Go to Union Station in Little Rock late on a weeknight and what would otherwise seem like a sleepy city is bustling with travelers ready to board an Amtrak passenger train.

Amtrak’s Texas Eagle route has a stop in Little Rock for passengers heading north to Chicago or south to San Antonio. The route spans about 1,306 miles of rail, and also services passengers in Arkadelphia, Malvern, Hope, Texarkana and Walnut Ridge.

At around 11 p.m. if you’re heading north or 3 a.m. if you’re going to Texas, you’ll find some young travelers in Little Rock looking for a way to get around the country that doesn’t involve a car or plane.

According to Rick Harnish, head of the High Speed Rail Alliance, a group focused on improving rail in the United States, many young people are pushing back against car-centric infrastructure, and advocating for better passenger rail is part of that.

“You know, it used to be that you could work on cars, and you could work with your buddies on cars, and you could get somebody pregnant in the back of a car. So, cars were really tied to young people’s lives,” he said. “That’s not true anymore. You can’t work on a car anymore. And they’re too small or expensive to have any fun at them.”

Harnish said his group’s “foundational purpose” is to make it easier for people to get around without a car. To him, that would create better, more pleasant cities that are more financially stable. Better rail and eventually, high speed rail is a critical part of that vision because it allows people to conveniently travel from city to city without taking a road-trip.

“The downstream effects of having a city that forces everybody to drive are huge,” Harnish said. “The city can’t get enough tax revenue to pay for the roads. It’s not just that the roads are more expensive, but the electrical wires are more expensive, the internet wires are more expensive, the postal service is more expensive. One of the challenges we have with our local governments is the fact that they’re spending way too much money on infrastructure for too low a value.”

Many policy decisions have put people in vehicles driving long distances instead of walking, taking a train or riding some form of public transit, Harnish said. These include minimum parking requirements, focusing on protecting drivers instead of pedestrians, and divesting from street cars and other forms of public transit. However, Harnish has found that there is a groundswell in support for walkability and alternative transportation, like trains, among young people.

Mat Conrad, a 28-year-old remote worker from Philadelphia, is one of those young people. He stopped in Little Rock to take the train up to Chicago. At the time, Conrad was traveling from Philadelphia to Atlanta and made a big loop through New Orleans and Texas. The Philadelphian doesn’t own a car, and to him, rail is an important part of creating a more walkable world.

“I think a lot of young people are into urbanism. I think they are looking for more walkable cities, more walkable towns. I think that taking trains is a part of that, like being able to get from place to place without having to drive,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of young people riding the train just in the times I’ve been taking it.”

Conrad said riding the train is less stressful than taking roadtrips because he isn’t having to constantly deal with traffic and other drivers. But, he said, you still cross paths with others. While that can be a mixed bag, he finds it to be a good way to meet people. He also enjoys looking at the landscapes while traveling, without risking a crash.

One of the drawbacks of taking the train for Conrad is the length of time it takes to travel, but he hopes for a future with high speed routes and better rail that cuts down on travel times.

Others like Ryan Wynn take the train for more utilitarian reasons. Wynn, a 32-year-old living in Chicago, was taking the train back home after visiting his grandmother in a Little Rock hospital.

Wynn has taken Amtrak several times, especially when he was in college. Though the service isn’t perfect, it’s inexpensive, he said. It depends on where a traveler is going, but going from Union Station in Little Rock to Chicago will typically cost between $150 to $400, depending on whether you want to sit in coach or have a private room and whether you want to travel in segments or directly to your destination. Traveling to San Antonio costs roughly the same.

Wynn, who has been keeping up with recent plane crashes, said that flying is a “peaceful” way to travel.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on up in that airspace right now. A lot of different crashes and stuff,” he said. “So if you can take an alternate route where you’re comfortable and safe, take it.”

Seeing the landscapes and being able to experience other parts of the United States is an added benefit of taking the train, Wynn said. Being from Chicago, Wynn feels like many people who live in the city don’t travel and see other parts of the country. Amtrak, he said, is a good way to see smaller cities in the U.S. and travel.

According to Marc Magliari, a spokesperson for Amtrak, people ride Amtrak to get from place to place, see sights and much more.

“For about every reason you’d be driving I-40 or I-30, you could instead be riding Amtrak,” he said. “Driving is our largest competition. In (Little Rock) LRK, if you are trying to get to St. Louis or Chicago, since (I-57, formerly U.S. 67/167) is incomplete north of Walnut Ridge, your choice for a full highway is practically driving to Memphis before you go north.”

From Little Rock, the Texas Eagle will land you “in St. Louis for breakfast or Chicago for a late lunch or early dinner,” Magliari said. And if you head south you can get to Dallas, Austin or San Antonio by nighttime. From San Antonio you can catch the Sunset Limited route all the way to Los Angeles, and from Chicago you can connect and take 12 different routes.

Magliari said Amtrak is particularly big among young people, particularly those in the college-age demographic.

“Go to any place that has frequent service and you will see students, faculty and staff using our trains in large numbers. For example, at Illinois State University in Normal/Bloomington, we have even more ridership than in Springfield, where we have often drawn more passengers than their airport,” he said.

Another young traveler, Joshua Paulsen, said he appreciated crossing paths with people while taking the train — something that, particularly for young people, makes train travel worth it.

“Every time I get on it I meet cool people. Every single time. You always get somebody’s number,” the 32-year-old Michigander said. “You get in the viewing car and there’s people in there, and at the bar, obviously you get a little more social. You just meet a lot of people, and maybe you’ll never cross paths again, but it’s worth it every single time.”