An interesting book about the history of passenger rail in the US and it's relationship to the freight railroads in 2008. The best parts of the book are the stories McCommons tells from his long haul trips on Amtrak. I soon got lost among the acronyms and names in the filler chapters between the long haul stories, but they do a great job illustrating the potentials and pitfalls; success and failures of passenger rail. The worst part of the book is the forward which is only barely related to the rest of the book. Since I just finished The Big Roads by Earl Swift, I could relate to much of the comparisons between road and rail. I'd be interested to see an update - maybe in a magazine or newspaper article - written by this same author 5 years from now. ( )

This is a very enjoyable and eye-opening book. I enjoyed imagining the picture McCommons painted of fellow passengers, government and industry leaders, and landscapes in the land of the free and the home of the brave. His observations and descriptions are poetic and insightful. His interviews are skillful (no surprise with his journalism background) in gaining the information he seeks, yet also revealing of the personalities.

What I particularly found helpful is the intertwining of history, technology, and political reality. He delineates how we came to arrive at the semi-broken and variegated passenger train system we have today, what can be done to fix it, and what it will take to do so. The author is an enthusiastic realist, talking with other enthusiastic realists, but is no mere foamer. He explains, from a technical and industry standpoint, why American railroads (or Amtrak, either)cannot run bullet trains on existing freight tracks. Yet, he also points out what speed increases beyond 100 mph are possible, and how and where these increases might be accomplished, both from a technical, political, and financial standpoint. Regarding bullet trains, he reports where and how Americans might replicate the Japanese experience.

McCommons addresses varying train technology, footprints, politics, including the creation of Amtrak, and the customer experiences and improvements along the way. He clearly enjoys riding the rails, notes where problems and success exist, and hopes for a better tomorrow for American railroading.
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This book really lays out the entire passenger rail system in the US, how it came to be, what's wrong with it, who the passenger rail advocates are and what is possible if we all pull together. I read this book and wanted to ride the trains and plan to do so this year. ( )

A really interesting look at the past, present and future of Amtrak through the lens of the long distance trains. McCommons is a university professor and some chapters come through as feeling like a published paper, but overall it was super readable. Especially as I began reading it on a Lake Shore Limited between Albany and NYC. While not a foamer myself, long distance train travel fascinates me and I enjoyed this look at the history of some - especially why the Empire Builder has that name.
While the cost of gas isn't the issue that it was in 2009, there remain many reasons to take trains. Seeing the country is one amazing one - getting there quickly isn't always. ( )

I thought I knew what there was to know on the (inadequate) state of railroad funding in this country. McCommon's book educated me otherwise. ( )

I really tried to finish this as I love trains but his style was just too dry ( )

Exhaustive. Fascinating and boring in roughly equal measures. I'm a huge Amtrak enthusiast, though not a "foamer" (slang for the truly devoted), and this book was quite informative. I learned much about the way the US passenger rail system works, but I came away convinced that I'd have been just as happy reading 3, maybe 4, magazine articles on the subject instead. ( )

First of all McCommons should get some sort of medal for riding on almost all of Amtrak's distance or intercity trains. Despite his obvious fondness for train travel, McCommons experiences and obversations tell us what many of us who have patronized Amtrak know - that U.S. passenger train service leaves much to be desired. McCommons supplements his observations with interviews with a variety of train experts. The overriding theme is that Amtrak is starved for capital investment, and is left at the mercy of big freight railroads (who own most of the track) and politicians. The book was written at the dawn of the Obama Administration, so there was hope that capital appropriations in the form of fiscal stimulus, would begin to turn things around for Amtrak. There was some optimism generated by state investments and partnerships with Amtrak, which have created successful passenger service in the Pacific Northwest, California, the Northeast Corridor, among other areas. The book is a must read for anyone interested in U.S. passenger railroad policy. Given the cast changes in the works in 2008 (when the book was written), it would be most interesting to see what a sequel might reveal in terms of the improvements that were forecasted. ( )

Author James McCommons intertwines several different threads in this book. The primary thread is a travelogue describing a year of trips on Amtrak to all four corners of the United States. During the course of these travels, he meets and interviews many people who work in the rail industry (both for Amtrak and the freight railroads), rail advocacy groups, and various state and city agencies that are actively supporting local rail transit. Through these interviews, and other exposition, McCommons discusses the current state of long-distance passenger rail travel in the United States, how it got to be this way, and various trends that might lead to a sunnier future for passenger rail.

