Write on Amtrak!

Write on Amtrak!

 

Yep, you might have heard that Amtrak, the best and most outstanding passenger railway in the United States is giving out free rides to writers!

Why would anyone want to write on a train?

I’m not sure why you feel like writing on a train, but you do. Writing on a train inspires serious creativity. I love writing on trains. I think it might be the clacking of the rails or something. It is NOTHING like writing on a plane. Writing on a plane is a horrible thing to do. Writing on a train is delightful.

Amtrak has given a couple of writers a free ride on a train from Chicago and back. It seems after one of the writers Jessica Gross said in on that she wished Amtrak had a free residency program. Amtrak responded with a test run.

Hey Amtrak I’m up for a free round trip! Send me somewhere!

Writing on a train is a fantastic experience. Buy a ticket for Amtrak, if you would, or at least seriously consider using them for your next family trip. They even have very cool sleeper cars. You should go here: http://www.amtrak.com/sleeping-car-virtual-tours and take a virtual tour of their trains. I think they look a little better than the last cruise I took (weather not considered). Either way, taking an overnight trip on Amtrak would be something special for a writer. I think maybe a 1 month writing residency for a writer would be very cool. It could be like terminal! See if you can keep the writer on a moving train for one year AND can he or she finish the novel. How much fun would that be?

Amtrak also has a car train. If you planning on going on vacation and you want to take your car to Disneyland, but for some reason you don’t want to drive it (like me, my car is falling apart and good for short trips but not long ones), you can put your car on a train.

Also, from the view of being green (and most sober writers care about this), you can save the planet by taking this public transportation. We know we do NOT HAVE enough public transit here in the states, so this is one more way that being a traveling writer makes sense for today’s ever green thinking poets and authors.

Lastly, I would just like to point out that these train cars do not have any where close to the capacity of an airplane, but the bathrooms look much nicer and a little more spacious.