Although I liked Series 1 of Great American Railroad Journeys where Michael Portillo travels around the north east of the United States, it is Series 2 that I have found far more interesting. Here are my own particular highlights.
ST LOUIS, MISSOURI
The Gateway Arch.
Union Station Hotel.
Missouri Botanical Gardens.
ST LOUIS TO JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI
Missouri State Penitentiary.
SEDALIA TO KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
Scott Joplin of Sedalia.
Independence, where the pioneers stopped on their way west. The Old Oregon Trail to California started at Independence. The National Frontier Trails Museum.
The major railway junction of Kansas City with trains over a mile long.
KANSAS CITY TO JOSEPH
Union Station, Kansas City.
The Livestock Exchange Building. Unlike the station, not noted for it's architecture, but for it's history.
St Joseph and the Pony Express. The furthest west end of the railroad. Letters would cost an amazing five dollars to go by the dangerous (to the young riders) Pony Express.
LAWRENCE TO TOPEKA, KANSAS
The Kansas Jayhawks, commonly referred to as KU, are the University of Kansas basketball team in Lawrence, Kansas. Notable for the arrival of Dr James Naismith in 1898, which was only six years after he drafted the sport's first official rules.
The National Weather Service in Topeka, Kansas and the tornado tracking centre.
Konza tall grass conservation prairie complete with bison.
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO TO THE GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA
Grand Canyon Railway and Grand Canyon National Park.
Starting from the Williams Depot and ride by train there and back. This is the way I would want to go.
MINNESOTA TO WISCONSIN
The Mississippi River - thirty one states and two Canadian provinces drain into the second longest river in North America. the train ride that runs alongside the river shows off it's grandeur.
The St. Paul District is responsible for maintaining 244 miles of the Upper Mississippi River 9-foot channel navigation system from the head of navigation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Guttenberg, Iowa. The project is located in or contiguous to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa. The navigation project within the St. Paul District includes 13 locks and dams that are operated and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to the locks and dams the project includes channel maintenance, recreation and natural resource activities.
The University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, from where the raquet game takes it's name. Originally a violent native American Indian sport, it gradually gained a set of rules as a modern game.
Portage, Wisconsin. The Native American tribes that once lived here, and later the European traders and settlers, took advantage of the lowlands between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers as a natural portage, carrying canoes the one and a half miles between the two rivers, and so Portage got it's name. Eventually, a canal, complete with locks to raise the water level of the Fox to that of the Wisconsin's, was completed in 1876 by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Winconsin Dells, a tourist beauty spot. Not the water parks.
MILWAUKEE TO CHICAGO
The size of Lake Michigan, more like a sea.
The Milwaukee cream brick buildings.
Case IH of Benson, Milwaukee. Huge tractors and agricultural equipment.
Racine, Wisconsin. The shore of Lake Michigan and the mouth of the Root River.
Chicago boat tour.
Union Station.
Sears Tower at sunset.
The elevated railway. Which movie was that? Oh yes, "The French Connection".
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
Paddle steamer up the Lower Mississippi.
Graceland.
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