Train riders have more fun

Above: the commute to Coachella, courtesy of the LA Times.

Global Inheritance, a group focused on creative youth activism, chartered an Amtrak train last week to transport about 300 music fans from LA's Union Station to a newly-built train platform in Indio, California: the site of last week's Coachella Valley Music Festival.

The LA Times reports:

"As train rides go, it was definitely a trip. Fashionably scruffy L.A. music fans, many scanning their text messages more than the view out their windows, chugged Coronas, ate free ice cream and bobbed to the thumping beats of four disc jockeys set up in corners of the six-car express train. It was a decidedly 21st century remix of the classic concert road trip..."

Sounds like fun to me. I'm reminded that as recently as the 1990s, Maine used to have a "ski train" with a similarly festive atmosphere - it picked up passengers and their skis in Portland and Lewiston and dropped them off in downtown Bethel, where shuttle buses took them to the slopes and back. That service was mainly supported by the Sunday River ski resort, though, and it died off when the squares at MDOT refused to lend their support. Maybe, with gas edging towards $4 a gallon, it's time for a revival...

Hat tip to the Gristmill blog for this one.