18 Comments
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Diane’s Blue Forum 👩‍💻's avatar

I love this. You remind me of my post-college Eurailpass days—I loved train travel!

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

Thank you -- I'm glad! It's such a wonderful way to see the world.

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Diane’s Blue Forum 👩‍💻's avatar

My point of departure was Stenungsund, Sverige to everywhere north and south ‼️

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

Sounds like a truly beautiful trip.

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Caroline McCormick-Clarke🐆🧀🎨✍️'s avatar

This was beautifully written and brings back very special memories of my own coast to coast train journey from New York to San Fran in 2014 to celebrate my 50th birthday. Thank you.

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

Oh, how wonderful! Did you take the same route? I think I remember that there were two ways one could go. I’m so glad that this brought that back.

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Caroline McCormick-Clarke🐆🧀🎨✍️'s avatar

Same route from Chicago to Denver. I can remember watching Nebraska at night and arriving in Denver in the morning. Dawdled a few days in Denver and then onwards over the Rockies to Grand Junction and then took a detour by road to Monument Valley and Grand Canyon via the old steam train from Durango-Silverton. Rejoined train at Flagstaff and then onwards to LA and San Fran.

Crossing the river Mississippi by train was special.

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

My heavens. What a wonderful trip.

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Renate Harrison's avatar

The United States is such a beautiful country. Thank you for the lovely tour.

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

Thank you — I’m so glad you liked it!

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June Girvin's avatar

What a wonderful post! I really enjoyed that!

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

I'm glad. Hoped it might be enjoyable, if only as a little diversion!

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Deborah Vass's avatar

This makes me want to go on a long train journey again. It is full of such lovely observations and descriptions. A very happy diversion!

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

I'm so glad!

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James Lee's avatar

Loved this. There’s something magical about long train journeys. The stream of unfolding landscapes. The steady beat of soporific sounds. The dreaminess of it all. 🌿🎶

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

Yes, exactly! Am so glad you enjoyed it.

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K.J. Wilsdon's avatar

Have you seen the photographs taken by Katie Edwards, through a train window? She is on Facebook and Instagram.

She says “I thought of the train as a sort of mobile chronotope, providing a continuous thread through which diverse places and moments were interconnected. Each photograph taken from the train window would be a fragment of a larger narrative, where the journey itself became a storyline that traversed different geographical and cultural landscapes. The compression of space into a confined train window frame, juxtaposed with the slow unfolding nature of a train journey, allowed me to experience and document the nation in a way that captured both the immediacy of the present and the continuity of travel over time.”

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Maria (Linnesby essays)'s avatar

Lovely!

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