Best Trips and Fun Family Adventure Travel

It may be "cheating" to list this as an individual top trip, because we've made more than 25 trips on the Adirondack between New York and Montreal and 10 or so to Quebec City, but each is special and as a group, nothing beats them: the scenery is world–class along both the Hudson River, along Lake Champlain and as the train crosses the St. Lawrence River into Montreal. Both cities offer romance, history, culture and, of course, outstanding food. They also have splendid summer festivals, great points of interest nearby, and the station parking is some of the best in North America. Unfortunately, with the advent of "incompatible" British railroad cars on the route to Quebec, this lovely city has become a much more expensive and difficult destination.

How can NYC 3's maiden voyage not make the highlights page? Talk about being both excited and nervous! I flew to Jacksonville alone to pick up the car and "bring it home." With the car coming straight out of the rebuild shop, I had a high degree of confidence in it mechanically when a gentleman approached me who claimed to be the mechanic assigned to the "Georgia 300" private car. He asked to talk to "my mechanic" and I explained that I was chief cook and bottle–washer. He then asked if I had any idea how many things can go wrong with a railroad car and how I dared to travel without a personal mechanic.

He scared me, but my reply holds true today: "There are three types of potential problems. (1) Small inconveniences like a leaky faucet or overflowing toilet that I can fix myself en–route; (2) "big" inconveniences like an air conditioning breakdown that might not be repairable while traveling, but which I can get fixed by a contractor at the end of the trip; (3) and huge calamities (like a derailment or hot box) that could require the car to be set out and abandoned on some Godforsaken siding. Such problems may require derricks and bringing in truckloads of equipment such as spare wheel sets––and his little plastic box of tools wouldn't be any help at all in such a disaster! (What would be required would be heroic problem solving skills and a strong cell phone battery.)

Within an hour of this squeamish moment, our train was traveling along at speed and I was watching the sun setting behind us. The sleeping car attendant rang the doorbell and asked if I'd mind showing the car to an attractive lady who was a passenger in his car. Glad to accommodate (and pretty proud of the new acquisition), I walked with her to the open rear platform where, within about two minutes, she cozied up to me and said "isn't this romantic?" The squeamishnesss returned. Of course, I've always remembered that moment. In fact, I briefly wondered if it might happen on every single trip – but that was the only time!

This trip was special because of three factors: (1) On–board chemistry (= love!); (2) a special event and (3) creativity and sense of adventure of the client who helped plan the trip and jumped at every creative idea.

The event was a graduation party at Middlebury College in central Vermont. Middlebury isn't served by Amtrak, but Rutland is – and there is a freight railroad, Vermont Rail Systems, that travels from Rutland, via Middlebury, to Burlington where they have a wonderful old turn table on the shores of Lake Champlain.

The client arranged to take his entire extended family, from aged grand parents to young children, to Rutland (they boarded NYC 3 at almost all stops between Washington, D. C. and Albany, NY) and he then housed them overnight at his nearby mountain home. Our mutual goal was to take the railroad car and not only the family guests but lots of family friends and the graduate's college friends to Middlebury on the day of the actual graduation ceremonies. For this, we hired a locomotive and crew from Vermont Rail Systems, and also hired a bus. One group of passengers boarded in Rutland while the rest of the folks took the bus to Middlebury. When the car arrived in Middlebury, everybody disembarked and went to the graduation. Then, a second group boarded the railroad car for the trip to Burlington while the bus paralleled the train. At Burlington, we all had a "turn the car on the turntable" festival and then split the groups up again for the return trip to Middlebury and then on to Rutland. All in all, more than 80 guests were accommodated.

Working with a short line railroad, this wonderful special train was not inexpensive, but it was still a "very good deal". Unfortunately, it would have been impossible with a larger railroad.

