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Craven: Train Travel

I like trains - and always enjoy my trips to New York on board the Vermonter. It’s not the fastest or smoothest ride but it’s relaxing to sit back, get some work done,  and look out as the rest of the world goes by.

We always took the train to the city for movies and shopping when I was a kid. And when I was just six years old, I was actually sent alone on a train from Philadelphia to Providence after a day of fun at the beach turned sour when my parents started arguing.

The next morning, my mother took me to Philadelphia’s grand 30th Street Station and, before I knew it, I was headed north to an unknown and unexpected summer camp, under the watchful eye of a conductor who supplied me with coloring books.

This momentous trip signaled the end of my family as I knew it. But I’ll always remember my feeling of independence and comfort, sitting in the blue velvet seats, conversing with friendly travelers and eating in the dining car with its linen tablecloths, fancy silverware, and china.

Now fast forward to the Amtrak crash outside Philadelphia and my own recent trips to Washington when the train frankly seemed to be going too fast for the rickety condition of both the train and the tracks.

Today we’re told that managing climate change requires an urgent effort to get cars off the road. And Vermont would benefit by faster and easier travel into and out of the state. But some politicians now insist that it would not be appropriate for the Amtrak calamity to spur greater discussion about America’s aging infrastructure.

I’m afraid Adam Gopnik’s recent New Yorker article, “The Plot Against Trains” cuts right to the chase on this. Gopnik argues that Americans no longer have the political means or will to build “for the common good.”

He suggests that those who argue against a central role for government regard crumbling infrastructure as a kind of victory - and they resist calls for new government investment in a modern national transportation system.

But Gopnik insists that losing the railways would not just be the loss of a valuable practical asset. He warns it would also signal that, “We have forgotten how to live collectively.”

“A train is a small society,” he concludes, “headed somewhere more or less on time, more or less together, more or less sharing the same window, with a common view and a singular destination.”

Jay Craven is a filmmaker who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and directs Kingdom County Productions
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