In gliding darkness, we pragmatists of the rail crossed the great Mississippi, mainstay of American romance and history that has always been of roads and the river. In the morning light, a Model T Ford on a plinth outside a clapboard farmhouse marked the start of a landscape that would soon monumentally transcend the man-made as we began the climb to 7,000ft.

I envied geologists their knowledge of the natural history displayed in the canyons we passed through, layered in places and chiselled like the walls of ancient fortresses. In the space of miles, they turned from creamy yellow to deep red. And every tunnel opened into a new vista. “Was that a deer?” a woman behind me asked as we broke into open country. “I ate one once,” her male companion replied. “Tasted better than steak.”

Coyotes, solemn, attentive and inedible, watched us pass. In the distance, two riders sped along on horseback.

“That’s how they do it out here,” said the man behind me. “They still herd their cattle on horseback.” Overheard conversation was a relief after the exuberant snoring during the night had prompted me to add earplugs to my list of rail-travel necessities.

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“We’re on honeymoon,” the young woman told me; she and her husband walked single file ahead of me towards the dining car, the aisle too narrow to accommodate their impressive girth. “He’s afraid of flying,” she said.

How many others on board, I wondered as I accepted a “cursant” offered by our breakfast waitress, were driven to rail travel by a similar phobia?

The cars were not full, as they are in holiday seasons, when very young and very old nondrivers head out to visit families. There were no foreign tourists; an attendant said they preferred the Pacific coastal route from LA to Seattle. We made 14 stops between Kansas City and Albuquerque, some long enough for panting smokers to indulge their habit.

“We do not pick up hitchhikers,” warned a disapproving woman over the intercom at Albuquerque. “And a hitchhiker is what you become if you are not back on this train before departure.”

“I never get off,” a stout middle-aged woman volunteered as I passed the door of a “roomette”, where she was perched on a hillock of suitcases. “I stay right here to watch my stuff.”

We had arrived an hour early, and a contingent of Native Americans was hurrying to lay out handcrafted jewellery for our appraisal and purchase from stalls on the platform. There was time to stroll the quiet streets under the glowing mountains of New Mexico: America’s designer state. I promised to plan a weekend in alluring Albuquerque next time I made this journey; and why not a day in Trinidad, Colorado?

Ordinary though it had appeared through the passing window, I overheard it referred to as the “sex-change capital” of America. Before impetuosity was stymied by requisite advance planning, I might have boarded a southbound train simply to send a few friendly postcards from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

On the fourth morning, I woke with a longing for the sea that was deeper than thirst as California gathered itself together outside. And finally, there was Union station in Los Angeles, an unexpected masterpiece of art deco where it was hard not to see the ghosts of old movie stars with their borzois on silver leads disembarking next to us.

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