“You’re taking the Vermonter.”

It’s a statement, not a question. We are accessing the waiting area at Penn Station, ready for our long train trip north to Saint Albans, Vermont. It’s a ticketed area: passengers only allowed.

”Yes … how did you know that?” He hasn’t seen our ticket yet.

”Its the only train that lets you take bikes on board.”

Yeah.

Good old Amtrak. They make a bit of a song and dance on their website about travelling with your bike. Maybe there’s other services in other parts of the country where it’s possible, but for this trip we’ve been stymied by the inability to use trains. We are unable to travel to Montreal by train with the bikes. We are unable to travel back to New York from Niagara Falls. By a stroke of luck, Neil found a service – the Vermonter – which would take our bikes, and land us about 100km from Montreal.

So we’re here. Still a little jetlagged, but we’ve negotiated travelling by bike from our accommodation in Jamaica to Jamaica station, the purchase of a “forever” bike pass for the Long Island Rail Road – the train we use to get to Penn station – and have even done a dry run, taking the train to Penn Station and figuring out all the elevators and tracks and even where we might eat before the trip.

They told us yesterday to get here at least 45 minutes before the train. I don’t know why. They only notify you of the track number 15 minutes before train time. Then it is an unholy dash to get to the track and get boarded.

Because we did  the dry run we are fairly well prepared. And we luck out and get track 7. There’s an elevator all the way from the concourse down to that track. For other tracks, you have to take two elevators, and that’s not easy with laden bikes, especially in cramped, urine-smelling elevators.

You never know what you are going to find on the train in terms of bike storage. In the past we’ve had separate compartments, have put the bikes in a separate carriage, and have hung them from hooks in a passenger carriage. This particular train has special compartments for the bikes. Only one per carrriage, and only three of them, total.

You have to remove the front wheel, hang the bike by the back wheel, and try to lash it in so it doesn’t swing all over the place while the train is in motion. And chances are, you may not get a seat near the bike, because there is no reserved seating.

They also said yesterday that this train often runs late. And yes, it leaves the station late because we have to wait for another, connecting, train. And we get delayed, having to change engines from electric to diesel at New Haven, Connecticut. And then our train just dawdles its way along through Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont until we finally reach Saint Albans, our destination. The onboard guard tells us that we are going to have to move right to the back of the train to exit. The station platform is not long enough, and the train will block the road if we exit from our carriage door, right near the front.

“But we have bikes!”

He relents, and the train stops, blocking the roadway, while we quickly get our bikes and luggage off.

Our hotel The Hampton Inn is close by. The train is half an hour late. It is nearly 9:30pm. We dump our bags and run to the nearest open restaurant, which happens to be a pub, and happens to be only serving “late night” food. Read that as fried, brown food. We have potato skins, fried green beans and fried mozzarella sticks. And local beer.

While we stuff our mouths with artery blocking food we chat with a red-bearded man from Denver who is in town to perform gas storage inspections at nearby Alberg. He tells us about the baseball we see on TV – the Home Run Derby that runs around the time of the All Stars game.

While the best of the best baseballers are in the All Stars, the best of the next-to-best participate in a home run competition, where they just try to hit as many home runs as possible in a given number of balls. I’m asounded that a trumped up mid-season filler can draw a stadium full of fans, but it does. Red-beard is a baseball fan, but not fond of this manufactured competion. We are baseball novices, but recognise how well beer and fried food match with the game.