FORT WORTH – Clouds are gathering on a late-winter evening as I board the Heartland Flyer in Fort Worth for its run to Oklahoma City. But possible storms don't matter to train passengers, at least not the way they do for air travel and car trips.

JUDY WILEY/Special Contributor

Conductor Michael Doty helps passengers board the Heartland Flyer in Fort Worth. It's a journey of a little more than four hours to Oklahoma City.

Checking how Dallas-area travelers might fare on each of two railroad getaways available to them, I'm riding the Flyer northward, then a few days later the southbound Texas Eagle, which links Chicago and San Antonio via Dallas and Fort Worth.

What I found might surprise any traveler who has ruled out the train as too slow or too old-fashioned. The train is faster than flying for some passengers; roomier and as clean as any airplane; and possessed of old-school service that's always in style.

ABOARD THE HEARTLAND FLYER – The Heartland Flyer cuts through the Oklahoma night, rocking and rattling at 79 mph on the straight stretches, slowing down and whistling at crossings and stopping briefly at Gainesville, Texas, and Ardmore, Paul's Valley, Purcell and Norman in Oklahoma. Train No. 822 ends its run at Oklahoma City, right on time at 9:39 p.m., four hours and 14 minutes after leaving Fort Worth on schedule.

The Flyer runs only between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, on tracks built for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co. in 1889. The two-city route creates kind of a rolling neighborhood, where everyone knows everyone else, including a family of bald eagles that can be spotted in the Arbuckle Mountains along the run.

The brick train station at Norman, Okla., is the first stop, at about 8:49 a.m., on the Heartland Flyer's route from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth.

Out the wide, deep windows of the train's three coaches, Oklahoma farmland stretches out of sight until the Flyer hits the Arbuckle Mountains. Then it curves into hills grown up with pines and winter's gray branches, quiet and solemn against a silver sky. Veteran riders have a favorite side of the train, avoiding the sun, or catching their favorite views.

Conductors Michael Doty and Van Shuffield greet the regulars by name. They learn when I'm traveling back on the Flyer and insist that the two conductors I'll meet then are the "B" team. Doty points me to regular Shirley Dixon, an Oklahoman who catches the train in Paul's Valley, Okla., about every two weeks to visit a friend in Fort Worth.

Dixon says she'd rather not worry about driving in bad weather, and the train is faster than flying when she factors in the time to drive to and from airports at each end. Darkness falls on this evening train, and she advises sitting on the west side of the car on the morning trip back to Fort Worth for the best view of the Arbuckles.

Getting off at the Oklahoma City depot is as straightforward as climbing aboard in Fort Worth. The depot is downtown, and the blues can be heard blaring from a bar in Bricktown, next to the station. My hotel, Courtyard by Marriott, is about a block and a half from the depot.

The train station at Ardmore, Okla.

Next morning, the Bricktown Canal is on the agenda. It's Oklahoma City's answer to Denver's LoDo, Fort Worth's Stockyards and San Antonio's River Walk. Winding through an area filled with lovely old brick buildings still bearing faded signs painted on the sides, it's a start. A water taxi ferries visitors from the restaurants, clubs and Bricktown Ballpark at one end to Bass Pro Shops at the other.

Today, in the off-season, I walk down streets lined with hopeful "for lease" signs and restaurants from Sonic to Hooters to Nonna's Ristorante, a dark-paneled, polished eatery filled with business diners in suits. A cold wind blows all day and grows colder after I walk to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, about eight blocks in the opposite direction from my hotel. Inside, the re-creation of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is painful, but not as wrenching as the victims' family mementos stuffed into and taped and wired to the chain link fence outside.

Early Tuesday morning at the depot, I tell conductor Robert Villarreal about the "B" team designation, and he laughs. Before I know it, I'm talking to the engineer, Steve Perry, and an amiable assistant division manager for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, John Dougherty. His wife, Carol, runs the cafe on the Flyer. They met on the train and were married in the Oklahoma City depot.

FILE 1995/Getty Images

Jane Thomas of the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum tends to one of the chairs representing the victims of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Less than a half-hour into the ride, Villarreal is hustling me out of my seat to meet Donna Jones at the Norman station. Later in Purcell, I meet Joe Ellis. Ticket agents work at the station in Fort Worth, but these depots along the route are unstaffed except for people like Jones and Ellis, who either volunteer or get a small stipend to help passengers.

I spend a lot of this trip downstairs in the cafe car with Carol Dougherty, Villarreal and Dwayne Shaw, the other conductor, who regales us with stories about married life.

Dougherty and I hop back and forth from one side of the train to the other as we try to spot bald eagles along a pretty stretch that car travelers won't see. I finally see a spot of white in a distant tree. One day, Carol says, the regal birds were perched in a tree right beside the train.

The Flyer rolls into Fort Worth on time, at 12:39 p.m. I almost hate to get off.

Judy Wiley is a freelance writer in Fort Worth.

Stations

The Fort Worth station is at 1001 Jones St. downtown. While the Trinity Railway Express ( www.trinityrailwayexpress.com) links the Fort Worth train station with Dallas' Union Station (400 S. Houston St.), the train schedules create long layovers, so the faster way for Dallasites to connect with the train is to drive to Fort Worth.

Parking

A lot across the street from the station in Fort Worth costs about $7 per day. Pay lots are within three blocks of Dallas' station.

Tickets

Round-trip coach tickets start at $77 per adult, taxes and fees included, for the Eagle; $55 for the Flyer. Buy them online ( www.amtrak.com), by phone (1-800-872-7245) or at either station. Conductors said spring-break and summer travelers need to make reservations well in advance; the trains are full at those times.

Details

•Because of timing, an overnight is necessary in Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

•Smoking is not allowed on either train. The Eagle does have smoke breaks in Temple and Austin; the Flyer, in Ardmore.

•Wheelchair ramps are available on both routes, and a good number of passengers use the trains because of accessibility.

•Although the trains I rode were on time for every departure, conductors on both routes emphasize that passengers need to be flexible. Amtrak passenger trains share the tracks with freight trains, and a breakdown can cause a long delay.

The route

The Flyer (www.heartland flyer.com) stops at Gainesville, Ardmore, Paul's Valley, Purcell and Norman before ending at Oklahoma City's downtown station. The train leaves Fort Worth at 5:25 p.m. and arrives in Oklahoma City four hours later. It departs Oklahoma City at 8:25 each morning.

Eating and drinking

A cafe aboard offers quick bites (cheeseburger, $3.75; PBJ, $2), but the best bet is to take your own food. There's plenty of room for a cooler at the seats. Alcohol is sold at the cafe car; bringing your own isn't allowed. Conductors will help out physically challenged passengers, bringing them food and beverages from the cafe car.

Details

The Flyer has a three-bag limit. Stash large bags in the bin as you enter the train; the rest can go with you upstairs to your seat. No checked baggage.

Staying

Several hotels are available in downtown Oklahoma City within walking distance of the depot, or travelers can take a taxi. A trolley runs downtown from major hotels. I booked Courtyard by Marriott (405-232-2290; www.marriott.com).

Seeing

•The Bricktown Canal is beside the train station. Although it's light on shopping destinations other than Bass Pro Shop and a few smaller stores, the water taxi and Bricktown Ballpark (home of the Oklahoma City Redhawks, the Triple-A minor league affiliate of the Texas Rangers) would make a fun family trip during baseball season.

•The Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum is about nine blocks from the train station, at 620 N. Harvey. Admission: $10 for adults. 1-888-542-4673; www.oklahomcitynational memorial.org

Resource

Oklahoma City Convention & Visitors Bureau: 1-800-225-5652; www.visitokc.com