Shows
Reconnect AmericaEpisode 4. Private Railroads for Public Purpose: Battles, Misadventures, and Extraordinary Measures (Part 1)Rail systems around the world are mostly owned and operated by the public. But the U.S. has only ever flirted with public ownership, and mostly in moments where this seemed like the only way to preserve a functional railroad system. Instead, for almost a century, we pursued a model of regulating corporate railroads to fulfill their public purpose while sustaining the revenue needed to keep them afloat. Meeting both of these objectives proved to be a balancing act which took decades to achieve, by which time it was already coming undone, thanks to massive public investments in competing...
2025-11-271h 02
Reconnect AmericaEpisode 2. From Bloom to Bailout: A History of US Passenger Rail (Part 1)Before there were cars, planes, cybertrucks, and electric unicycles—there were trains. People rode trains to get just about everywhere, from work, school, and daily errands, to holiday getaways at the national parks. As Meredith Richards, one of our guests in this episode, puts it, “Trains were simply the way people traveled.”So what happened to our once-great passenger rail system? How did the U.S. become so car-dependent that many Americans today ride trains for the first time when they travel abroad? In this first of two episodes on passenger rail, we learn about how railroads once c...
2025-01-0128 min