Just got back from Florida by train. Great trip. Ever done it? You should.

Going from Maine to Florida, up the Eastern Seaboard, is a rare glimpse of “the dark underbelly of American society,” as one friend describes it.

The train trip, interior, is also a valuable experience; it is a throwback to the 1930s and ’40s; you have a dining car where everybody takes their meals. You are often seated across the table from a couple people you have never met, and may never see again.

It all reminds me of books I have read describing what life was like on the road for Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other Major League players in olden times. Lots of walking around. Drinks being carried from car to car. Laughing, joking, and living a human life not often seen – especially in this age of cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices.

Leave via train from Portland or Boston, and arrive in New York City to board the “sleeper train” to Florida.

Get a map of the United States. Study it. That is the route you will take.

You will go through Philadelphia, and see both inspirational college campus, neighborhoods and commercial sections, and also some areas where people are struggling.

Go through Baltimore, and see glimpses of an exciting professional sports town with many teams. Also see sections that are basically being bulldozed due to buildings being abandoned, and/or incubators for crime. It looks like what parts of Iraq look like after being bombed.

See Washington D.C. – and the breathtaking monuments. Also, see stark poverty only blocks from the personal residence of the leader of the free world.

I used to take one of my three kids with me each March in the 1990s and 2000s when I would take the sleeper train out of N.Y.C. to spring training in Florida. It is fun to sit in the little clubhouse room, with two seats facing each other, and a table in between, that they provide you with. The beds are basically bunk beds. Put the chairs together, and a mattress on top, and you have the bottom bunk. Pull down the bunk bed from the ceiling, and you have the top bunk.

Generally, there is nothing like falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the train, and the hum of the steel wheels running over the iron tracks. Priceless. Hypnotic.

The food?

In the late 1980s, when Congress was trying to rejuvenate Amtrak, they spent millions on an “upgrade” of the dining system. Each train got a dining car. Fresh catches of fish were arranged for at different pickup spots on the train along the route. Same for vegetables, and other fruits. Good chefs were hired.

That has changed. Amtrak continued to lose money. It was clear that a AAA rating on meal preparation was not commercial Nirvana for the railroad. They scaled back.

Now? “Train food,” as another friend says.

Scrub pines in North Carolina like you read about in Civil War military history.

Tarpaper shacks, and cows sleeping on front lawns are what you see along the route in Florida.

All aboard for Amtrak. Great idea. Nice trip.

Dan Warren is a Scarborough trial lawyer. He can be reached by private Facebook message at Jones & Warren Attorneys at Law page, or by email at [email protected].