Wow! He sounds like a trooper to keep going for 23 miles on a flat.
I'm a fan of trains as well. Used to love taking the commuter rail from Boston when I lived up there. Never had the full blown long trip experience on a nice decked out train though.
I'm hanging in there. Just working to get the bills paid and working on some writing. I lived for a month just writing articles for The Motley Fool on the energy industry for $50 each, but it's hard to pump out a newly researched piece every day. My latest project is an e-book on a quick way to incorporate FA into FOREX trading.