No credit card. Last time I tried that they seemed incredulous that a I would even I would think I could without a credit card.
I could use a debit card but that would require a largeish chunk of money in the bank. Since I’m week two into a job after a longish stretch of unemployment you can see why that would be a problem.
I guess I could get a credit card, but screw that. I live with in my means. Credit cards are a convenience item for when I have a nice savings and reliable income to keep my bill paid promptly. Treating them as anything else is a good way to screw yourself with interest in the long run.
Back about 10 years ago, I lived in a city with a population of about 150,000. It had a direct train service to the state capital (also the largest metro area in the country) 100 miles away, which went at least once an hour each way from about 6 am to about 10 pm, and rather less frequently in the middle of the night.
Now, I live in a state capital with a population of about 750,000, which has no train services of any kind to anywhere, so it’s even worse than Michigan.
(And the city that I lived in 10 years ago was Newcastle, in Australia, a country with a population density less than 10% of that of the US).
Seriously? Earthquakes can find plenty of other ways to kill you when they’re really motivated. That particular mode of death is not high on my list of concerns
Slightly more on topic, the one time I rode Amtrak from Chicago to Detroit, about two years ago, we were slightly less than two hours late getting in. I considered that a triumph for Amtrak.