Phil has a memorable train journey to share with others and writes:

My most unusual train experience occurred west of Omaha, Nebraska on the Rio Grande. I had been reading about trains and the importance of a slow start until the slack was taken out of the couplers. At each station I could feel a jerk as the wooden coach I was in started. I wondered whether the engineer was in too big a hurry. Sure enough two stations later we started with a jerk and stopped. After a long wait the conductor told us that we were waiting for a coupler to be repaired.