NEWS
September 25, 2013 | By Ryan Smith, @ryansmithwriter and For RedEye
Admitting that I'm an Amtrak travel junkie often elicits a shocked double take. Even to CTA users who regularly ride trains of the city variety, the notion of a long-distance trip via rail sounds hopelessly antiquated - as if I were some chap out of a Charles Dickens novel forced to decide between a train, a horse and buggy or a hot air balloon. Yes, I have been made quite aware of the inventions of the automobile and the airplane, but I usually opt instead for a trusty, 19th-century mode of transportation.