Some of my itineraries have seen me changing trains in some slightly unexpected places. It’s all very well spending a layover of a few hours in a big city, but it’s quite often more enjoyable to discover something of a smaller town when you have time to kill between connections.
Schenectady, New York is one such place. I didn’t know of this small town until I started planning a major train trip around the USA last year. It’s the recommending connection point for passengers travelling between Montréal and Chicago. Unfortunately for anyone in the windy city who fancies a train trip to Montréal, the connection only works going west; the east bound ‘Lake Shore Limited’ misses the north bound ‘Adirondack’ by several hours. Although I suppose you could spend the night here.
This is how I first found Schenectady, in April 2006, en route from Montréal to the west coast of the USA. The full post is here.
Schenectady is a tidy little town, and a good example of the peaceful middle America I’m happy to experience for a few hours between trains. The station is small, with the tracks up on a raised embankment through the town centre, and with a small one-box station below. After leaving my bags safe in the station with the friendly attendant (definitely a good mood day for Amtrak staff) I head out to stretch my legs on a short tour of the town. Schenectady’s biggest feature is that it’s the home of General Electric, and also of Thomas Edison. Although as my USA By Rail handbook explains, that’s not how he started life.
Edison’s first job was selling sweets to railroad passengers, money from which he spent on chemistry sets and building a telegraph system out of scrap metal.
Just behind the station you’ll find the Edison Exploratorium (I think that means museum) but’s only available to visit by appointment, according to a sign in the window. I walk for an hour or two, buy some stamps from a stubborn vending machine that doesn’t like my dollar bills, and then look for a place to sit down for a while. While exploring the smaller tree lined streets on the other side of the station, I find a small saloon called Slick’s Bar and Restaurant. It’s more bar and restaurant, though Slick seems to be doing good business with his sandwiches. I’m assuming it was Slick that I saw, because his hair was indeed particularly slick.
I drank a bottle of Samuel Adams, and watched the CBS Evening News that was on a television screen behind the bar. Tonight’s top stories: the average price of gasoline across the States is now $2.86 a gallon (a bargain in the UK); the prices of building materials such as copper and plastic has increased dramatically in the last few months (apparently because of China’s economic boom… all I can say is that you should go into any Wal-Mart and you’ll see straightaway why there’s a boom in China); and also… an exclusive helmet mounted camera view of an Iraqi soldier’s duty in Iraq. I kid you not…
I am delighted to find Slick’s Restaurant again (click here for address and directions). It’s less than five minutes from Amtrak’s centrally located depot, and the small bar is a perfect place to spend some time between trains. Slick isn’t in attendance today, but a friendly waitress takes our order for two sandwiches (which have apparently made the restaurant famous). I take my time examing the unusually wide selection of bottled beers that are on sale, and settle for a not-too-distantly brewed Vermont Porter, which quickly recovers my faith in real American brewing.
This is my travelling companion’s first visit to the USA. She is slightly perterbed but not unsurprised when our sandwiches arrive. Between two thin slices of white bread are crammed dozens of freshly sliced and tightly packed wafers of meat. I chose ham and she chose beef: both sandwiches each way about as much as my Lonely Planet guidebook to the USA, and take almost as long to consume. Neither of us make it onto the second diagonal half of our sandwiches, and almost with a sense of satisfaction, our waitress offers to wrap them for us. We each mumble an acknowledgement of defeat, pay the bill, and scuttle off into the night.
Nonetheless, I look forward to my next layover in Schenectady.
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