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Trip to the Past

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Amtrak advertises the Coast Starlight, which runs from Seattle to Los Angeles, as its “hottest with the coolest scenery.” Not long ago I rode as far as Paso Robles.

I’m becoming a grouchy old man who is feeling harassed to distraction by our Internet dot.com, Nasdaq-obsessed society. The old-fashioned train with its semi-fouled-up arrivals and departures and overall tone of another time was a comfort and a great solace to my ragged nerves.

At stops I got off and walked the platform, looking at the cars and the locomotives, and all I saw were names of an older and industrial America: wheel assemblies by Buckeye Steel Castings, Timken bearings, GE engines.

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Unless you suffer from time pressure, the train is the way to go. You are treated well. The staff is friendly and talkative. Airplane travel is being cramped in a steel tube for several hours, scared half to death most of the time.

STEVE SANGER

Bellingham, Wash.

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