Of all the transcontinental Amtrak routes, the Sunset Limited had always interested me the least. It does not offer the mountain grandeur of more northerly routes, but I have found since my very first long-distance train trip that I am fully content gazing at the passing landscape, even if it is monotonous. Louisiana, Texas, Texas and more Texas, followed by the desert of the American Southwest would offer its own beauty, and I would watch all 1,995 miles of it over the course of 45 hours.

I boarded the Cardinal at Newark Penn Station on a Friday morning with a mix of pandemic trepidation and the usual excitement of a train trip. This was a workday for me, so as the train sped down the familiar Northeast corridor to Philadelphia, and onward through Wilmington and Baltimore to Washington, DC, I opened my laptop to get as much work done as possible before the scenery became more interesting.

Following the routes of one of the most famous trains of the last century, the Lake Shore Limited makes an overnight trip from New York to Chicago in 18 hours, drawing more than 350,000 riders annually. Though the route via Albany, Buffalo and Cleveland seems circuitous on a map, geographically it makes sense.