Well-Trained Americans

Mack Hall

Amtrak, first cousin to FEMA, wants Americans to come down to the railway station on May 10th and celebrate National Train Day.

The problem is that for almost all of America there are no trains and no railway stations.

Amtrak’s own web site is surprisingly frank about the Amtrak passenger station in Beaumont, Texas:

2555 West Cedar StreetBeaumont, TX 77704

Station Services

No Station Hours.

No Ticket Office Hours

No Quik-Trak Hours

No Checked Baggage Hours

No Help With Baggage

And that is because Amtrak’s station in Beaumont is a concrete slab in a weedy field, with not even a FEMA trailer for shelter. On Saturday Amtrak is going to spend over two million dollars on celebrating itself, so we’ll all want to get to the Beaumont Amtrak Slab early and bring lawn chairs.

We all know a couple of fellows with a pickup and some tools who for a few thousand dollars and maybe a case of beer could put up a pretty decent shelter with an air-conditioner and some electric lights. Amtrak’s Sunset Limited (it is a beautiful train) speeds through Beaumont six times a week, three trains from New Orleans to Los Angeles and three trains the other way. To order a ticket you have to access Amtrak on your computer, and to catch the train you must ask a brave friend, preferably armed, to drive you out to a dark desolation at the end of an obscure street and wait with you.

Amtrak station service is non-existent, but surely someone will open the train door for you.

According to Amtrak, “Services on the Sunset Limited include Superliner Sleeping and Dining Car accommodations and spectacular views from the renowned Sightseer Lounge Car.”

That’s rather like Ford selling a car by advertising a good view of New Mexico through the windshield as one of the features.

May 10th was selected as National Train Day because on this date in 1869 a golden spike joining the final rails was driven there, completing the first transcontinental rail service in the USA. The final irony is that there is no rail service to Promontory Point, Utah. There’s not much passenger service anywhere in America, and on Saturday Amtrak is going to spend $2.2 million of your tax dollars to celebrate that.