Walking through the soaring, very 21st-century Moynihan Train Hall in midtown Manhattan is a blur of mostly young, heads-down, earbud-wearing, iPhone-wielding travelers, elbowing their way to waiting trains.
Flash back a century, and this scene looks very different: Well-heeled travelers in formal attire are trailed by staff, toting Louis Vuitton steamer trunks and hat boxes, King Charles Spaniels on the leash. Leisurely, they make their way to giant steam-powered trains growling two stories below what was then the Beaux Arts Pennsylvania Station.
In this nostalgic reverie, it is deep into the winter of 1915, aboard the legendary locomotive the Florida Special. Its 250 passengers are just settling in for the 1300-mile voyage from New York to West Palm Beach, as the train rumbles out of the tunnel that runs under the Hudson River and barrels into a howling January Nor’easter. Onboard that frigid night, the passengers, most of them affluent New Yorkers, are kept comfortable with vicuna throws, warmed whiskey, and the steam generated by the churning engine that’s piped throughout the seven elegantly appointed rail cars.
There is not a worry in the world. In 36 hours, the passengers—and their staff—warmed by the late afternoon Florida sun, will be greeted by porters at their destination and transported by carriage to railroad tycoon Henry Morrison Flagler’s celebrated Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach. Legend has it he consulted a team of meteorologists to locate where the warm waters of the Gulf Stream came closest to the American coastline.
They would spend the next few months attending nightly orchestra performances, yacht races, and tea dances. A mule-drawn trolley would transport revelers to the beach. For swimming, guests had their choice of two pools, one with sulfur water or one with ocean salt water.
And, so, with a book, a backpack, and a warm sense of nostalgia, I set out on a cold, blustery afternoon on Amtrak’s Silver Meteor to retrace the tracks that led to Flagler’s tropical paradise. Full disclosure: As the grandson of an Irish American who started out working on coal cars for the old New York Central Railroad in Albany, I have an unshakable, romantic attachment to the railroad. But we have to be realistic.
The current Silver Meteor, from New York to Miami, is neither silver nor capable of meteoric speed. The journey—and it feels like a journey—takes 26 hours on an often-bumpy track bed. As sleek and modern as the Moynihan terminal is, the trains waiting below have a time-worn feel. Right before boarding, I speak with an older couple, both Air Force veterans, who had just stepped off the northbound Silver Meteor. I ask them about the ride. “Kind of dirty,” says the wife, a Reservist trauma nurse who was posted in Fallujah during the Surge in the Iraq war. She smiles. “But an adventure.”
Read the full story and see more exclusive images in PALMER Vol 5, available for purchase now.