As mentioned earlier, Montreal is always a great trip. But adding Jonquière raised the interest level to a new high. The city is some 300 miles north and slightly East of Montreal, where the Saguenay River leaves Lac St.Jean - one of the largest lakes in Canada. Shortly, it becomes the Saguenay Fjord, where riverboats offer fjord tours and whale watching. The entire area offers a variety of high quality tourist attractions and scenery and is clearly worth a 3–day visit, but the highlight of the trip is the scenery on the way to and from the city: almost all of the route involves slow–speed travel alongside water, ranging from lakes and small streams to crashing rivers and falls. The time table shows 40+ station stops – but in reality, almost all are flag stops for various fishing camps.

Every once in a while, we do special excursions behind steam locomotives. Once, we rode behind the Milwaukee Road 261 between Kansas City and Minneapolis. It was incredibly fun, but the sound and power of the locomotive dissipated quickly in the plains and the speed rarely exceeded 60 mph. The 1996 trip to Port Jervis was legendary entrepreneur and showman Ross Rowland's first excursion in the Northeast behind ex C&O 4–8–4 # 614. Ross, who envisioned and "sold" the Freedom Train to the world, assembled a train and ran it to and from Port Jervis, NY at speeds exceeding 80 mph. The engine strained up and over major summits and almost all of the running was either in cuts or a corridor of trees so that the throbbing sounds "stayed" with the train until even the last car had passed. No need to go to the car behind the locomotive to hear the sounds – just sit on the platform of NYC 3, shut your eyes, and listen to some wonderful classic railroad music. In terms of "sounds", this trip even exceeded the "authentic" Freedom Train event in 2005, where NYC 3 traveled behind the Freedom Train locomotive itself––SP 4449––between Wishram, Washington and Portland, Oregon.

This remains our longest and one of our most wonderful trips out of more than a dozen different transcontinental journeys. Shortly before the trip, VIA Rail Canada had approved a private car tariff after I had been negotiating with them for more than a year. Their Train # 2, the Canadian, was running at close to 30 cars from Vancouver to Toronto and they allocated one specific date in September and one in October for a private car to gain access to the train. NYC 3 traveled eastbound as the first private car behind the Canadian's domed observation car while Roman Arnoldy and his Intrepid traveled west on approximately the same schedule; we overlapped and visited each other in Seattle.

But the trip was not without problems – a major hurricane struck the East Coast the day our trip was to begin and flooded the entire Northeast Corridor. Absolutely no trains left New York that day and our passengers were stranded en–route to the car. We managed to get Amtrak to put NYC–3 on the very first train out of New York the next day, collected passengers at various points along the way, and we reached Chicago two hours ahead of our departure on the Southwest Chief. We made the Chief and thereby ensured our arrival in Vancouver for the one–day window of opportunity on the Canadian, where we were treated like visiting royalty. The clouds parted for Mt. Robeson shortly before arrival in Jasper, and our three day stay in Jasper combined short sleeve weather with a brief blizzard and lots of mountain vistas and wildlife sightings – including a quick view of a mountain lion shortly after departing for Winnipeg. Literally NOTHING can compare with traveling transcontinentally on the rear of the Canadian!

Some simple trips involve great destinations. Here, NYC 3 is the featured guest at Grand Central Terminal's 1999 rededication ceremonies. J.F. Kennedy, Jr. visited the car at this time, just prior to his fatal plane crash.

Passengers love the full moons while traveling westbound, but nothing equals the "typical" eastbound sunset while traveling in the far West.

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Summer 2000 – New York, Montreal, Halifax, Quebec City – trip to see Operation Sail 2000 and the Tall Ships:

Several thousand mile trip with wonderful scenery, perfect weather, great cuisine, etc.––all centered around one of the great events of the century. We – our guests as well as the car itself – actually became a part of the tall ship celebration and shared newspaper space with the ships. The on–board chemistry of the passengers was extraordinary. Every video we took of the trip while at Halifax or at the International Fireworks Festival in both Montreal and Quebec, has bands playing in the background. We not only have an award–winning movie of an incredible trip, but an award–winning sound track as well.

All of Operation Sail 2000 in Halifax "happened" within about 200 feet from our parking place. There the 7 largest ships were moored, the fireworks were detonated, the Parade of the Cadets began and all the bands played.

The photo is from New Orleans, but the event--a musical departure--is a feature of many departures throughout the continent.