My Future Trips, part 1 & 2

Looking ahead, I had planned out a trip to Memphis TN. Two railfan attractions and a few others, makes Memphis a good trip. We have a hanging monorail and streetcars in Memphis. Using Amtrak website, a trip to Memphis, had to go via Chicago. Another option, but not good, would to go via New Orleans. Via Chicago meant arriving in Chicago in the morning and leaving in the evening, both going and coming. I would arrive in Memphis in the morning and leave in the evening. So, I would have two days in Chicago, which could be used for site-seeing and rail-fanning. The connection in Washington is too short to be reliable so I would have to spend the night there. I came up with another, more expensive but nice option. Instead of spending the night in DC, take the overnight train to Boston and take the Lake Shore Ltd to Chicago. I would still have the overnight, but on a train. The return trip from Chicago would be via The Cardinal, through WVa. But spending the night in Manassas, VA which would give me a different set of views.

I also had planned three trip to Florida. The first and easiest was North Florida: Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville. The next was to Miami and finally, to north and south Florida. During the panning of this trip, there was the development and first operation of Brightline, high  speed train. One improvement will not come for a coupe of years will be the Miami to Orlando run. Now it only goes to South Palm Beach. I might wait to the expansion starts. Taking the Silver service to Orlando and Brightline to Miami.

Both these plans were redrawn to use flying as an option to Amtrak.