Taking the rural stop train tour: 'There’s something remarkable about everywhere.'

Big sky and wide open spaces in Rugby, North Dakota (Photo by Travis Brown, Unsplash)

American songs are replete with tunes about trains. There's "Love Train," "Peace Train," "Girl on a Train, "Crazy Train" and "Stop This Train," to name only a few. But what about "Rural Train"? There doesn't seem to be a song about what happens to a reporter who takes an Amtrak across the United States and has some great times getting off and exploring rural stops. Luckily, there is a newspaper story on just such a journey. 

"If you ride the railroad’s Empire Builder route from Chicago to Seattle and back, as I did recently, you’ll watch the scenery evolve. . . . My pass entitled me only to one coach seat. No bed; no shower; shared bathrooms that, more often than not, looked long overdue for a cleaning," reports Richard Rubin of The New York Times. "But I also met a lot of interesting people on the train. . . . Most memorably, I visited six American places that I would never otherwise have experienced. Or even known about."

Here are a few of his favorite stops.

A view at Glacier National Park
(Photo by M. Kirchman, Unsplash)

Rugby, N.D., population: 2,509
"If the sight of endless prairie doesn’t convince you that you’ve reached the heartland, Rugby will: It is, as signs all over town will tell you, 'the geographical center of North America,'" Rubin writes. "Whether or not this is true, or whether such a status can even be mathematically determined, is disputed. . . . Down Second Street, I found the florist in the spot it has occupied since at least 1903. The 1938 WPA Guide to North Dakota notes that the shop’s founder, Nels Lindberg, is credited with coining the phrase 'Say it with flowers.'"

Cut Bank, Montana, population: 3,056
Cut Bank is the last stop before the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park. The town provides "splendid vistas of the Rockies — without crowds," Rubin writes. The town includes unique lodgings, including "oil workers’ houses, a recreated homesteader’s cabin, or a genuine caboose at the Glacier County Historical Museum, . . ."

Sandpoint, Idaho, population: 8,639
"The Empire Builder stopped at 11 places in Montana, but I saw nothing at any of them that topped Sandpoint — Amtrak’s only stop in Idaho — for raw beauty," Rubin adds. "It sits on Lake Pend Oreille (pondo-RAY), which is surrounded by verdant mountains and runs 43 miles long and nearly 1,200 feet deep. 'The Navy tests stealth submarines in it,' one gentleman told me. (It’s true.)" To read Rubin's complete account of his "Rural Train" adventure, click here.

The seemingly endless coastline of Sandpoint, Idaho (Photo by Backroad Packers, Unsplash)