Ways to improve commercial flights & why I love trains

(774 words)

Of all the cheap suggestions I’ve offered to improve commercial air travel — hold hands with seatmates, pipe in polka music, designate at least one passenger to dress like a nun — only one stands out for being both controversial and prophetic.

It’s the one where I suggest we convert airplanes into slave ships.

Understand, I’m not talking about the historically murderous slave ships that brought chained African-Americans to our Southern shores, although comparable manifest diagrams show leg room to be strikingly similar with modern passenger jets.

I’m talking about the galley slave ships depicted in “Ben-Hur,” the 1959 blockbuster starring Charlton Heston as an AD 26 Jewish prince who is betrayed by a Roman friend and sold into slavery.

His fates lead him to the an aisle seat on a navy trireme where he and about 70 other sweaty men are ordered to rhythmically row to the beat of a slave drummer.

I think this would appeal to modern fitness fanatics, many of whom who slavishly self-torture each morning at home and on the road with pricey basement rowing machines of their very own.

Wings could be retro-fitted so they “flap” like birds when the rowers begin to pull. So there’s a strong passenger incentive to keep rowing with unflagging vigor in order for the plane to remain airborne for the entire flight. Exorbitant fuel costs would vanish.

Any passenger not pulling his or her weight would be subjected to brutal beatings like the kind you see in “Ben-Hur” or, I guess, United’s coach class.

I’m one of those guys who is more likely to be dragged onto a flight than dragged off one. I hate to fly.

It makes me spiritual soulmates with the late, great Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard, who I was fortunate enough to interview multiple times when I was a reporter at the Nashville Banner, which carried his popular column.

He once told me he was a member of a National No-Fly Club. Their motto?

“If given a choice, we will never fly. If given no choice, we will never fly sober.”

My fly or drive threshold is now about 12 hours. That means I’d prefer driving to say, Nashville than flying there.

We just drove eight hours one-way to Charlotte and back for my nephew’s wedding. That’s 16-hours of family togetherness in a cramped car.

How bad was it?

It wasn’t at all bad. In fact, it was a joy. We stopped for nice meals in out-of-the-way places, played agreeably happy music and games and just reveled in being together.

The only thing better than a long car ride is a longer train ride.

“I’ve ridden everything with legs or wheels and nothing beats the train.”

That’s a quote from another old friend, the late, great John Clouse (and you can tell I’m getting too old when I keep ascribing “late, great” to deceased acquaintances). He was in the Guinness Book of World’s Records for being the world’s most traveled man.

I used to travel to New York to meet with magazine editors two or three times a year. I always took the sometimes unreliable train. I loved every time, even when it was late.

I’ll never forget the fall day when it was eight hours late.

Yes, eight hours.

It was back before cell phones and it wasn’t unusual back in the ‘90s for Amtrak to be an hour or so late. Train passengers took it in stride.

But eight hours!

The train was supposed to depart Latrobe at 8:45 a.m. I’d call Amtrak every hour or so on the pay phone and was told, sorry, it should be there any minute. Better not leave.

What could I do?

I love trains, but I was seething at the incompetence, eager to vent.

So at about 4 p.m., I hear the whistle’s moan and see the glare of the locomotive’s headlight rounding a distant bend.

I assumed my most aggravated persona and climbed on board expecting passenger uproar.

In fact, there was none. No fury. No outrage. No bellicosity.

It was like nothing was amiss.

I asked a seat mate, what gives?

“Oh,” he said, when everyone gets on their real angry but it is Amtrak and, hey, they’re giving away free chicken up front!”

I learned two things that day I’ll never forget.

One: there will never be a news story about something described as “train rage.”

And, two: Colonel Sanders sure makes a damn tasty bird.

So I urge you to consider taking the train anytime you can.

Even when it’s late, it’s great.

Related …

On bored Amtrak

Why I always prefer trains

In India, trains share tracks with elephants (includes my only Cosby reference

Let kids land all the planes

Plane truths from a real road warrior

Planes should have horns to honk

On bored Amtrak

ABOARD AMTRAK’S THE PENNYSLVANIA -- I love having the opportunity to slug a story of mine with a dateline.

“Dateline” is an old-fashioned journalism term for the all-caps story tag that used to include the date along with the place where the story was filed. It’s also the name of a new-fashioned investigate show where they resort to questionable tactics the likes of which old-fashioned journalists often disapprove.

The cool thing about a dateline that starts with “ABOARD . . .” is it makes it seem like I’m some kind of dashing war correspondent.

If you think that couldn’t be further from the truth, you’re mistaken.

I am a war correspondent.

I’m covering a war on boredom.

We are about six hours into an 8-hour trip through tedium clear to Philadelphia. Right now tedium is near Lancaster.

The girls out of childish habit say they are bored.

They are lying. They are fully alive.

They’ve just never been confronted with an opportunity to revel in the joyful boredom only a long train ride can bestow.

“I’ve ridden everything with either legs or wheels and nothing beats the train.”

That’s what an old friend of mine, John Clouse, once told me before he died. He was not lying. And that man was fully alive.

He was for years listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Most Traveled Man. I wrote maybe a dozen stories about him for everything from National Enquirer to Playboy because this veteran of the Battle of the Bulge was one of the most gregarious and entertaining men I’ve ever known.

The idea of watching 4 to 6 hours of television a day as a way to banish boredom was anathema to him.

The girls haven’t been bored once today. Rather they’ve been challenged to avoid boredom.

