Amtrak NYP to SAB
Leaving the city with each car crowded with people, out through Queens and then up through the Bronx and then north to New Rochelle and then into Connecticut. To Bridgeport, to New Haven, then turning north towards Hartford. And into Massachusetts, Springfield, Northampton, Greenfield, and up and up to Vermont. Brattleboro, Lebanon, Montpelier, Burlington, and the last stop, my stop, St. Alban’s City (not to be confused with St. Alban’s Town, two and a half miles due west).
The trip starts out all business; it’s important; most of us are, it seems, in a hurry. Laptops are open, keyboard keys clicking. And faces, mostly, are taut and serious. There are highways in view, full of cars, going as fast or faster than we are. There are buildings, everywhere; office, apartment, industrial, gleaming or dingy, busy-looking or empty-looking.
But they start to thin soon enough, start to stretch out: strip malls, empty lots, a meaningful stand of trees. Strangely bright, almost white. Then I see: all the branches are coated in ice, gleaming and silvery white from a distance, and gleaming and clear closer up. The ground too, as there is ground now to see, has a thin coating of icy-looking snow. The farther north, the more snow on the ground, clearly a few inches of fresh, sometimes sent up in little clouds by the train rushing over it.
Later on the train’s cars are less than half full, are mostly empty. Those of us left look wiped out, asleep with open mouths, or zoned out watching something on our phones or laptops. We’re in for the long haul, literally. We have blankets, our shoes are off, we have eaten and snacked, and might some more. The hurried people are gone. The importance has waned. It’s just a ride now, a long ride. A ride where the conductor is leaning on the horn, flying across crossings every minute or two. The sun has gone down and the red lights at each crossing are most of the lights we can see, save a pinpoint or two off in a field, or through some woods. Could be a lit-up living room window, or a porch light marking a dark house. We’re just gliding through darkness with the occasional light showing snow on the ground and on the branches of the pines. The train whistle sounds as we move along the rails into more darkness.
Hours later the last stop is approaching. There are 8 of us left, from the 200 or so that began. And the crew of course. I’m the only one who wants to keep going I think. Everyone looks tired. I talk to a nice couple who live up here, came from visiting a daughter in Baltimore. I envy their longer ride. He’s lived in St. Alban’s over 80 years, since moving from Massachusetts as a young boy. He’s 89. I tell him the only question I have for him is how he managed to marry a woman so much younger than he. She cackles and says “well done.” He says she is a good bit younger actually, at only 85.
After “detraining,” I basically jog the block and a half to a gas station I see down the street. It’s after 9pm so there are no restaurants still open, and I don’t want to eat in a bar. Also, I like gas station food. Whilst perusing the fare at the Valero, in walks in an older man with no teeth, a long ponytail tied with a pink ribbon, wearing flannel pajamas and a thin fleece jacket, zipped halfway up. He asks the woman behind the register for the key to the bathroom. He is wearing slippers, and not the big, cover your feet kind. The thin, slip-your-feet-in kind. Basically flip flops wrapped in thin terrycloth. The cashier has no reaction. Vermonters are hearty folks.
Having secured a wholesome meal of small salad with huge container of ranch dressing and oddly assorted package of polish sausages with no-brand saltines, I bundle up and head out towards the hotel, less than a quarter-mile away. It’s a crisp 8 degrees and there are no cars, no movement of any kind. The cold air a brace, and under my feet the pleasant, tinny crunch of snow that isn’t anywhere close to melting.
