Everyone crowded into the train station like sardines. “Alllllllll aboarrrd!” The conductor shouts. It rings through my head, taking me back for a second to Model Ts chugging around, horse carriages pulling up to the station in a flurry of dust and activity, while men in trousers, loose shirts, and hats lift trunks off of the carriage. Black coal smoke rises into the air as the train is about to take off. I\u2019m surrounded by steam engines, hard-sided luggage, big trunks, and so many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m jostled around out of my daydream and back to the present, as a woman with a latte pushes into me. Next, the person in front of me stops to take a picture with his smartphone as I swerve out of the way at the last minute. Soon the crowd pours out of the Anchorage station and onto the tracks. The times have changed, but I believe that the level of excitement and anticipation is the same as it was decades ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s something exciting about boarding a train; the bustle, the sounds, the goodbyes, and the anticipation of what is to come. I clutch my camera as I step up onto the train, excited to see the Alaskan landscape from a different perspective \u2013 a slow-rolling one.<\/p>\n\n\n