We arrived at the convenient Amtrak station in Latrobe about 30 minutes prior to the train’s scheduled 8:11 a.m. departure. There were about 20 people, three-quarters of them passengers, waiting.

“Is it ever going to get here?” said Josie, 10, cueing Lucy, 5, to commence the same whine.

They were confusing boredom with a moment that absolutely crackles with excitement: standing at a train station and waiting to hear a distant whistle.

At 8:10, a man who was probably steeped in boredom said, “See, it’s late,” an instant prior to hearing the whistle and seeing the headlight coming ‘round the bend.

It was right on time.

It’s a mechanical marvel that something so big, so loud and so muscular as a locomotive can seem so welcoming when you step inside of it.

“All aboard!”

Taking a train on vacation is like taking a vacation from the hassles of taking a vacation.

You can nap, you can read, you can talk, you can anticipate.

I told Lucy we were going to Philadelphia, birthplace of America. She asked if we’d get to see the hospital where it was born.

I never feel any of the apprehensions I feel on an airplane. If the engine on a train gives out, we just roll to a gentle stop.

The girls are beginning to think of the train like it’s a rolling prison and they are beginning to embrace the novelty of it.

Because it is boring and boring in our distraction-mad world is becoming a precious commodity.

Our nearly 8 hour trip will be maybe an hour too long. Maybe not.

The girls are still pressing their little noses up against the windows and waving at the smiling people at the crossings. They’ve spent the hours reading, playing cards and cuddling with us when the air conditioning got too efficient.

We ate in our seats the lunches we brought from the only fast-food restaurant that allowed us to continue the track theme of the day: Subway.

The girls are eager to get to Philadlephia, but have really enjoyed the trip and will be looking forward to the return ride, which will be maybe two hours too long. Maybe not.

I know now we’re embedding a memory that will have them loving the train the way Val and I do.

“All aboard!” is the phrase most associated with train travel.

Maybe it should be “All are bored!”

It’d be an excellent way to increase ridership.

"All are bored!" Why I prefer trains

The way folk hero Steven Slater quit his job almost makes me wish I had one.

I think it’s healthy these days anytime a disgruntled worker decides to express his or her dissatisfaction without resorting to gunplay.

Shouting a few tart profanities into the intercom, grabbing a beer on the way out and bounding down the inflatable sliding board seems like a perfectly reasonable release in a world where petty rudeness often prevails.

In fact, work place violence could be reduced to near zero, I’m sure, if every office included a giant inflatable escape hatch right next to a big cooler of beer.

If the justice system was interested in justice, Slater would be free and there would be a bounty on the head of the gal who lit his fuse. She is symptomatic of the problems with our worst run industry, the airlines.

Who enjoys flying? Nobody.

I for years have promoted fun ways to make flying better and safer. 

These include things like encouraging seatmates to hold hands; having someone wearing a nun costume aboard every flight; and letting passengers quiz the pilots before takeoff to gauge their states of mind.

I like the idea, too, of having polka music played throughout each flight. It’s impossible to be troubled or tense when a really good oompa band starts cranking up the tubas and clarinets.

But the one I thought of when Slater, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the bouncy “Johnny” character from “Airplane!,” involves turning each flight into a reality game show.

Flight attendants would divide the passengers into two groups. The groups would then ask each other a rapid-fire series of questions to determine who on board is the biggest jerk.

This entertaining in-flight diversion would do wonders for air travel. Everyone’s behavior would have to improve dramatically because the losers would be given parachutes and shoves.

Whenever I hear of something like this Slater incident, I’m always reminded that you never hear of cases of train rage.

“I’ve ridden everything with legs or wheels and nothing beats a train.”

Those were some words of wisdom from my friend, the late John Clouse. He was for years the world’s most traveled man, according to Guinness. He’d been to 343 of the world’s 345 islands, countries or territories.

I love taking the train and have done it dozens of times, mostly to New York City where thanks to reasonable prices in the bar car I’ve never drawn a sober breath.

Really, having a drink on a train as the countryside rolls along will always be among my favorite travel memories. The spacious seats all recline and are the perfect place to spend hours reading or napping.

And the people who travel by train are a much more relaxed breed than frequent fliers. They’re rumpled, happy to engage in conversation, and don’t have that business-like tension crackling off all the big shots on airplanes.

I think it’s because trains are among the last places in the world where you’re at boredom’s mercy. You can’t make the train go faster and you can’t do anything if the train is late or simply comes to a stop for hours -- and that happens all the time. 

I’ll never forget the time my train from Latrobe to Penn Station was seven hours late.

Seven hours!

I just stood there on the unattended platform all by myself. I’d call Amtrak for updates and they’d say, “Well, it could be there in 30 minutes. You’d better just wait there.”

When it finally got there, I got on board expecting passengers in revolt. Yes, I expected train rage.

Instead, I got chicken.

There was no anger, no outrage. I asked a fellow passenger why the place was not in a state of revolt.

“Well, people get on and they’re pretty angry, but most of them understand that these things happen with Amtrak,” he said. “And, hey, they’re giving away free chicken up front!”

It was true. Amtrak sprang for KFC dinners for all the passengers.

Until today, I’d always thought the word “locomotive” had Spanish etymology, with “loco” used to describe the crazy motion of our early trains.

Wrong. It’s a Latin word meaning “from a place.”

Well, that spoils a tidy ending for me. I had been wanting to write that now all the locomotion happens on jet airliners.

So instead of something profound or witty on the Slater situation gripping the country, I’m left with one conclusion.

The colonel makes a damn tasty bird.