Dear Mr. President, Please Save California’s High-Speed Rail

‘Amtrak Joe’ Is the Golden State’s Last, Best Hope for Making a Rail From the Bay Area to L.A. a Reality

Dear Joe,

I know I should call you Mr. President, but there’s no time for formalities. You must move fast if you’re going to save California’s high-speed rail project.

No malarkey: It has to be you. California has shown itself incapable of funding, managing, or building deep popular support for this $80 billion train, which would be the first truly high-speed rail system in the United States. You—”Amtrak Joe,” with your personal devotion to riding the rail and your multitrillion dollar infrastructure proposal, now before Congress—are the last, best hope for making …

by Joe Mathews | April 27, 2021

How Taiwan’s High-Speed Trains Expose California’s Lack of Nerve

While the Golden State Made Excuses, the Poorer, Smaller Island Country Transformed Its National Transit System

by Joe Mathews | October 22, 2019

When it comes to fast trains, a California consensus has hardened: High-speed rail is beyond our capabilities.

We may be the world’s high-tech capital, but we say that high-speed rail …

What Riding Trains Taught Me About Americans

Rail Travel Induces a Reverie and Intimacy Among Its Diverse Passengers

By James McCommons | August 17, 2017

Amos, a one-legged Amish man, was having trouble with his new prosthesis. He left the leg in his sleeping compartment and came to the diner on crutches—a hazardous ambulation …

All Aboard, Bay Area, on Your Fast Train to Wasco

This Kern County Town, a Conduit for High-Speed Rail, Has a Lot to Offer

By Joe Mathews | March 2, 2017

Dear Bay Area,

Welcome to Wasco.

You may never have heard of this small city of 25,000 in the San Joaquin Valley. You probably can’t pronounce it (it’s WAW-skoh).

But you and …

Train From New Mexico

By W. Vandoren Wheeler | November 4, 2016

In the Lamy train station, passengers lean stiff
hips against wooden benches. Hear that old creak.
An attendant heaves my green trunk onto an antique
scale made of wood and …

Whatever Happened to the Little Red Caboose?

Manufacturing of the Iconic Train Car Stopped in 1981, But They Still Hold a Special Place in American Pop Culture

By H. Roger Grant | September 22, 2016

Americans have many icons. But those dealing with the exploration and expansion of the United States seem especially beloved: stagecoaches, steamboats, trains—and the railroad caboose. From the mid-19th century through …

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