Written by Greta Scheff

Art by Greta Scheff

12-03-2024

Traveling alone,
indulging in its solace.
I sit with my peace.

What is it now, fifteen train rides on this route? What used to be so daunting, now feels comforting, even something to look forward to. I’m granted five hours of sweet-old existential dread, rather, I grant myself, as it takes fifty dollars out of my bank account. I’ve put on my headphones and queued Pink Floyd’s 1977 album, Animals. In an hour or so, maybe I’ll pick up my book or try to take a nap, though the latter usually proves unsuccessful. 

A collage of images I’ve captured throughout the years while en route.

A train can represent a number of things: transportation (the more obvious one), the passage of time, a journey, a job, or maybe even a toy you got for your fifth birthday, which probably turned into a weird obsession you never grew out of. For me, the train represents a connection between the two places I call “home.” The town I experienced childhood and adolescence in, and the city in which I continue acquiescing to adulthood. The train is what separates my before and after, the watershed in my life. 

Of all the public transportation I’ve experienced in life thus far, there is a common thread: Don’t interact with anyone if you don’t have to. This stands true with Amtrak. It seems that everyone has the same mission… 

1. Aboard the train,

2. find a window seat (if you’re lucky),

3. pass the time until your departure,

4. pray no one sits beside you, and

5. exit the train before it moves on.

In none of these steps is “make a new friend” or “discuss the economic state of the world with a stranger” listed. Of course, there is the off-chance that you’ll meet your new best friend or the love of your life (I’ve seen Before Sunrise), but in most cases, if you’re traveling alone, you intend to keep to yourself, and do. 

All types of individuals occupy a train at any given moment. A blend of passengers, pets, the conductor, an engineer, the service attendant(s), the coach attendant, etc.; without these, a train would simply not be. Typically, the only ones I interact with are the coach attendants—the ones who scan your ticket, tell you which door to depart from, and make sure your baggage isn’t flooding onto a vacant seat. 

The train does not change. It follows the same routes, at the same times, every day. Primarily, it poses a series of logistical challenges (i.e., making sure I have everything, getting there on time), but once I overcome them, it is simply a vessel. A vessel for escape, a pause button on life, a break from reality in which I can be completely present.

A chance to spend time with myself, to journal, to read, to listen to a favorite song on repeat—all things which I can do at home, but that may be threatened by various distractions. The train is a place with the most basic of responsibilities (as seen above); there is no laundry to be done, no dishes to be cleaned, no showing up to work on time, and no going to bed at a reasonable hour. 

By both nature and necessity, a train exists within time. And yet, it has always offered me the experience of being in neither my before nor my after; I may be heading towards either, but in the time it takes to get there, I am alive out of time. I sit with my peace.

Aforementioned fifteen train tickets.