It was the last time she'd taken the train -- nearly 30 years ago -- and what 83-year-old Darlene Lanz remembers most about that trip to Minot, N.D., was the dining car.
"White linen tablecloths and napkins," Lanz said from her home in Big Lake, Minn. "Just beautiful. When I think of the train, that's the image that comes to mind."
On Saturday, Lanz and 84 other seniors took a different kind of ride, as they learned how to navigate the Northstar commuter rail line. Northstar has no white linen on tables designed for laptops. No dining car, either. For that matter, between stops, the seniors had little time to let their imaginations wander to a different era of trains.
Class was in session.
Groups of seniors from Big Lake, Minneapolis and Elk River have scheduled "All Aboard the Northstar Train" training sessions this month, allowing Metro Transit officials to answer the same pressing questions that commuters and Twins fans have asked since Northstar began running in November:
• Are there still places to camp in Elk River, as Phoebe Brustad, 83, of Edina, recalled doing years ago, when her kids were very young?
• If you're heading to the airport, as Raye Jacobs, 70, of Becker, Minn., is considering, is there room on Northstar trains for baggage? And how do you transfer to the light-rail Hiawatha line?
• Does anybody, wondered Louie Fennema, 78, of Big Lake, really understand these new computerized ticket machines?