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At 84, he has completed his goal of riding all 21,000 miles of the Amtrak network
Amtrak's California Zephyr passes a plateau during its 2,438-mile trip to Emeryville/San Francisco from Chicago.
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He says he's ridden every mile on the Amtrak rail network, and has never grown tired of looking at the country through a train window.
Who is he? Nat Read is a genuine traveler.
Want to listen to the full All Things Considered conversation with Nat Read? Tap the play button at the top of this page.
What's the big deal? For Read, there is a magic to trains that cars and planes just can't capture.
You just can't compete with a train, according to Read.
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Spencer Platt
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What's he saying? Read spoke to NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer about his adventures. Here's what he said:
On the magic of train travel:
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On a train, I sit on the top of a two-story magic carpet while watching a technicolor diorama scrolling beside me as I progress from the mountains to the prairie, from sea to shining sea. And that's unique to railroads. I never tire of coasting to a stop in another small town and watching a cluster of pickup trucks at the station and people coming together, friends and kin, to express their love and their bonding.
On how he felt pulling into the last station in Brunswick:
Oh, I felt euphoria. The conductors on the train made an announcement — "We have on the train today a Mr. Nat Read, who has completed..." — you know, they made the whole announcement. It was actually a rather long announcement, so when we got to the station, people were lining up to have their picture taken with this famous person!
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