rush to the Amtrak stop, musings on the Acela trail urban centers

I write this exactly at 5.05 on Thursday, March the 11th. N and I are on our way to DC, from where we're taking a taxi to PN's place in nova. We're taking an amtrak.

There were two trains on the track, we got into the wrong one, the Acela..I guess 'express'. N was confused, also hopeful a bit because the overhead bins looked really nice and airplane-like. And then the conductor announced that the 97 train -- the one we were to take -- was the other one. Disappointment. Sadness. I wanted to change the tracks right away, N seemed confused. Eventually we made it.

It's one hell of a train ride, I can tell you that. Don't know how I've written as far as I have, as the bumping and shaking is quite comparable to what I might expect in our apartment on certain weekend nights. The seats are creaking like hell, one might be reasonable in their concern that something's gonna give until the end of this trip.

Our journey to the train station was no less eventful. We started looking for online taxis thirty-five minutes before our trip was to start, waited ten minutes to get a ride, because things were just not working. And then when we did get one, we waited for five minutes before the guy cancelled. And then the other one we got, it took eight minutes to arrive, far longer than the app originally claimed, due to all the street closures -- that I approve of highly, by the way -- that the city and Google had not bothered to mark as blocked.

We begged to the driver, told him our train was leaving four minutes earlier than it was actually, and he rushed, and rushed. We got to the train station five minutes before our train was to depart. And then got into the wrong train before finally settling down.

This route I more scenic than the one I remember taking the last time, is it possible different trains take different routes? Most Amtrak routes that are not in the 'cute' sections are total wastelands, boring suburbia or industrial rusty towns. And still a thousand times more interesting than what you get to see from the major highways. They are a total wash.

Small towns in Delaware, we're at one at this exact moment, 5.22. Why should these towns not have a comeback, if company allow for remote work, or some sort of 'distributed teams' structure. Dunno, on the one hand I do love small towns, urban centers of all kind. On the other hand big cities are cool too, it wouldn't be too bad if the stretch between DC to Boston, or even upto Portsmouth was one Giant superurban metropolitan area by the side of train tracks.Every stop would have it's own thing, people from all over the world would come see the largest city-ish in the world. Art, culture, science technology, innovation, tourism, cultural activities, it'd be the giant throbbing heart of America, an east coast response to the LA sprawl, the straighter-edge Atlantic Coast reply to the chill californication vibe.

dunno, I dunno. One can dream yeah.