01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 17, 2004

BOSTON

IN PSYCHIATRIC literature there is the term prolonged adolescence, which needs no elaboration. The reader will decide if it or some other term for nutty applies to this writer. I'll try not to omit any damning evidence.

I have long believed that the passenger train is a stepchild of public policy. East of the Mississippi, especially, trains have the potential to relieve overcrowded airports and roads, and to allow for efficient commutation without paving over what's left of the countryside.

I do fly, but I use Amtrak when I can; and since trains are also a stepchild among high-flying journalists, I do occasional stories about what I find. This one is like no other.

The occasion was my first publisher's beautiful daughter's high-school graduation in Savannah. Since CSX Corp., a freight railroad, was repairing tracks, the Savannah-bound train I wanted was out of service, so I booked The Crescent to Atlanta, and rented a car.

Amtrak has the worst advertising in the transportation industry, which helps keep its best points a secret. The Crescent leaves New York at 2:50 p.m., has a full dining car, lounge and air-conditioned sleepers with hot showers. After having dinner and watching the sun go down over the Blue Ridge Mountains, one awakens refreshed and arrives in Atlanta at 8:53 a.m. This morning the train was early.

Every trip to the South confirms my impression that, apart from a small number of unreconstructed ones, white Southerners today are less racist than Northerners. In the South, blacks and whites always lived close by one another. When segregation ended, better relations came easily. In the North, the history of Jim Crow is despised by many whites leading largely segregated lives.

Eschewing I-16, I took U.S. 80 to Savannah through little towns where pedestrians of both races wave at passing motorists. I stopped in several towns looking for iced coffee, which, inexplicably, the South has not discovered. Here, one sees black and white teenagers hanging out together.

After the beautiful graduation ceremony, the beautiful graduate drove me to the Savannah station. (The northbound train was unaffected by the track work.) That's when my troubles began.

The Silver Star was 4 1/2 hours late and did not arrive until 1:10 a.m. When I boarded, the lounge was closed and my room wasn't ready. While waiting for clean sheets, I retrieved a bottle of bourbon kept for such calamities, found some ice, and poured a single cocktail.

When my room was ready, I put my luggage on the bed and headed for the lounge. The bar had been closed for two hours, but I knew I would find the people I most like to meet. There were about 10 people in the lounge, all but one of them black. By and by, someone bemoaned the lack of ice. I said, "I have ice." I returned to my car and filled three small plastic glasses with cubes.

Between my car and the lounge there was a dining car, where the conductor was sitting. "You're not to take any ice to those people," he snorted when he saw me. "Ice is for first-class passengers!" Naturally compliant, I put the cups down and went back to the lounge empty-handed.

Among my friends there were knowing looks and rolling eyes. "Man, you're in the South. You know what that means?"

I thought about it for a few minutes. Finally I said, "Folks, we're going to have a civil-rights moment. I'm getting you ice! I went back to my car and filled two cups this time. As I walked past the conductor I said, "I'm taking those people some ice! If I'm under arrest, I'm going to cooperate."

Back in the lounge, the ice really broke the ice, and we talked until the train pulled into Columbia, S.C. Then the conductor appeared with a Pinkerton-type man who said to me, "I'm escorting you off the train."

I reiterated that I would cooperate. He took me to get my luggage, and when he saw the bottle, which I hadn't put away, he said that, while I was not welcome to stay on the train, the bottle was not welcome to leave the train. I'm sure it served its turn when I was gone.

When I got off the train, my friends in the lounge were watching from the window, which they banged on. I waved goodbye and went into the station to ask where I could find a hotel at 3 a.m. I always travel with the backpack from my hitchhiking days, and in the dark night, the moist air against my face took me back to those days. I felt liberated. I was glad.

But I did not find a hotel, and returned to the station to ask again. Still I walked and walked. Finally, a truck driver guided me to a Best Western Motel. When I got to my room and called my boss in Providence, it was 5:30 a.m.

Amtrak quoted $327 to get home the next night, but when I told the agent at the station what had happened, he revalidated my original ticket. There was nothing to do but spend the day exploring Columbia, where I served in the military 40 years ago, and which I had not been back to in 20 years. In 1964, and still in 1984, black poverty was seen almost everywhere. In 2004, it is black families in SUVs that first meet the eye.

All in all, I think we are living in a better country today. But all in all, I'd relive that night differently. I'd put my liquor back in my luggage.

David A. Mittell Jr. is a member of The Journal's editorial board.