Booze Train

I suspect a lot of folks who never considered taking the train before found themselves momentarily curious to hear that Amtrak was offering $100 in free booze for passengers on certain long-distance routes. Alas, like nearly everything in this life, the offer sounds better than it actually is. The coupons are only good on GrandLuxe cars — owned by a company separate from Amtrak (which only pulls the cars) — and can only be used in the lounge cars, where a glass of wine can run about $40. And unlike a regular Amtrak fare, which might cost a few hundred bucks, GrandLuxe tickets cost some serious change. As a result, people who would find the cheapest booze on the menu and blow the $100 in one sitting — people, that is, like me — are the very sorts least likely to throw down $1500 for a trip from Chicago to L.A.

In any event, the story reminded me of a train I took from Minneapolis to DC in June 1994 — a scheduled 27-hour jaunt that turned into a 45-hour ordeal after we crushed a minivan outside Chicago. No one was hurt, amazingly, but the delay was considerable; evidently, it takes a lot of effort to pry a minivan from the grill of an Amtrak engine. We lost several hours, though, a wait that was compounded by several other mishaps along the way, none of which were quite as interesting. To make up for the hassle, Amtrak first offered everyone free breakfast. After the second multi-hour delay, dinner was on the house. Finally, after we spent about four hours languishing somewhere in Kentucky for reasons no one could quite explain, Amtrak made the unbelievable gesture of opening up the lounge car and offering free booze so long as supplies lasted.

By the time I actually made it to Washington, I was pretty well smashed, the Rangers had won the Stanley Cup, and OJ Simpson was saddling up his white Bronco for an evening on the town. Free booze aside, this trip — along with a similarly bizarre Greyhound trip that I’m not sure I can discuss without the drape of anonymity — pretty much cured me of my fear of flying.