We had our 8 and 4 year old grandsons here earlier this month. Instead of flying home with them, Louisa accompanied them to DC on Amtrak which added about 3 hours to what a car trip would have taken on I-95, but they travelled comfortably in a roomette as the trip started in the wee hours of morning. Louisa had multiple cancellations on air travel this past year and didn't want to endure that possibility with two small boys. It was a grand adventure to their home as Union Station is barely a mile from their home on Capitol Hill. I was able to follow their progression in real time on Amtrak's website which not only showed location and time to the next stop, but also train speed.
At the local train station, it was startling to see the difference in the layers of security present in train travel compared with air travel. There are none in train travel. The oldest, Eli, is about the same age as I was on my longest trip on a train which was engineered by my paternal grandfather on the ACL East Coast Champion. Gil
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