Room With A Choo

Of spouses along for the ride, Davis tells me, "They knit, they read and they always report they've never had such a relaxing two or three days in their lives." Sometimes couples come in two cars, so the wives can go antiquing, to the Logan Valley Mall in Altoona, Pa., or to the gardens on the old Charles M. Schwab estate in Loretto, Pa., while their husbands watch trains. Along the main line of the former Pennsylvania Railroad, Cresson and other towns strung along Route 53 offer plenty of train attractions. Not surprisingly, the local weekly paper is the Mainliner and its logo is a locomotive.

Davis urges me to go see the famous mountain tunnels in tiny Gallitzin, Pa., about five miles up the road. There, another train-crazy hotel (who knew?), the trackside Tunnel Inn, boasts, "Only the engineer is closer to the train." In Gallitzin, a bridge over the tracks offers snapshot views of two tunnels banked by grassy berms.

Maybe the most beloved rail feature in the neighborhood is the famous (trust me) Horseshoe Curve near Altoona (from which the local minor league baseball team, the Curve, gets its name). The U-shaped track, a 2,375-foot sweep, wraps two mountain slopes. It was a mid-19th-century engineering solution to a vexing railroad problem: how to surmount the high ridges separated by a deep ravine. The wow factor is real, even to a non-rail fan, as I discover the next day. I arrive early, before a funicular ride starts, and walk up 194 steps to trackside.

But back at the Station Inn's porch, there's infinite opportunity for rest. I spend most of my time barely moving from the 60-foot-long porch, which has 30 viewing chairs.

A radio scanner is almost always turned on, tuned to the railroad frequency so train-watchers can eavesdrop on the engineers, yardmasters and dispatchers at the Cresson rail yard. During "quiet hour," from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., porch-sitters are asked to "keep scanners on low volume and conversations subdued. Please allow fellow guests a good night's sleep." Of course, it's never really quiet at a railroad motel.

Innkeeper Tom Davis, left, sits with his guests at breakfast at the Station Inn as a train passes by.(Gary M. Baranec - For The Washington Post)

"I can think of worse things waking you up at night than trains going by," says Mike Fortier.

Now, I've lived close enough to trains to hear them in the night, but always from a distance. I suppose after a while you could get used to the proximity, even sleeping through the clackety-clack. I try counting trains instead of sheep, but the late-night/early-morning romance of the rails eludes me, along with sleep. Just as I begin to doze, another train rumbles by. For an hour, it seems as if the trains have stopped and I catch a few winks. Or maybe I just dreamed that.

I'm up for good at 5:30 when the alarm goes off, almost a soothing sound. A train with bulk commodities, mixed freight from Morrisville to Pittsburgh, is due by at 6:05, followed by merchandise in container cars from Norfolk heading west to Detroit at 6:20. Railroads never sleep. I wonder if railroad fans ever do.