On this date in 1967, the New York Central Railroad's Twentieth Century Limited trains completed their last runs between New York and Chicago. What had been a gloriously luxurious form of transportation for 65 years faded into history, victim of the interstate highway system and air travel.
I recall several trips by rail with my mother when I was small, from Chicago to downstate Illinois to visit my grandparents, and once to Kansas City. There was also a year of my life when I worked down in the Loop in Chicago and took the commuter train to and from every day. My last train trip was in 1983 when I took the train from Macomb, Illinois, to Chicago and from there on to Kalamazoo. It was fun.
Whenever I think about riding trains, however, I cannot help but recall the absolute terror I experienced as a tiny child whenever we had to pass from one car to another while the train was moving. It made going to the dining car a trauma.
As soon as Mother slid open the door at the back of the car, my little ears were filled with the roar of the train as it hurtled down the track, accompanied by the peripheral perception of the ground and countryside thundering past. The normal rocking and jolting of the train seemed to intensify as we moved through the door contributing to my sense of unsteadiness and impending calamity. The two cars' platforms were moving, but not in unison, and there was a terrifying gap between them. It was probably no more than a couple inches, but to a toddler it seemed like a yawning chasm. Mother would hold my hand and help me to jump over the fissure onto the next platform.
Scared the living daylights out of me every time.
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