$18 Indy to Chicago

The reader must excuse my stretch of topic on this post. Normally, I write here only about generosity, giving, and closely related topics. Today I write about travel by train.

Actually, if you think of the topic of this blog as not merely generosity, but "good stewardship" then the topic of saving expenses by travelling by train is easily within my mandate here...

Justification aside, I just want to share this with you...

I travel a lot for my work with Wycliffe. Both the work and the travel are a joy. But in an effort to save expenses (one of the best ways to insure funding for thew field work), I've begun to think about ways to seriously reduce travel expenses.

Hertz, my favorite care rental company, rents "green" cars that get better gas mileage. Nice.

But then I thought of Amtrak and my long-held wish that the US had an interstate or intercity train network. A friend told me the fuel consumption for the train, per rider, equates to a small fraction of driving your own car.

"Wow," I thought, "I could greatly reduce my footprint on the earth, and save cash? Why wouldn't I?!"

So I just booked my first online Amtrak ticket from Indianapolis to Chicago. Price: $18.00! To rent a car for the 4-plus hour, white-knuckle drive would be at least $35, plus the gas at about $20 or $30... I just saved more than 70% of the cost to get up there! And, I will have the four hours I would have been driving to sit, and get some work done on the laptop. Nice!

Also, at the end of the booking, the following was listed. Interesting. Amtrak is smart enough to see that some of its users are environmentally-minded folks and offers them one more way to tread lightly: