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Meals in the dining car work like so: If you’re in a sleeper car, an attendant walks through midmorning and takes reservations; you’re handed a slip of paper with the time and number of people in your party. At the appointed hour, an announcement is made inviting those holding reservations to appear at the threshold of the dining car. If you’re in a party smaller than four, you’ll be placed at the next open table, leading to stochastic seating arrangements that create unexpected social and cultural adjacencies.
In the course of my travels, I chatted with postmasters, real estate agents, nuclear engineers, schoolteachers, farm equipment saleswomen, nurses, long haul truck drivers, retirees headed to the Grand Canyon, retirees headed back from the Grand Canyon, a sea-steading software engineer, a prominent TV personality, a cowboy, a national park trail crew leader, an aspiring music publicist, a public utility employee focused on solar energy who nevertheless professed to be a climate change skeptic, a flight attendant, an actuary, an air conditioner salesman, two ultramarathoners, and two train enthusiasts who met on an online forum and now maintain a food blog documenting everything that they eat during their trips. The list goes on.
