Twenty-Four Hours on an Amtrak to Philly: a Horror Story, an Adventure Yarn, and a Lesson About Embracing Life’s Rails
“The eleven-thirty Amtrak Silver Star bound for Tampa and Miami,” announces a voice at Grand Central Station. Then Al Pacino shoots like seventeen people to death before being killed himself, his body sliding down the dull silver hull of a coach-class train. My sojourn on Amtrak’s Silver Star line wasn’t quite as dramatic as that…
Banks May Have Built Charlotte, But Restaurants Are Giving It a New Identity
When I boarded the train for my first visit to Charlotte, I had no preconceived notions about or great expectations for the Queen City. My INDY colleagues had found it curious that, of all the destinations reachable by rail, I’d chosen this one. One described Charlotte as the “city that Bank of America built.” Another…
A Short Train Ride From Durham to Raleigh Offers a Window Into the Triangle Mass-Transit Future
Light rail in the Triangle is a messy subject, as evidenced by this publication’s stories and comments section on a fairly regular basis. The debates about its $2.5 billion price tag and the planned seventeen-mile route, from Durham to Chapel Hill, are fractals of conflict. But taking the Carolinian from Durham to Raleigh on a…
With a Half-Mile of Our Hotel, the Quintessentially Southern Southern Pines Offered an Idyllic Weekend Getaway
I first visited Southern Pines when I was living in Lumberton, a town of about twenty thousand in rural Robeson County. My time as a reporter there was rewardingI met earnest people and learned a lotbut I’d be lying if I said it was an exciting place to live. So, my significant other and I…
Trainspotting: To Mark the Opening of Raleigh’s Union Station, We Sent Five Writers to Ride the Rails
Last Tuesday, after three years of planning, two years of construction, and months of delays, Raleigh finally opened its much-hyped Union Station, a sleek, state-of-the-art, $111 million, multimodal (eventuallybuses will begin stopping there in a few years), twenty-six-thousand-square-foot transit facility in a former Dillon Supply Co. warehouse. The project, pitched as a catalyst for economic…
In the Triad, Our Writer Contemplates Furniture, Civil Rights, and Beer He’s Not Allowed to Drink
Unlike many cheerful people in suits and fancy hats last Tuesday, I rode the 6:30 a.m. Piedmont-bound train as a way of actually getting somewhere. Sure, it was fun to realize that I was on board the first train to ever leave Raleigh’s brand-new Union Station, but it was also hard not to laugh at…