Riding the Rails: Around America With Amtrak : From sleeper to diner to lounge, an expatriate discovers a world both stimulating and peaceful.

It’s just past 9 p.m. and an excited tenor voice comes over the public-address system.

“Ladies and gentlemen! In 10 minutes, we will be arriving at the railroad capital of the world, Altoona, Pa. . . .And on the left side of the train, we will circle the world-famous Horseshoe Curve!”

I lean forward in my Slumbercoach--a nestlike sleeping compartment containing a sink, a toilet and a fold-down bed that’s small even for someone of my 5-foot-4 height--and peer out the window. It’s pitch-black outside as the Broadway Limited rumbles through the night en route from New York to Chicago. I’m on the first leg of a more-than-6,000-mile rail trip around the U.S.A., and I can’t see anything but the occasional fleeting light.

Railroads have always held a special place in the heart of the American traveler. From songs such as the “Rock Island Line” or “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” to movies such as “Strangers on a Train,” “Silver Streak” and “North by Northwest” (including Alfred Hitchcock’s metaphoric, now-legendary use of a train hurtling into a tunnel to suggest the sex act), they are firmly ensconced in America’s collective nostalgia.

Still, when you tell people you are going to take a long-distance train trip in the United States, they look at you askance. The United States has become so plane-and-car-and-time oriented that riding the rails--while still the norm for travel in Europe, where I’ve lived for many years--is seen as somewhat eccentric.

Ride the rails is what I did this past winter, though, taking advantage of Amtrak’s money-saving “All Around America” package on a route that took me from New York to California to Texas and back again. The basic excursion fare of $259 allowed me to travel anywhere on the Amtrak network, making three stopovers. On top of this, I paid $705 for private sleeping accommodations (including most meals) on all overnight legs of my trip (prices have risen since then, of course).

I rode trains whose names conjure up puffing steam, clanging Bells and drawn-out calls of “All abooooard “: the Broadway Limited, the California Zephyr, the Sunset Limited, the Texas Eagle. I went through the Appalachian rust belt, which reminded me of parts of Eastern Europe; across the Great Plains and vast Western prairies; up and over the Rocky Mountains and through the lonely splendor of the wintry high desert: All in all, seven nights on the train during five weeks of travel.

For me, the experience combined elements of the normal with the extraordinary and provided--for most of the trip--just what I was looking for: a way to see, feel and get under the skin of this country, and a means of obtaining much-needed breathing spaces between a series of intensive visits and business meetings in a number of cities.

It also turned a trip, or series of trips, into a journey. Like the old Cunard ad used to say, “Getting there was half the fun”--even though the limited Amtrak restaurant menus got monotonous after a while and the contortions involved in washing (or, in Western trains, in actually taking a shower) became a bit of a drag.

Trains, like cruise ships, are self-contained universes, and you realize that as soon as you step aboard. You feel it much more on Amtrak’s long-haul routes than in Europe, where trains are a normal, matter-of-course way to get from one place to another. Trains and stops are frequent; stations are always bustling; train windows usually open. In America, the fact that so few long-haul trains still run makes them special: Stops are few and far between; windows are for looking, not breathing, through.

And everyone on board is conscious that he or she is doing something that most people in this country don’t. “I’m taking this trip just to ride the train,” said one fellow passenger on the California Zephyr en route from Chicago to San Francisco. “I’m going to Salt Lake City, then turning back. I just love to ride them trains.”

Dining car, lounge, coaches and sleeping compartments define physical space. Fellow passengers and crew members define society. Except on a few special trains, there is no telephone and little chance for contact with the outside world for days at a time--unless you manage to make a quick phone call or grab a newspaper at one of the brief station stops. Life--breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails, conversation--goes on within this insulated metal universe at what appears to be a normal rate, while outside, another world spools by, separated from you by speed and thick windows. It’s a world generally unseen even by most people who live in the places you pass--the back yards and freight yards and still lives of lonely landscapes.

“To ride a train is to feel invisible,” wrote George F. Scheer in his recent book, “Booked on the Morning Train.” “Ironically, given their monstrous size, trains pass along most of their way almost unnoticed. Whether through city, suburbs or farmland, the train passenger travels through the back yard of the country, free to glimpse his fellows and their works as they are. And when the tracks veer into the mountains or across the prairies, no one follows.”

