Sarah and I returned from Canada today.  It was a very nice trip.  The hotel was beautiful, we had fun and didn't lose all that much money at the casino, and we enjoyed a day at La Ronde, which appeared to me hiding the fact that it's actually owned by Six Flags.

As I stated before, we decided to take the trip by rail, via Amtrak's Adirondack service.  Though I am a big fan of the railroads, I'd never actually used a non-commuter railroad as a means of transport for pleasure.  I'd used New Jersey Transit (plus the other commuter rail systems in the New York metropolitan area) plenty of times to get into and around Manhattan, and Amtrak to get from RPI to my parents' house (technically, to New York, then NJT to my parents'), but never before have I taken a trip like this.  Now having done it, I'm glad that I did, and would definitely consider taking another trip.

Friday started out reasonably.  We got to Schenectady station a little early, only to find out that the train was running a bit behind.  To complicate things a bit more, a southbound train was also running behind, and was blocking the single-track line.  Our train made it to just east of the station, but sat there for a while waiting for the southbound.  Once the southbound left, our train pulled in, loaded up, and pulled out.  We probably pulled out at around noon, about 45 minutes behind schedule.

The ride north was pretty slow.  It would appear that Canadien National's track is in need of a bit of repair.  The line was a bit rough in some parts, and we were running with some drastic speed restrictions through many areas.  While our train was pulling into the station in Schenectady, actually, a CN rail train snuck by us to start heading up the line.  I was concerned that we might be stuck behind it for a large portion of the trip, but unlike CSX, CN actually follows the FRA mandate that Amtrak trains should get priority when possible.  We quickly passed the track train, which was holed at the very next yard north of Schenectady.

We made our way northward, slowly but surely at times, through the farms that really aren't all that far away from here, then along the banks of the absolutely beautiful Lake Champlain.  The line runs in a cut which is literally right on the shore.  The designers of the railroad could have opted to put their line a few more feet inland, which would have left a line of trees between the rail and the lake, but they instead opted to give their passengers some spectacular views to look at.  Very impressive and thoughtful, for a line that is nearly 150 years old.

North of Lake Champlain (which, by the way, is in view for probably about half of the trip), we passed through some dairy farms, and then the border to Canada.  Shortly after the border, the train stopped and was boarded by Canadian border patrol officers, who interviewed all of the passengers, determining whatever it is that border patrol officers do.  This check took longer than anticipated, for whatever reason, which put us even further behind schedule, but, as the French would say, c'est la vie.  The trip from the border to Montréal was much of the same; slow moving due to track construction, and we arrived at about 8:00, making the total trip time about 8 hours.

The trip back down today was similar, though apparently a number of the speed restrictions were lifted, as we did hit much higher speeds today.  We were delayed a bit, again because of trains occupying single-tracked areas, and also because of work.  We actually passed the track train that we'd see on Friday, which was on a siding and actively laying track.  Though I only caught a quick glimpse of it as we passed, it was the first and only time I've ever actually seen a tracklayer in action.  It's quite an impressive machine.  Anyway, we arrived back in Schenectady without issue.  Interestingly, the customs officers on the way down seemed to process us faster than on the way up.  Much of this is probably due to the fact that the bulk of the train's passengers were US citizens, who were processed very quickly, but it seemed to me that the Canadian family that was sitting behind us was processed much more quickly than we were on our way up.

Anyway, now that I've made that nice long story, I can finally get to my point...  Now having done it myself, I can say with confidence that for intermediate-distance trips, I believe that train travel is far superior to any other means of transportation.  Now, one might argue that we could have gotten from Schenectady to Montréal much quicker by car or airplane than by train.  To those arguments I give the following counterpoints:

• Driving would have taken about 4 hours, not including rest stops.  Figuring those in, plus time in customs, it probably would have been closer to 6.  A 6 hour car trip is very tiring, and in the end, would have ended with the same result: a full day travel in each direction.
• I-87 is boring.  There's really no scenery to look at, and for the driver, that doesn't really matter.  On the train, we both had beautiful scenery to watch.
• The FAA requests that passengers arrive at airports two hours before departing on international flights.  As the train is guaranteed not to leave early (even if the train was running ahead of schedule, the train would have sat in the station until the scheduled departure time), we technically didn't need to be at the station until about 5 minutes before our scheduled departure, though we planned to be there half an hour early.  This meant we needed to leave our house at 10:30 for the 11:15 train.  We would have had to leave at approximately 8:45 for a flight leaving at the same time (granted this is partly due to the fact that the airport is a half hour drive, whereas the train station is about 3 minutes away).
• Once arriving in Montréal by air, we would have had to stand in line for possibly several hours while going through customs.  On the train, we got to sit in the comfortable seats in the coach while watching a movie on Sarah's portable DVD player while waiting for the border patrol agents to come to us.
• Amtrak's coaches have much larger and more comfortable seats than those of coach-class on any aircraft I've ever been on.  The size and legroom actually rivals that of first-class seats on most major airlines.  And forget about comparing the seats to those of a car.  Maybe you could compare them to the seats in an RV, but I don't own an RV.  Besides, you can't recline in the driver's seat of a car (ok, you can, but that would be pretty stupid (and illegal)).
• The train is much quieter than an airplane, and does not produce sounds in the range that have been shown to cause significant drowsiness.  For the most part, the sound of the ventilation system onboard the coaches is louder than the sounds made by the train being in motion.

I could go on with my list, but it's late and I really don't feel like it anymore.  Basically, if you haven't gotten it by now, I'm saying that the train is better than flying for trips that would take about a "day" of travel regardless of the means.  If you don't believe me, try it out.  If you don't like it, don't do it again.  It's really not all that expensive, so you won't be out very much in either case.