Long wait at for the Capitol Limited

Nineteenth century post offices are usually next to train stations since mail traveled by railroad. The one next to Union Station is now the National Postal Museum, a large, spacious building with few visitors. The museum resists the modern temptation to make every other exhibit a computer terminal with a trackball, probably due to lack of money. HM Elizabeth II's stamp collection was on display, a rather impressive collection seeded by the British Post Office's invention of the modern postage system. The dead letters exhibit reminds us that poor handwriting is nothing new, and existed long before the typewriter or the computer.

Getting back to the station at 6:30p, an hour before the (re)scheduled departure, I find the Acela lounge crowded with a strange-looking mixture of cellphone-jabbering businesspeople and long-distance sleeper passengers. The sleeper passengers comment on the Type-A personalities: "I've never seen so many people, all talking on cell phones, in one place." Most of the sleepers on my train are to be filled with a British tour group on Great Rail Journeys' USA Coast to Coast tour.

Among the Britons is a sixtyish Civil War buff. American Civil War, not English, that is. He's been looking for the DVD of Gods and Generals (not released in the UK due to understandable lack of interest). We get to talking, and though he sometimes mixes up which General was on which side, it's clear that he spends way more time on this subject than I do. "I can't believe you've heard of this movie," he says, "Nobody has heard of this movie." I suppose British fans of the American Civil War are like nineteenth-century American Anglophiles — proud to be related to the hegemon of the world.

He's dragged along on this tour a colleague from the insurance office where he works. More reserved, more stereotypically British. He tells the story of driving to the airport when departing the UK, missing some directions and getting lost along a dirt road in the dark, getting stopped by a policeman in a restricted military zone, getting fined several hundred pounds. "Rotten luck to start off a vacation," he says, "but one must make the best of things."

But no train at 7:30p. Or at 8:30p. Not until midnight, in fact. Stiff-upper lip, they certainly are not when it comes to railway incompetency. I suppose they've had plenty of practice, thanks to the botched privatisation of British Rail. The ClubAcela receptionist knows nothing about trains, she's a receptionist who just makes boarding announcements and fills up the coffee machine every once in a while. Her manager is the station manager and knows nothing about trains. The people who do know about trains are nowhere to be found. A clear disconnect between the people who work on or around the trains and the people who staff offices and stations and call centers.

It's still warm and humid even at midnight. The train rolls off. Happy Hour in the lounge car is enthusiastically attended. "Wow, I could really use a drink," one partygoer remarks. I'm tired but sleep fitfully. Too much adrenaline.