NEWS

Local angle: Berlin, Conn.

Note: For a photo of Neville, see the bottom of the release.

By LUTHER CALDWELL
UNC-CH News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Last summer, one University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student traveled to 23 states in two weeks by train. It sounds like a mad-dash summer break tour, right?

Not for UNC-CH senior Anne Neville, whose 1998 summer train trek provided a study of modern American rail travel’s evolution and the cultural romanticism attached to railroads. By her journey’s end, Neville, a philosophy major from Berlin, Conn., demonstrated the versatility of Carolina’s independent studies program as well.

The project is an unprecedented use of the independent study option, said Dr. Roger Lotchin, a UNC-CH history professor, who is directing Neville. Many such projects only revolve around library research, he said.

Independent study projects offer individual study opportunities for people at a distance from the university campus, according to the 1998 Independent Studies catalog.

"Nobody’s ever done anything this enterprising before in my experience," Lotchin said. Neville put her time on the rails to good use, studying train travel’s connection to American culture.

Neville traveled mostly through the Western states. However, a previous trip introduced her to train travel’s capacity to spark interesting and in-depth interactions with people you normally wouldn’t encounter, she said.

For example, on a trip in the eighth or ninth grade, she met a man who was involved heavily in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s.

"He was into beat poetry and very interesting," Neville said. "We ended up talking for four to five hours. Train travel presents a true cross-section of the American populace."

Because train travel is cost-efficient, many different types of travelers take advantage of its services. "The plane excludes some people who can’t afford it, and people who ride planes normally don’t ride buses." She will finish the project -- which could be the basis for a doctoral thesis, if she so chooses -- by fall semester's end, Lotchin said.

Now, with her summer exploration complete, Neville meets regularly with Lotchin to discuss the progress of her project’s research phase and to brainstorm on research sources. And she easily can relate the trip’s impact on her understanding of American culture.

"Somehow the combination of talking to the people on the trains and seeing the changes in the land gives you a much better impression of who you are," Neville said. "It gives you an impression of how much is outside of Chapel Hill or North Carolina or the East."

After a year of campus political work in 1997-98 -- including a run at the student body presidency -- Neville was undecided on how to spend her summer. However, the idea of trains kept popping up, she said.

The veteran train traveler -- Neville first developed an interest in trains in the eighth grade, journeying from Connecticut to Washington, D.C., to visit relatives -- decided to turn the solo cross-country trip into the project for Lotchin, under whom she’d taken "History of the American West."

After receiving a university travel grant for independent study, Neville’s whirlwind trip began in Durham, with stops in Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Ore.; Sacramento, Calif.; Omaha, Neb.; Kansas City, Mo.; points in Texas; New Orleans; and Atlanta.

"I thought it would be interesting to compare the passenger travel of today to that earlier in the century," Neville said. "Back then, trains were the only mechanical mode of travel and America was still trying to build itself."

Preparing for the trip, she conducted historical research on railroads and the American West. During her journey, she interviewed 40 fellow passengers and took pictures of the people she interviewed and the places she visited.

She developed a list of 23 questions -- which evolved during the trip -- and used them in her interviews. The questions ranged from why people were riding the train to their thoughts on what symbolized Americanism.

"A great majority of the people said this was how to really see America," Neville said. "When you’re on a train, a community really develops. People start talking to each other."

Students often are insulated from national news by concerns with studying and dating. Sometimes they might become servants to a day-to-day routine. And sometimes they might forget that the rest of the world moves on without them. Train travel can provide an escape from this daily grind in Chapel Hill, Neville said.

Usually, Neville slept in her passenger seat. Some of the stops were near relatives’ homes. And she was able to save money on food as well.

"You can go a long way on tuna fish," she said.

American train travel also has an aura of romanticism, Neville said. How many movies and novels have staged dramatic scenes in depots or on the trains?

Amtrak also has gotten into the spirit, using the old names of train routes from the era before Amtrak was the sole rail service provider in the West. This provides a link between rail travel’s past and present, she said. For example, Neville traveled on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland.

Cultural differences Neville observed during the trip were interesting, too. For passengers in some parts of the country, trains are the only modes of transportation. Other passengers usually are tourists.

The diverse group of passengers Neville encountered hailed from a kaleidoscope of regions -- from the Deep South to the Midwest.

"Every stop was amazing," Neville said. She met a couple in Minot, N.D., going to an out-of-state model train convention. They only had traveled out of the state a handful of times, always by train, she said.

"It’s also interesting to watch the regions change," Neville said. For instance, when she traveled on the Empire Builder, she talked to passengers about the cold May weather at Glacier National Park, Mont., a stark contrast to how she had baked in the Chicago heat days earlier.

Neville said train travel allows a greater view of the terrain while you’re traveling, providing a sense of connection to the land -- unlike airplanes, which fly so high, everything looks like rectangular blocks.

And last, but not least, train travel also teaches passengers patience, Neville said.

"Trains are slow," Neville said. "You run on their schedule. My first train, leaving from Durham, was 45 minutes late. But it doesn’t matter. The whole point of the trip is to look at everything you're passing. You kind of forget sometimes to stop and say, ‘I’m not in a hurry.’ "

She encourages other students to travel across America.

"It’s important to see this country. It really gives you a perspective on how different it is from Chapel Hill."

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(Caldwell is a senior journalism and mass communications major.)

Photo note: Contact Dan Sears at 919-962-8592 or dan_sears@unc.edu for a photo of Neville with a railroad crossing sign in the background.