "approve" button. And so the message is sent out without a name. Or it has some other stupid typo that I didn't introduced when a bumpety-bump caused me to hit the Z key. You would think by now I would find some way to avoid these kinds of mistakes - but so far, no... I do try to be careful but -- chugga-chugga -- oops, it happened agai
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Notes:
2. BYOF&D = Bring Your Own Food & Drink.
3. "When it comes to transportation, passenger rail is among the safest modes of travel in America. On a per-mile basis, riding a train is roughly 15 to 25 times safer than driving a car, with about 0.43 fatalities per billion passenger-miles compared with about seven fatalities per billion passenger-miles for cars." {Rail Passengers Association]
4. Train travel is generally 80% to 90% cleaner in greenhouse gas emissions per passenger-mile than driving a solo petrol or diesel car, though the exact difference depends heavily on occupancy and whether the train is electric or diesel-powered. https://greenly.earth/en-us/blog/company-guide/train-vs-car-what-are-their-carbon-footprints
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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.
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