A couple of years ago my son and I traveled from Washington DC to Cincinnati Ohio to visit relatives. My son regularly pores over the Amtrak route descriptions and schedules, and I fondly remembered a few long-distance train trips I took in years past, so we knew we wanted to take the train.

In the interests of time, and because trains on that route don't run every day, we flew one way (to Cincinnati) and returned via the Cardinal. The Cardinal from Cincinnati is an all-day trip, leaving at about 5 AM and getting in to DC at about 8 or 9 PM. We got a very cheap flight and just "wasted" the return portion. On Amtrak my son got half fare, so the cost was pretty reasonable. Amtrak does offer "air-rail" fares to do the same thing, but it wasn't advantageous for our route--works better for coast-to-coast trips.

Our trip on the Cardinal began in Cincinnati, at the spectacular train station, which has been fully restored and now houses museums, an IMAX, and a room-sized working scale model of the city. The Station itself looks like a giant Crosley radio. You really need to visit the station-museum-complex the day before you take the train, though, as the Cardinal leaves for Washington at something like 5 AM.

The route is mainly through mountainous West Virginia, and the scenery was quite beautiful even in bleak January, with a minimum of daylight hours. We chose to take a sleeper room (with two sofas during the day) even though it's a daytime train, because we wanted comfort: however, we'd have been happier with the much cheaper coach, because a sleeper only has one window and all the "good" scenery was inevitably on the other side of the train! You'd get a better view from coach, and be at least equally comfortable. The dining car was fun, with interesting companions (four people share a table), and the food was good.

The Cardinal has a guide come on board the train to narrate via loudspeaker and point out the sights during several hours of the West Virginia portion (in the West-East direction only). The Cardinal actually begins in Chicago and overnights to Cincinnati.

The only downside to the trip was a disinfectant smell that we didn't notice anymore after we'd been on board about half an hour, and the lunchtime attendant in the Dining Car who decided to switch off the Dining Car's loudspeaker so we weren't able to hear the guide during lunch. The attendant wasn't too impressed with all that talk, and when we asked her about the highly scenic Victorian-era station we'd just passed and (but missed seeing) she said "Oh, that's just some old train station".

I'd recommend this train trip if you have the time and if it suits your itinerary. A Mudcatter or two is always welcome to stay here, in the close-in Washington DC suburbs. The Metro (subway) runs directly from Union Station in DC to here.

--Linda Goodman