I took the train from Fort Worth to Austin on Monday.
It wasn't close to being on time (three hours behind schedule), but my attitude was: "Why would it be?" Amtrak is underfunded, underappreciated, underused and yet still under the constant stress of operating a national rail network. Amtrak is also frequently and fiercely under attack by critics such as John McCain who want to strip away all government operating subsidies and kill national passenger rail service.
Of course, the private airlines, upon which the people in McCain's state of Arizona are dependent, are loaded up to their seat backs in government subsidies, and they would probably hemorrhage cash if they weren't. But McCain doesn't say a word. The airlines even received a hefty $15 billion bailout following the grounding of flights after Sept. 11, even after Amtrak proved its usefulness as a means of transportation. Go figure.
Amtrak is the moniker of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, a governmental corporation owned mostly by taxpayers that has been doing business since 1971 following the breakup of private passenger trains.
Though ridership has increased to record numbers in the past couple of years, the Reagan-Bush-Clinton consensus was: let Amtrak languish. Largely due to the aggressive leadership of Amtrak's most recent presidents, Amtrak has seen a resurgence - though it seems this resurgence has missed Texas by and large, and is focused mainly on the Northeast Corridor from New York City to Washington D.C.
On the short trip I took Monday, I saw that the populated areas near the tracks are as neglected as the national public transportation infrastructure itself, from the economic flop of Fort Worth's Rail Market to the Austin Amtrak station is cordoned off and isolated.
Some sights along the way absolutely celebrate Texas: lush, green unspoiled field and forest, cows on the graze, expansive hills, plateaus lined with elm and oak, deposits of that clay that are as red as my neck after a day on top of my mom's roof. Most of what you get is the good stuff - proof that God blessed Texas with His own hand.
But there's also proof that man is intent on damning her: the rusted silos and mills just waiting for their chance to fall to pieces, an infinite number of lots littered with skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets, old death-traps disguised as fridges, piles of bald radials, discarded children's toys, broken two-by-fours and pressed wood. There are entire neighborhoods that seem to be rotting away - immune to that spirited progress of the new urbanism that would usuallygentrify such areas.
If you paid attention in U.S. history class you'd know that, at one time, where the railroad went and stations were set up soon followed commerce, people and prosperity. Now the railways are littered with neglect, and hardly anyone rides. Hell, except for the juxtaposition of green hill majesty with rust-best style depression, why would they?
The fares are cheap enough for quick rides, but the Amtrak's lack of efficiency is pathetic. And there's nothing powerful about a nation with a slipshod public transit system in a constant state of disrepair. There's nothing more annoying transit being eternally late because right of way must be given up to graffiti-covered Union Pacific freight trains.
Our country has a responsibility to provide an efficient, cheap national infrastructure that makes long-distance rail accessible and manageable for all Americans. This calls for a much bigger investment and the requisite regulation.
For the McCainites and small-government harpies who'll whine about the "waste" of tax dollars to passenger rail, simply consider that no form of passenger transportation in the United States is self-sufficient - not driving your own ruggedly individual automobile across highways, and especially not air travel.
From what I've gathered by watching both "Hostel" films and "EuroTrip," the trains in Europe zip folks around efficiently and inexpensively, so why not in America?
It's high time that America put our money where our myths are. This country is too beautiful and flawed to not be seen from the windows of a moving train.
Like Tom Waits sang, "There ain't nothin' sweeter than ridin' the rails."
Kalmbacher is a journalism senior.
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