Earlier this month, I joined the growing ranks of people choosing rail over air travel.
I rode Amtrak’s Lakeshore Limited to Chicago, and then took the California Zephyr down to Ottumwa, Iowa. I was heading for Pella, Iowa, my hometown, to be in my friend Carlyn’s wedding. My choice of the roughly 24 hours of travel time aligned with our desire to be as eco-friendly and as local as possible, right down to the flower arrangements (freshly cut wildflowers and grasses from her brother’s farm) and our dresses (mine was hemp, hers raw silk and hemp) and shoes (vegetable-dyed, stitched rather than glued, with recycled soles).
On the way out, I had a “roomette,” complete with sink, toilet and choice of bed or upper bunk. There were a few areas of rough track, including one on the California Zephyr — a two level train — which nearly tossed an older passenger down the stairs as he was walking past. Other than that, the trip was delightful: comfortable, relaxing, and fun.
This was only the second lengthy train ride I’ve taken in the U.S., though I’ve had some long, wonderful rides in Britain and Europe. Turns out, I learned more about a swath of this country than I had bargained for. The views from the window were intriguing, although it took a while to piece together their implications. I began getting my first clues between the Indiana cities of Gary and Hammond-Whiting.
I’d driven past Gary’s bleak, industrial landscape many years ago. The views this time were mainly smokestacks and factory complexes, interspersed with large, black mounds. Then I noticed freight trains sitting on neighboring tracks, sometimes 50 to 100 cars long. These cars were emblazoned “Coke Express”, and carried their own black mounds. That’s not coke as in the drink or the drug, but as in the carbonaceous relative of coal. Periodically, oncoming freight lines heaped with coke would whiz past us.
Delving deeper into the heartland, I was even more struck by views between Galesburg, Ill., and Burlington, Iowa. The massive floods of June had left their mark, in the form of high water lines on some homes, and large areas of standing water in fields. Upwards of 100 white egrets formed the border of one temporary lake, while blue herons winged their way over blasted cornfields. I glimpsed one of these water birds standing, ironically, next to an irrigation pipe, while another held vigil in front of two grain elevators surrounded by water.
And the corn looked strange. After 15 years away, I expected changes, but I had to look closely to understand what I was seeing. While childhood scenes usually appear smaller when revisited in adulthood, these fields looked larger.
It wasn’t just because I’d been urbanized — these fields really were bigger! What had shrunk was the space in between the cornstalks, in between the corn and the bean fields, and in between the fields and any roads or farmhouses. Fortunately, I’d watched the documentary “King Corn” (click here for more information) and read Michael Pollan’s writings on modern corn cultivation, so I had some idea of how to account for these seemingly endless vistas of corn and soybeans.
Evidently, hybrid strains of corn have been developed that can produce even while planted pretty much toe to toe. Unless you look at them from above, say from the observation car on the second story of the train, you can’t even see that there are rows. Back when I lived in Iowa City, my friend’s beagle used to periodically take off between the rows in the cornfield near the park, and stay in there for hours. Now, you couldn’t shove a beagle between those stalks. A guinea pig, maybe.
This is worrisome. The subsidizing of corn and soy, and the craze for biofuels are creating an ever larger monoculture, saturating the land with nitrogen fertilizers, and leaving ever smaller margins of natural habitat. I suspect there wouldn’t be anything in a modern cornfield to interest a beagle.
I saw almost no pastures to break up the monotony and provide forage for pollinators, or anything else, livestock having been moved off to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. The chicken coops, hog sheds and outbuildings that used to skirt the farmhouse yards were replaced with solid hedges of corn. I felt increasingly uneasy as I sat outside the train station in Ottumwa, waiting to embark on my return trip. What did it mean that I saw no birds or insects anywhere, though there were trees and grass? And I was there for a while, because the train was three hours late in arriving.