Like McCommons, I like traveling by rail. Living most of my life in New York City and Boston, I have traveled extensively in Amtrak's northeast corridor, and have made other trips to Charlottesville, VA, Savannah, GA, between San Francisco and Denver, and (when I was less then a year old) cross-country from New York to California. I am sympathetic to his hopes for a revival of rail travel in the U.S., and this makes it hard for me to dispassionately evaluate the case he makes for it.

There is a lot of interest in the book, but by end it started to get a bit repetitious, as the trips all started to sound the same---generic descriptions of scenery, various passengers the author meets in the dining car, and meetings with still more insiders from the rail industry. Definitely worthwhile, but maybe not for somebody who doesn't already have an interest in passenger rail travel in the United States.

This review is part of the Green Books Campaign. On November 11, 2009, over 100 bloggers reviewed over 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. The goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. The campaign was organized by Eco-Libris, a company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available here.

When I first heard about the Green Books Campaign, I was intrigued. I strive to live locally and sustainably, and "green" living is often a part of that. So, it made sense for me to participate--combining "green" with my love of reading. Plus, they had a great list of books to choose from. I ended up with Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service by James McCommons (a journalist and instructor at Northern Michigan University). Having only recently been on a train for the first time, and having enjoyed it immensely despite problems and delays, I found myself particularly interested in the subject. McCommons spent a year riding the rails across America in order to research Waiting on a Train; the resulting book is a mix of investigative journalism and travel memoir. Published by Chelsea Green Publishing, the book was included in the campaign because copies are printed on chlorine-free recycled paper (some of it post-consumer-waste) and do not use old-growth forests in their production.

Over the course of a year, McCommons interviewed historians, railroad enthusiasts, politicians, transportation executives, railroad officials, Amtrak staff, fellow passengers, and others about passenger trains in the United States--each person bringing a different perspective to the discussion. McCommons made a point to never rent a car during his travels, using buses, cabs, and occasionally planes to make his connections, showing just how difficult it is to get around without a car in the U.S. He also showed how difficult Americans' dependency on cars will be to change, but that creating a reliable passenger rail system would be a huge step in the right direction. In addition to relating his experiences traveling by train, he also delved into the history and politics surround passenger train services and Amtrak. He also made a point to visit different areas of the country exhibiting some of the best and the worst passenger rail services that America has to offer. McCommons was able to remain predominantly objective in Waiting for a Train even if the narrative wasn't always very linear and was somewhat repetitive, but the chapters are short, approachable, and easily digested.

Overall, I enjoyed Waiting on a Train quite a bit. I certainly gained a better understanding of the current state of passenger rail in the United States and how we got to where we are now. It is somewhat surprising to me how quickly the U.S. went from having a rail system envied the world over to having a system that's a rather large embarrassment today. But that just means that there's plenty of room for improvement and fortunately more and more people are interested in making that happen. It will take a lot of work, but it is doable. McCommons handles this quite well in Waiting on a Train--he is not overly optimistic, but he doesn't make the situation feel absolutely hopeless, either. However, the book does seem a bit disjointed in its approach. I did enjoy the travel narrative, but it was sometimes difficult to completely mesh that with the investigative material. Even though McCommons deals heavily with current events, there is plenty of history covered and the book should remain interesting and informative for quite some time. Whether you are interested in current events, politics, trains, or are simply a fan of mass transportation (like I am), then you will probably find McCommons aptly named Waiting on a Train a book to pick up.

Experiments in Reading ( )