Waiting on a Train : the Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service a Year Spent Riding Across America

During the tumultuous 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 - journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, over regulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America - and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America. Read more... Abstract: During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached four dollars a gallon--journalist McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Read more... Content: Foreword -- Prologue -- Baltimore : on the oldest railroad in America -- Part 1: Through the Rockies and Sierras. California Zephyr : here come your game boys and microwaves Sacramento : all you got now is Amtrak Train world : foamers and train spotters Real railroad world : the birth of Amtrak -- Part 2: Pacific Northwest. North Dakota : across on the hi-line Essex, Montana : at the Izaak Walton Inn The Cascades : locomotive problems Seattle : the "N" word: nationalization Amtrak Cascades : its all about frequency -- Oregon : funding rail with vanity plates Empire builder : the best kept secret in America -- Part 3: The Midwest. Chicago : a third-world train set Madison : everything has six zeros in it -- Part 4: The Middle Atlantic. Lakeshore Limited : but I don't want a burger The Acela Express : aboard America's fastest train Washington, D.C. : running out of capacity Norfolk, Virginia : make those people go away Raleigh, North Carolina : a state-owned railroad The Carolinian : national train day Union Station, Washington, D.C. : when railroads were bad to the bone The Capitol Limited : America rides these trains -- Part 5: California. The Southwest Chief : on the transcon Pacific Surfliner : on board the California car The Coast Starlight : a California train inside and out Capitol Corridor : trains in the streets of Oakland Caltrans, Sacramento : a billion dollars ready to go High speed rail authority, Sacramento : building another Hoover dam California Railroad Museum, Sacramento : railroads become road kill Amtrak Western Division, Oakland : freight that talks California Zephyr : a stunning long way to go Colorado River : yak-yak on the radio Denver : waiting for those freighters -- Part 6: Texas. The Texas Eagle : diner lite Longview, Texas : Don't you get it? We don't care Houston : a pitiful harvest by bus Dallas : a Texas t-bone bullet train BNSF Headquarters, Fort Worth : We care. We really do Texas Eagle : no Mac and cheese -- Part 7: The Northeast. Hiawatha : deadly days The Capitol Limited : a complete washout Union Station, Washington, D.C. : the big lie of profitability Amtrak Headquarters : broken governance and the Amtrak haters Philadelphia : trains with people in them Boston : I was your governor Cambridge : mega-regions: 100 million more people The Downeaster : Maine's very own train Lake Shore Limited : Can I sit somewhere else? -- Part 8: The Gulf Coast. City of New Orleans : on the main line of Mid-America Meridian, Mississippi : Interstate II in fifteen years New Orleans : Rail: the red-headed stepchild CSX Headquarters, Jacksonville : Where's the vision, where's the money? Tallahassee : left without a Cadillac Silver Meteor : a bed and 600 miles Virginia Beach : Railpax: set up to fail Washington, D.C. : the freight-railroad boys -- Epilogue. Pittsburgh : on train time again.