This delay, I learned from fellow passengers, is common on the trip east. Some said six-hour delays were not unusual. I was fortunate not to have to make a hasty connection in Chicago, but heard others working out plan changes on their cell phones. The Lakeshore Limited left Chicago on time, at 10 p.m., but stopped again only minutes after pulling out of the station, and sat on the tracks for an hour. That was the longest delay of several, so that by the time we reached Albany, we were again three hours late.
The conductor explained that there was freight congestion on the line in several areas; passenger trains play second fiddle to freight. While it was much more comfortable to sit motionless on a train than on a plane, it came as a shock to me that so many people’s timetables could be held hostage to the uncertainties of shipping. I felt it was especially ironic that I had chosen the train to reduce my carbon emissions, but was being forced to wait for big loads of coal to go by.
I did feel cheered by my glimpse of a lone figure practicing the ancient art of T’ai chi on the banks of the Chicago river, and by the sight of at least 50 tall, white wind turbines outside Princeton, Ill. Another 25 of them lined up outside Mendota, Ill., home of the “Breaking the Prairie” museum, a name I found more disturbing after what I’d been seeing.
I’m still processing my experiences on this trip. I wasn’t traveling as an investigative reporter — I admit my observations are sketchy and my analysis is speculative. I’m left with a lot of questions. I do feel as though the views through the train window, and my experiences on the rails, reflect the urgent problems we’re facing: poor public transport systems, misguided agricultural policies, and an aging, dirty, fossil-fuel-devouring industrial complex.
The floods of June did not bode well for our capacity to respond to the potentially more severe weather of our future. Do the Illinois wind turbines hold out enough hope for our quest for environmentally safe, renewable energy? Does the resilience and patience of my fellow Amtrak passengers suggest there will be enough riders and enough public and governmental support to implement improved rail travel in the future?
The floods have since returned to the Midwest brought, this time, by Ike. And the recent L.A. train wreck has turned public attention to the question of rail safety, just as gas prices have been pushing ridership numbers up. We have our hands full, it seems, and it is hard not to think of the title of one of James Howard Kunstler’s recent books: “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.” One of Kunstler’s frequent topics, in fact, is the need to truly invest in our rail system.
Looking back, I’m glad I chose the train, in spite of the inconveniences. It felt so much more like an event — a journey on which something unfolded, some new realizations began to take root — than the typical air flight, which feels more and more like something simply to be endured. And although it takes much longer than flying and, if you get a sleeping car, is nearly as expensive, the cost to the environment is much lower.
Reporter Matthew Wald downplays this in his June 21 New York Times piece on the increase in rail passengers, but he nevertheless finds that “Amtrak can move a passenger a mile with 17.4 percent less fuel than a passenger car can, and about 32.9 percent less than an airline can” (You can read the article, “Travelers Shift to Rail as Cost of Fuel Rises,” here.)
Perhaps less well known, but just as important, is that when you opt for the train instead of a plane, your emissions are considerably less destructive to the atmosphere than high altitude emissions. The David Suzuki Foundation explains that “high-altitude emissions have a more harmful climate impact because they trigger a series of chemical reactions and atmospheric effects that have a net warming effect. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for example, has estimated that the climate impact of aircraft is two to four times greater than the effect of their carbon emissions alone.” (Read more here.)
I may not plan my vacations based on the trains, although I sat next to a man who had chosen to travel from Reno, Nev., to Portland, Maine, for his vacation. I also talked to a couple who were returning to Albany from a holiday trip to Seattle. All seemed happy with their experiences. I do definitely see myself traveling by train instead of air, whenever circumstances allow. I hope more and more of us begin to make the same choice.
About the author: Ruth Ann Smalley, Ph.D., is an educator and a certified Eden Energy medicine practitioner with a practice in Albany. She’s also an Honest Weight Coop member worker, and writes a monthly column for the coop’s newsletter.
Have an experience to share with Greenpoint readers? What choices are you making to lessen your impact on our world? Comment below, or email greenpoint@dailygazette.net.
