GOING AWAY

Should you travel on the train?

Lots of people in Charlotte may not know this, but we have a train station.
It's just north of uptown, off Tryon Street, and adjacent to Norfolk-Southern's railyard.

It won't win any architectural prizes.
Amtrak rolls through a few times a day, and last fiscal year, about 115,000 people got on or off a train here. For context, that's about 1.

5 percent of the roughly 8 million people who get on or off an airplane at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport annually.
So who are they? And should you be one of them?

Judging by my recent trip, there are a few business people going to Raleigh. The elderly. Students.

And this time of year, there are schoolchildren -- lots and lots of schoolchildren. At one point, 138 kids and chaperones invaded the train in Salisbury for a nearby field trip.
As to your destination options, there aren't many.

You can't easily go west. You can't go to the beach. Any trip to Atlanta requires you to leave the station at 2:45 a.

m. and arrive at 8:13 a.m.

All practical destinations are to the northeast -- Raleigh, Richmond, Va., Washington, D.C.

, and beyond.
Here's how a trip to Washington stacks up by Amtrak, car and airplane. Let's pretend you are taking two adults and a child.

The fastest way to reach the nation's capitol by train is on the Crescent, which takes 8 hours and 7 minutes, according to the Amtrak's schedule. But that train leaves Charlotte at 2:03 a.m.

, so scratch that. The more practical train -- the Carolinian -- leaves at 7:40 a.m.

It takes 9 hours and 28 minutes.
Like airlines, Amtrak prices its seats based on supply and demand, though I didn't find any difference in price between a trip next week and a trip in mid-July.
For a mid-July weekend trip to Washington, it costs $340 to take two adults and a child roundtrip.

(Children under 2 ride for free, and you can place them in their own seat without a ticket. But if the train sells out, you are putting them in your lap.)
Let's compare that to other ways of getting there.

It's 400 miles from Charlotte to Washington, D.C., by car.

Assuming you average 65 miles an hour and stop a couple of times, you'll get there in about 7 hours. With gas at $3.15 a gallon, you'll spend about $100 getting there and back -- not counting the wear and tear on your car.

Having a car in D.C. gives you mobility if you want to see outlying areas, but it also means that if you are staying inside the city you may have to pay to park at your hotel.

Assuming you are staying three nights, that can cost up to $75.
Flying is fastest, of course. But assuming you want to fly nonstop into Reagan National Airport -- which has a Metro stop -- you are at the mercy of US Airways.

For a summer flight, that will likely cost upwards of $300 a ticket. Changing planes can push the cost down to around $225 a ticket, though your trip will take about 4 hours, or 5 hours when you include the time getting to the airport and getting through security.
You can usually get much cheaper flights to Washington Dulles and Baltimore-Washington Airport, but then you are far from the city.

And now back to the train. The train stops at Union Station, which is a stone's throw from the U.S.

Capitol and connected to the Metro. Counting the time to get to the station, you'll have written off 10 hours for $340.
So what's that time like?

The Charlotte train station has free parking, which is a plus, because not even the closest friends will be thrilled with giving you a ride to catch a 7:40 a.m. train.

Based on one round-trip between Charlotte and Salisbury last week, the train itself isn't spotless -- it's dirtier than an in-state train that runs between Charlotte and Raleigh -- but it's no worse than the typical airplane that's been flying all day. The Carolinian starts its journey in Charlotte, so there shouldn't be newspapers and food lying about when you board.
Unfortunately, the train doesn't have big windows.

They are bigger than the oval windows in airplanes, but they don't give you a panoramic view of the countryside.
There are clusters of seats facing each other reserved for families, and there are power outlets so you can work on your laptop, or pacify your children with a portable DVD player.
The food options aren't going to make Zagat.

The Crescent overnight train has a dining car, but the Carolinian has a "cafe car." Think soft drinks, nachos, pizzas and breakfast bagels.
But there are big tables.

You could play cards while eating, or spread out a newspaper in its entirety, without worrying about the guy next to you.
You might even forget you have five more hours to go.