As you may be aware, there is a big Longhorn football game upcoming. No, not the Sam Houston St. game. Next weekend in Dallas, the Longhorns will do battle with OU in the Red River Shootout. Or Red River Rivalry. Or whatever the hell the new corporate sponsorship-dictated name is.
We have not attended this game in at least a decade, so our memory of the experience is a little hazy, but we do remember one thing: TRAFFIC! If you’ve driven to Dallas for the annual battle, you know that the lines of bumper-to-bumper traffic are justifiably legendary. May we offer an alternative? Why don’t you get all European and shit and take the train? That’s right, there’s a train. And it runs out of Austin. And you can ride on it.
For only $46 round-trip, you can take the train up Friday and come back Sunday. No crazy lines of traffic, no chance of DWI-related accidents, no frat boys mooning you from the Bronco in the next lane…just kick back, put your feet up and be prepared to stop at a bunch of towns you’ve never heard of on this 6 hour trip. Once at the rail station, take a cab to the hotel and game. A little extra cash, but according to our math, $46 for the train plus $40 in weekend cab fare is still just a few bucks more than making the drive yourself. But with none of the headache.
Check out Amtrak’s site for schedules and tickets.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Can anyone explain to me Texans (the people, not the football team) obsession with their cars? Even granola Austinites seem almost afraid of public transport.
Well, except Odam. Word to the train dude. Word.
It is worth noting that last year people were delayed in excess of 12 hours on Amtrak getting to Dallas and back to Austin. The massive delays were due to rail traffic from the Katrina and Rita hurricanes, but every year I hear about how unreliable Amtrak is with its schedules. At least you are not driving, right?