Trains, Planes and Automobiles...

Call me a romantic but I've always been a sucker for trains. There's just something intangible about traveling by rail. Something both old and new at the same time.

Trains were the first modern conveyance that truly change the scale of the world and how people saw distance. They shrunk the gap between places and brought people together in a way like never before.

But unlike by car, people traveling by train are face to face with their fellow travelers. Conversations spring up spontaneously as people gratefully pick up fragments of their native language whether it be French, German or English. Tales and smiles are exchanged with frequency and ease.

An automobile is literally a bubble of steel and glass that infer upon it's drivers both a sense of invincibility and invisibility. People can lose themselves behind the wheel of a car. It can be an isolating experience.

Rail travel across Europe is as pervasive as car travel is in California. I've lost track of the number of trains, trams and subways I've been on since touching down in Switzerland. As far as I can tell, it's efficient, affordable and comfortable.

So as I watch the picturesque French countryside roll by at speeds the Amtrak trains back home can only dream of, I can only hope that such a high speed rail system is not too far off in our future.

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