For decades, writers have romanticized trains, the quiet rhythm of the rails, the blur of passing landscapes, the long stretch of time to think and write. Now, Amtrak has made that daydream real.
The company launched Amtrak Residency, a program offering writers the chance to travel cross-country aboard long-distance trains, not for leisure, but for creation. Selected writers are given roundtrip tickets and private sleeper cabins, turning the train itself into a mobile studio.
The idea took off after New York-based writer Jessica Gross completed the first residency, documenting her journey from New York to Chicago and back. Her experience — equal parts motion and meditation, captured what writers have always sought: a temporary escape from routine, with enough stillness inside movement to let ideas unfold.
What’s compelling about Amtrak’s initiative isn’t just the novelty of writing on a train. It’s the recognition that environment shapes creativity. Each passing mile offers both solitude and stimulation, a sense of connection to place without the distraction of arrival. The view becomes a metronome, the journey a kind of creative tempo.
The concept of residencies rooted in experience rather than location opens an intriguing path for other institutions. Libraries, museums, and even nature preserves could serve as living laboratories for reflection and creation, spaces where time, environment, and inspiration intersect.
In a digital world obsessed with speed, Amtrak’s residency slows everything down. It reimagines travel not as transit, but as transformation, a moving window where imagination and geography share the same line.
We couldn’t be more excited about #AmtrakResidency. Special thanks to @alexanderchee for bringing such a great idea to our attention.
— Amtrak (@Amtrak) February 24, 2014
ACTIONABLE!NSIGHTS
- Mash-up: Amtrak × Writing Residency
- Cultural Innovation: Travel as creative infrastructure
- Creative Environment: Motion as meditation
- Experience Design: Time and space as tools for focus
- Behavioral Shift: From destination to reflection