John and Marjorie Graves took the train on their honeymoon in 1950 from Los Angeles to St. Louis, then on to Philadelphia. Back then trains were "very exotic," explains John, who recalls large state rooms, club cars with swivel chairs, and passengers who dressed to the nines. In the years following WWII, it was plane, not train, travel that was inefficient. In 1947, John took a flight from Philadelphia to San Diego on an American Airlines DC-3 twin prop that made 13 landings along the way, including a small town in Arizona to drop off mail. "One advantage of the flight is that you saw a lot more by air then because they just didn't get that high." Today, John and Marjorie are taking the train to see the country from a new angle. The news that Amtrak may discontinue some lines spurred them to finally go on the trip that they had put off for nearly a decade after the Sunset Limited route was expanded through Tallahassee.
