Why is the American train station symbol so
complicated? The airport symbol is a
picture of a plane, the bus station symbol is a picture of a bus, but the train
station symbol is a picture of a building and platform with a train on rails headed
toward the viewer head-on while a person stands on the platform
to board. Also, who looks at a train
head-on like that?
Getting on a train is a lot easier than getting on a
plane. When you take a plane, you have
to find the right terminal, check in online or using that complicated boarding
pass dispensing machine, check your oversized bags for twenty-five dollars,
then wait in a security line where you empty your pockets and remove your belt
and shoes and pull your laptop out of its case and put everything into those
plastic bins while you try to keep your pants from falling down. With the train, though, you just kind of go
to the station and get on, and it’s really easy.
The routines of flying also get to me. Like, the flight attendants have to explain
the same safety procedures each time you fly, repeating the same motions over
and over until they lose all meaning. Or you have to watch those videos where you hear about exit rows and oxygen masks
and flotation devices, which you’ve also heard about a million times, and the
whole thing is so well orchestrated that no one pays attention. The trains are different because you can tell
the people on the intercoms are just kind of making everything up as they go,
since the head of Amtrak hasn’t given them a script to follow.
Why do flight attendants give out free drinks on
planes? I always take one, even though I
never really want a drink that badly.
Train conductors are too busy for that shit.
Flight attendants always appear extremely well-groomed and
the women always wear a lot of make-up, like they’re trying to make flying more
sexual. The train workers wear uniforms
too, but you can tell that the dress codes aren’t as strict since their jackets
are often too loose and their shirts are untucked, since they’re
really just there to work and you’re just there to get where you’re
going.
I also rode a Greyhound bus where the driver took smoke
breaks outside with the passengers.
He gave a long, anecdotal explanation of the bus rules, telling us not
to gab on about who was sleeping with who or who said what on Facebook because
it was distracting to other passengers, and warned us that if we were caught
with drugs he’d pull over to the side of the highway and wait ninety minutes
for the police. This was more
entertaining that listening to a bunch of FAA legalese.
Another bus driver began our trip by saying that if we were
having a problem with anyone on the bus, he would come back and take care of it
personally. No pilot in the history of
flying has ever said anything that badass.
A piece like this could have probably earned me the AmtrakResidency.
