Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

Midnight train from Georgia: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle in the shutdown

ABOARD THE CRESCENT (AP) — There’s something melodic about watching the sun rise over a rural stillness broken only by the rhythms of steel wheels on tracks. Or so we tell ourselves.

In this case, being aboard a train at all owed more to politics than poetry. Congress and Donald Trump were mired in their latest budget stalemate, one rooted in the Republican president’s immigration crackdown and the tactics of federal forces he has sent to U.S. cities. But this impasse has upended a foundational constant of American life today: easy air travel.

In Atlanta, my hometown airport, cheerfully marketed as the world’s busiest, had descended into organized chaos. Unpaid federal employees called out from work, leaving a diminished security staff to screen travelers frustrated by hourslong waits in line. I wanted to get to Washington for the NCAA basketball tournament. So I eliminated the risk of a missed flight and booked the train overnight and into game day across a 650-mile route.

In this fraught moment in U.S. politics, I slowed down and thought about things we take for granted. Who ever ponders the conveniences of that 20th-century innovation, the airplane, that makes 21st-century hustle possible? We book and board. An unconscious, first-world flex of modernity. It’s even rarer to grapple with the inconvenience.

My decision had taken me further back, to the 19th century and another defining innovation: the long-distance train. A 14½-hour weekend train ride is time aplenty to appreciate how completely politics, economics, social strife and fights over identity and belonging have always affected the order of our lives, including how, when and where we move around in these United States.

There is little glamour late night in a crowded Amtrak station. Children are up past bedtime and tended by frazzled parents. Older adults struggle with luggage and stairs. Airports are not red-carpet affairs either, of course. But there is a certain cache to Delta's Atlanta-Washington flights. They typically take about two hours gate to gate. However, during this extended shutdown, those perks have vanished.

In normal circumstances I can get from my front porch to Capitol Hill in as little as 4½ hours. Security lines these days could at least double my overall air travel time. The train is still longer, but certainty has value, too. At the Amtrak station, there were no standstill lines, no TSA agents, no ICE agents as stand-ins.

Atlanta, the South's largest city, has a historical hook to the rails. Originally named “Terminus,” it developed as a critical intersection of rail routes. A century after the Civil War, Delta chose Atlanta for its headquarters over Birmingham, a decision tied to tax breaks and, according to some, the more overt racism of Alabama's leaders during the Jim Crow era—a code that allowed states to segregate the passenger trains that predated Amtrak.

On this night, I heard many languages and accents, notable given the role that immigrant labor played in building the U.S. rail system. I saw faces that reflected U.S. pluralism, a different mix from what previous generations would have seen.

Just as politics and subsidies helped grow U.S. railroads, those factors diminished the network as auto manufacturers and airlines commanded favor from politicians. Riding across rural areas, I saw vibrant county seats and countless other towns that are not thriving as they sit disconnected from passenger rail.

When I arrived in Washington, I paused to enjoy Union Station's grand hall and its Beaux Arts appeal. I stepped outside and looked up at the Capitol dome. While I had slept, the Senate managed a bipartisan deal, but House Republican leaders rejected it. The stalemate continued. I was a weary traveler but renewed citizen. And the train rolled on.