Long distance train travel? Why, yes, I'd love to!

A wonderful article in this week's WaPo travel section extolled the virtues of long distance train travel.   This particular article highlighted the writer's trip on the DC-Chicago line Capitol Limited, and then from Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr, through the glorious Rockies!  There's also the Empire Builder that takes a northern route to Seattle across the Dakotas.  Wow.  I am enchanted.  Check out the breathtaking photo gallery.

I love train travel.  Even on my regular trip to NYC a few times a year, I just stare out the window mostly at industrial NJ along the I-95 corridor, but also across the Chesapeake and its tributaries as we race through Maryland.  It's a short-trip, about 3 hours, but I always feel relaxed after a train ride.

Last summer, I took Dear Daughter to NYC by train.  She was dying to see the "snack car," which i think she imagined like a DC-subway car filled with all the goldfish crackers and granola bars you could ever want.  I've been tempted to take her on a longer train trip to Burlington, Vermont or even Montreal, Canada.  It's still in my sights, though I haven't worked out all the details. On one of my trips, I sat next to a guy who had taken his teenage son on a train trip to Chicago to visit family.  Tempting.

And these long-distance more exotic trips across the country or down the west coast sound even more magical.  The Coast Starlight (Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles). The Lakeshore Limited (NYC, Boston, Albany, Chicago).   Amtrak Cascades (Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Salem). I'm blissed out by the routes alone.  Forty-hours on a train?  Perhaps it would lose its allure quicker than I think - for me, let alone a nearly-8 (!) year old.  But I imagine a panoramic window seat, lots of card games, a few books, an iPad, and a iPod Genius soundtrack would while away the time just fine.

What's holding me back? I haven't worked out the logistics, and silly as it may sound I can't figure out what we are doing when we get to our destination, or how we get back....Not rocket science, I know, but still puzzling me for the moment.

Book here.  All aboard!