It must be a sign of desperate political times that I now read the column of the conservative David Brooks without flinching. At least not so much.
And in today’s New York Times he really sounded quite sane, although his message was a pleasantly familiar one. The land. It’s what we have in these United States. It is one of the few things that unites us. And the general desecration of it is now right at top of the Trump agenda.
No surprise. It’s also no surprise that the extent of what might be romantically termed ‘the land’ is actually more vast. In this general national landscape I would have to include much of Amtrak.
The nation’s rail carrier was quickly cobbled together in 1972 amidst the general collapse of America’s passenger trains. These rail lines had been failing for years, sinking into bankruptcy and attempting to go out of business. The latter wasn’t so easy, because they were obliged, under government agreement, to keep rolling…as long as the freight dollars were rolling in. And why not? Do understand that there is a social contract inherent in the nation’s railroads. They were given a remarkable gift at their birth. Land. Lots of it. In fact, the equivalent of all of New England. And who could turn down Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, and so on? Not the railroads, that’s for sure.
But I digress. No I don’t. Because here I focus on the nature, and even the origin, of the Commons. Land. Free land. Your land, my land, from California to the New York island. Made for you and me.
These days Amtrak runs 15 trains across sections of the country. You know their names, some of them, anyway. The City of New Orleans. The Southwest Chief. The Capitol Limited.
The one I know best, the Coast Starlight, takes a full 36 hours to travel from Los Angeles to Seattle. It spends almost 24 of those hours trundling through California. It manages an average speed of 40 mph. Actually, many long-distance Amtrak trains ran faster before World War II.
What keeps them going is their popularity. They offer a singular view of America. In many cases, they offer the best view. In some cases, the only view. With the Coast Starlight, for example, the railroad is the only road…up the Upper Sacramento River Canyon, through the lava fields at the base of Mount Shasta and along the precipitous Willamette River Gorge.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting to observe the national discussion of ‘infrastructure.’ My generation has utterly failed where my parents’ succeeded. In California, all the thousands of miles of freeways, the state-wide water system, the universities…today need renewal or replacement. California high-speed rail project under construction faces an uphill fight.
Meanwhile, Amtrak’s long-haul trains with their century-old routes represent something of an embarrassment. Even an accusation. Problem is, they continue to delight too many riders. Even the Empire Builder, with its 12-hour view of what feels like the same Montana prairie, holds its surprises. Like a couple of lone coyotes on a small bluff. Your land. My land. For now, it’s what we have. Which, for America, is a long-overdue lesson in humility.