Friday, May 24 9:50 PM CT time
After hours of mild distress, I finally found that there is an alternate route that will get me to DC in time (at least) for my departing flight. Overall, I think I handled our five-hour mounting delay from Spokane to Chicago fairly well, with no screaming and minimal whining and fretting. What a disappointment it would have been to have worked hard at fundraising and saving money only to be thwarted by freight trains.
Here’s what happened: When I got to the station in Spokane, half of the train was there. The trains from Seattle and Portland meet there and are joined together for the rest of the ride to Chicago on the Empire Builder. The Portland arm, however, had been held up for three hours by a malfunctioning (or possibly derailed) large freight train and we waited until 4:30 AM to finally couple the cars and leave. Then, when we seemed to be making up the time enough for me to make the connection, an air hose blew on the track and we stopped for another near-hour to fix that.
At least four more stops for large freight trains– largely coal trains,–later, we were a full five hours behind schedule. Many were quick to blame Amtrak, but I think they handled the whole situation very well. People with connections were all provided with a suitable alternate plan, along with hotel and taxi vouchers. After all, is it Amtrak’s responsibility to expand the infrastructure to multiple tracks so that stopping for freight isn’t a problem? Though they are federally subsidized, they covered close to 90% of their operating expense in 2012 through ticket sales alone.
As I pointed out in my Montana post earlier, passenger trains are low on the overall priority list. Since I can’t help but politicize every problem, isn’t that just total bullshit? While the coal and oil currently being extracted and shipped across the Midwest may provide the elusive ‘jobs’ everyone is searching for, what do those industries provide long term? Many companies involved in the operations do not pay Federal income tax or are being granted subsidies safely larger than those of Amtrak, or of the passengers riding today. Shouldn’t the burden of expanding the rail infrastructure be upon them? Perhaps it would be if the boom were projected to last much more than 3-5 years. So, as it is, we’re looking at business as usual. People pay for infrastructure, use it, and pay to maintain it, while industry comes in, uses up the labor and the natural world, and wears down the rail, roads, etc. and sells the supposed fruits of the operation to China. While I don’t have the numbers in front of me, I’m sure that their tax ‘burden’ isn’t nearly high enough to account for such mismanagement and waste.
I was writing to a friend who hosts a radio show in Eugene earlier on the train and wondering to him when the tipping point comes. When do the long term consequences of a job finally outweigh the temporary “benefit” of selling one’s labor and remaining dependent upon the debt system? People see it, but maybe are waiting for others to jump ship. Maybe some truly don’t see it yet. As far as I can see, the entire industrial system is one global boom town. Those living on the shit side of it already realize it, and one day when the boom ends, the rest of us will as well.
My friend Jan introduced me to a folk epic by Anais Mitchell called ‘Hadestown’ recently and the song “Why We Build The Wall” popped into my playlist while writing this. Here is the final chorus of that call and response for you.
“…What do we have that they should want? We have a wall to work upon, we have work and they have none, and the work is never done…and the war is never won, the enemy is poverty and the wall keeps out the enemy and we build the wall to keep us free, that’s why we build the wall, we build the wall to keep us free.”
Looking forward to staying up all night and seeing New York from the train on my wild detour, eventually landing in Washington D.C. and finally on to the Holy Land.
Leave a Reply