Customer Reviews

Train Cab Ride From Kansas City to Chicago

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If you were going to pick the time of the year to shoot a video from the cab of a train running from KC through Missouri, Iowa and Illinois...you may have chosen May or June, wildflowers in full bloom, greenery abounding. Then again, you may have felt more inspired by the beautiful changing of the leaves in autumn. Perhaps you would have shot the video after a freshly-fallen snow and captured a truly breathtaking moment in time for the viewer to cherish.

If you were looking for the absolute-worst time of the year, you could have chosen a bitterly cold, bland February day to showcase this tedious trek through bleak drabness. The producers of this high-dollar DVD set opted for the February setting...Much to my dismay.

Aside from this most-obvious example of poor planning, the DVD set is not bad. Yes, there's history and some fascinating landmarks along the way. I should have done my homework, however, because I was disappointed to learn this particular Amtrak line does not run through Jefferson City, Hermann or other picturesque Missouri River towns, and if you're hoping to ride shotgun in the cab through St. Louis, you'll be disappointed here, too. The line runs northeast out of Kansas City and through some pretty mundane territory.

The narration is mildly amusing at times, although the hayseed ramblings and occasional rants by the crew do provide some periodic moments to remember.

The bottom line is:
If you can enjoy the simple pleasure of watching basically the same scenery for ten hours while listening to your good-ole uncle Raymond sit on the porch and tell you "everything he ever knowed" about nothing important, this DVD set is for you. If not, you probably want to look elsewhere.

Once again, it is excrutiatingly painful to think of how incredible and exciting this trip would have been (and much easier it would have been to stomach the $85 investment) if they had shot it at any, ANY, other time of the year...

As a European citizen who cannot just take a ride on an american train this is a fantastic way to expierience a part of the Southwest Chief' s route. Especialle the passage of the two great rivers but also the 1 hour approach to Chicago Union Station going backwards into the station is really worth the money. For a cabride I find it in the upper half. You see almost all of the strech but for change of betteries and film a you don't really mind the short breaks as you do noty miss any junctions or stations. There are no long periods focusing on the engineers or the instruments and the conversation between the engineers (one of them a woman) is mildly entertaning,
Two years ago when I was in Chicago it was my pkan to rode by Amtrak to Los Angeles on the Southwest Chief but some thing came in the way so for me this is a great substitution.
We cab-ride buffs want to see the route uninterrupted through the front window with no superfluous comments so in this regard it is almost perfect.