Page 10 RAIN November 1981 TRAVEL A Pilgrim's Guide to Planet Earth #2, · edited by Parmatma Singh Khalsa, 1981, 320 pp., $8.95 from: Spiritual Community Publications Box 1080 San E.afael, CA 94915 If you're going to be traveling outside of North America, pick up a copy of this book to find out where the good bread and good From: A Pilgrim's Guide TRANSPORTATION vibes are. You'll learn where to go in most foreign cities and towns to make connections with the New Age community there-bookstores, monasteries, restaurants, ashrams, foods tores. For armchair travelers, the book conveys a wonderful sense of the specialness of each place. A puppy-dog-tail-wagging enthusiasm permeates the whole boo~. It looks good, too, with nice graphics·and scattered inspirational quotes. Areas of the world where tourists haven't made much of an impact get less coverage. China, for example, gets only one page, and such valuable resources as the New Alchemy-Farallones Institute China Tours aren't mentioned at all. -TK Train Trips: Exploring America By Rail, by William G. Scheller, 1981, 254 pp., $7.95 from: The East Woods Press East and McMillan Publishers, Inc. 820 East Blvd. Charlotte, NC 28203 · If you think trains are an appropriate form of transportation that ought to be revived in this country, try voting with your pocketbook next time you go traveling. This book will help. It offers a brief history of modern passenger rail service in the U.S. followed by a description of the present system (Amtrak) and extensive notes on the cities that Amtrak travels to. The travel notes would have a hard time competing with a standard U.S. travel guide since any book that attempts to describe the highlights of 40 major cities must do so sparingly. Still, the book should suffice for the person who plans to visit several cities by train. What really makes this book worthwhile is that it succeeds in restoring to train travel some of the romantic charm that it had in the days when trains were given names like The San Francisco Zephyr, the Empire Builder, the Silver Star, and The Sunset Limited. -SMA "Murder of the Sunset Limited," by Frank Browning, pp.·16-24, June 1981 issue of The Progressive, (monthly, $17/ yr) from: The Progressive 408 West Gorham Street Madison, WI53703 This article briefly but succinctly details the decline of America's passenger trains and asks the all important question "why are all other indus.trialized nations enthusiastically improving their passenger rail system while the United States is not?" The answer has something to do with the prerogatives of .private railroad companies. (Railroads are nationalized in many of those other coun-· tries.) Southern Pacific, in particular, 'Catches heck for its hostile and uncooperative attitude towards Amtrak. -SMA
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