One of the most memorable sights I saw from a train was also--theoretically--one of the most private. In a car pulled over to the side of an isolated dirt road in California, a couple were making love.

I spent my train time in various ways: holed up in my sleeper, catching up on reading and luxuriating in the enforced relaxation, and mingling with the mixed bag of fellow passengers--people I would never have met under any other circumstances. In the dining car, you are routinely seated with strangers who all seem willing to spill their life stories and find out about yours. Why not? You needn’t exchange names, and you’ll probably never see each other again.

Over New York strip steak (tough, but usually the best bet on the dinner menu) or breakfast eggs and grits, I met a Las Vegas policewoman, a juvenile detention officer from New York, a Japanese travel writer, a flight instructor, the owners of a muffler franchise, tourists from Germany, a Desert Storm veteran and a former Air Force pilot who refuses anymore to fly. “I’m getting train happy,” he said on a Thursday. “I’ve been on a train since Monday.”

In the lounge and walking by were Amish people in beards (the men, that is) and black clothing, train buffs following the entire route on maps, senior citizens, babes in arms and a whole array of “characters.” One man, never without a drink, wore a shaggy beard and rumpled three-piece suit; he looked like an outlaw and told tales of hopping freight trains from one end of the country to the other. On an Amtrak bus connection in California, I (unwittingly) sat next to a twitching ex-junkie who had just been released from prison. Wearing prison-issued khaki, he clutched an envelope full of exit money and kept up a running schizoid commentary on the world outside.

Amtrak sleeping accommodations are more private and often more comfortable than those on European trains, where you routinely share a tiny compartment with one, two, three or even five strangers. All Amtrak sleepers are private or for two or more people traveling together. On trains east of the Mississippi, sleeping compartments, even the tiniest Slumbercoach, also include private sink and toilet.

In the massive, double-decker trains that ply the rails out West, sinks and toilets (and, in some rooms, showers) are available only in deluxe or family bedrooms. The so-called economy bedrooms, which sleep one or two people, have room only for armchairs that fold out into full-size beds. There’s no room for luggage of any size: It’s all kept downstairs in a rack, where train staff swear they’ll keep it safe. Washing and toilet facilities, including a shower, are provided on the lower level, too. They are cramped, but not so cramped as on most European trains. And, with practice, the push-button shower does get you reasonably clean.

Gone, alas, are the days of china and linen napkins. Most meals are served on disposable plastic plates. The food itself tends to be adequate rather than good--although this varies from train to train. On my trip, the Texas Eagle from Dallas to Chicago ran out of red wine and various food, but the Desert Wind from Los Angeles to Houston boasted a chef who really cared: The homemade soup was delicious, and the lunchtime hamburger was juicy and flavorful, one of the best I’ve ever eaten.

GUIDEBOOK

On Track With Amtrak

Reservations: Amtrak “All Around America” fares include travel anywhere in Amtrak’s three regions, with no more than three stopovers and travel to be completed within 45 days. Amtrak has stops in 558 communities in 45 states and the District of Columbia.

The Eastern region is the Atlantic Coast to Chicago and New Orleans; the Western region is the Pacific Coast to Wolf Point, Mont., Denver, Colo., Albuquerque, N.M., and El Paso, Tex.; the Central region is everything in between.

Fares for one person in the high season (through the end of August) are $199 for travel in one region, $279 for two adjoining regions and $339 for all three regions. Starting Sept 1., one region is $179, two regions is $229 and three regions is $259.

Fares for private sleeping accommodations are additional and are determined by the distance traveled, size of room and region. A trip such as the author took now costs: $339 for the basic rail fare, adding $57 from New York to Chicago for a sleeper, $295 from Chicago to Los Angeles, $246 from Los Angeles to Houston, $176 from Dallas to Chicago and $57 from Chicago to New York. Some rooms are wheelchair accessible. Book as early as you can; many long-distance routes fill up quickly. High-season reservations can be made 11 months in advance.

For children ages 2 to 15 traveling with an adult, rail fare is 50% of the lowest available adult fare. For seniors 62 and older, there are also reduced rates Monday-Thursday.

Telephone (800) USA-RAIL.