Color me skeptical — but intrigued. Harvard professor John Stilgoe advances the argument that trains are back… if not quite yet, then in the near future. In “Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States, he argues that “an economic and cultural tsunami is about to transform the United States. … Return [of the train] will alter everyday life more dramatically than the arrival of personal computers, Internet connections, or cell phones.”
According to David Warsh’s review in the Providence Journal, half-forgotten cities that lie along the nation’s obscure operating railroad routes — Lynchburg, Va., for example — will be transformed, he says. So will be regions that now lie far from any currently useable track — National Parks, ski facilities, Lake Tahoe, Moosehead Lake.
Rising fuel costs and mounting highway congestion will drive the shift back to passenger trains, Stilgoe argues. Key to the transformation will be a shift from diesel power to electrification on railroad lines, which enables passenger trains to accelerate and brake much more quickly. Electric locomotives also require less maintenance and pollute less.
Savvy corporate managers, long-term investors, real-estate developers and speculators are already laying the groundwork for change. One bell-weather: the Grand Trunk Line spur in Cambridge, Mass. According to Warsh:
Already the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has arranged the buildings it has recently constructed above the Grand Trunk siding to allow a double track to be installed — the fundamental improvement required to allow for passenger travel. Such “architectural evidence of assumed future change” is everywhere to be found among the railroads, says Stilgoe.
Sounds exciting. But it will take more than high oil prices and traffic congestion to spur the rebirth of passenger rail in the United States. It will require, at a minimum, a willingness to permit more density around train stations — something that only a few municipalities are willing to allow. At a deeper level of analysis, it will require planning at a regional level to balance land use with transportation capacity — something we don’t see anywhere. But if enough people think they can make enough money by redeveloping the land around train stations, governance practitioners eventually may see the light as well.
In the meantime, I hope Stilgoe is right about Lynchburg. I would love to see that lovely old town regain its lost lustre.
(Hat tip to Jim Wamsley.)