Credit: Courtesy of Chelsea Green Publishing
READ MORE ABOUT:
With the doom and gloom of climate change and the frightening post-peak oil reality, it's hard to understand why the US is so far behind the times when it comes to trains. Whatever happened to the days of cross-country landscapes zooming by from a sleeper car? Or how about just plain old common sense, sustainable mass transit? It's crucial to consider the future of transportation in this country. So while we're shelling out gazillions in gas money (depleting what little reserves we actually have), passenger trains are rusting on their tracks--and what a waste it is.
Planet Green spoke with author James McCommons, whose new book Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service asks--quite rightly--why has the world's greatest railroad nation turned its back on the form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? And, more importantly--what can we do to revive it?
Planet Green: During the crazy year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--you spent a year on America's trains. Can you talk a bit about what drew you to the system, and what made you want to spend a full year learning more about it?
James McCommons: I've been an Amtrak rider since 1975 when I was going to college, so I have long experience with the current system and used it to travel all over the country in the intervening years. Although I've had some great train trips, many were marred by late arrivals, missed connections, and traveling on run-down equipment. In 2007, I took a cross country trip on the California Zephyr that was both wonderful and frustrating, illustrating many of the contradictions of rail travel in America. At the end of that trip, I asked myself, "Why hasn't the rail system gotten any better and is there any hope that it ever will?" I took a sabbatical from my teaching position at Northern Michigan University to research and write the book. As a side benefit, I got to ride a lot of trains and see a lot of country.
PG: What surprised you most about the U.S. train system?
JM: That it isn't entirely dysfunctional. In regions of the country, such as California and parts of the Midwest, where Amtrak is supported by states and where their departments of transportation have worked out cooperative relationships with the big freight railroads--who own nearly all the tracks--Amtrak actually runs a pretty good service. I was gratified to meet people--including some at Amtrak--who understand passenger railroading quite well and know what needs to be done to move it forward.
DOTs [Departments of Transportation] in Wisconsin, Washington, North Carolina, and Illinois are starting to see rail as a solution to their surface transportation problems. These DOTs understand that they have to be more than just highway departments because we can't move people and goods efficiently by just building more roads and adding lanes to the interstates. So they are beginning to build rail expertise in their staffs, putting money into infrastructure, working with the freight railroads, and even purchasing trains themselves because the feds and Amtrak can't supply the rolling stock. Amtrak simply operates these state-supported trains. These states and their corridor services are really models for what can be done across the nation.
PG: Your book, Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service is more than just an account of your year spent riding across America; it's a plea for a restructuring of our rail system. Why is this a dire fight, and why is now the time to make serious changes?
JM: One of the historians I interviewed for the book put it this way: "America hasn't figured out passenger rail yet." We had a private rail system, which worked well through the 19th and early 20th centuries, largely because there wasn't any other competitive mode of travel. As well, the federal, state and local governments heavily subsidized the railroads with loans and land grants. But then, in the 1920s, the country began investing in a road network and later an aviation system. The railroads were largely left to fend for themselves and were unable to compete against these newer travel modes that were receiving hundreds of billions in government aid.
In short, we just failed to invest in rail--while the Japanese and Europeans pushed the technology--so, that's been the story of the last several decades. Rail receives a pittance while aviation and highways get the bulk of government funding. Amtrak is a token passenger rail system.
This situation has to change if we are going to build a robust passenger rail network that complements the other two modes. There is a much bigger role for rail in America whether it's moving people or goods. It is ludicrous to believe that air travel and automobiles--even clean autos--can meet our future transportation needs, especially with the likelihood of adding another 100 million people in the next 40 years. That's the book's point of view: American needs more passenger trains.
Now, how we are going to accomplish that remains to be seen. Is Amtrak the right entity to carry out this mission? Can the big freight railroads be enticed back into the passenger business? Or will it be a public-private partnership with the state and federal governments flowing more money into the private railroad network? I think we reached a turning point in 2008 with the gas and economic crises and the growing realization that we need to build a cleaner, greener, and more efficient economy. Rail has to be part of that future.
PG: Along your travels, what types of people did you meet, and what do they see as the future of passenger rail?
JM: Riding a passenger train is a fascinating, social experience. There are opportunities to meet people in the lounge cars over a drink, sit down in the diner, and, of course, chat with the person in the next seat. As one woman observed to me, "People on trains talk. We just love that." As a reporter, and a fellow traveler, I never had difficulty striking up a conversation with a stranger.
I met dedicated train riders who have discovered this mode of travel, like it, and despite the inconveniences, use trains. And then there are folks who board a train for the first time and are delighted by the comfortable seating, the ability to move around the train, get a meal and sit in a social atmosphere of the lounge or dining cars and meet fellow travelers.
On trains, the talk naturally turns to transportation. What I've found is that people want more train service, and will use it if it is convenient, dependable and frequent. They asked themselves the same questions I was asking: Why doesn't America have a robust, well functioning passenger rail system that offers an alternative to highway and air travel? How did we end up with a national rail system that is essentially run on a shoestring?
PG: Let's say Obama decides to put a lot of stimulus money into rebuilding the passenger rail system. What would change--in our daily lives, policy, climate change, etc?
JM: Well we wouldn't see an immediate change because our transportation system is so dependent on aviation and the automobile. The administration has already decided to award $8 billion in stimulus fund to jumpstart high speed rail in corridors that have been designated years ago, but in which very little has happened.
Although high speed is important and fast trains would be great, but what I learned out there on the rails is that frequency and dependability are just as important. In other words, what we need immediately are more trains, running on a time and running frequently. On many of these routes--especially busy corridors between major cities--there's just one or two trains a day, and that is not enough to build ridership. Convenience requires frequency and when trains are frequent, they don't have to be faster than highway speed to compete against the automobile.
PG: What can be done (or is already being done)--on a small scale--to revive the passenger rail?
JM: In the short term, the best that could happen is channeling that $8 billion to the handful of states that are already investing in rail, who already have the expertise and the plans in place. These are the states deserving of support because they come to the table with their own money and they've been doing it for years without a federal partner. Let these states show what can be done. The country desperately needs demonstration projects on a regional scale.
The real game changer will be the next transportation bill out of Congress, which could put tens of billions more into the rail mode--both transit and intercity trains. Then we'll see if there really has been a historic change in government policy and strategy and if rail will begin to get the type of investment dollars needed to move ahead. Once states see that there are matching dollars for rail projects--just as there are now for highways--they will begin to consider rail.
For more Planet Green interviews, check out our change makers series.
-
- {}
