What Impression Does Your City Make From the Window of a Train?

Airports often act as the front door of a city, where most visitors enter and see the place for the first time. But for smaller cities and towns, the train station is that front door.

I recently took a few big train trips across parts of the U.S. – east from my house in Los Angeles through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, then north through Mississippi and the tip of Tennessee into Memphis. While I wasn't able to get off the train at every (or hardly any) stop, I could try to get a feeling for what a place was like when the train pulled into the station.