The Sunday Times November 14, 2021 5Travel America
Washington DCBaltimorePhiladelphiaNew York50 milesRAIL ROUTEFERRANTRAITE, ESPIEGLE, HELENA GH/GETTY IMAGESAmerica is back — and the
warts-and-all train journey
from New York to DC is an
eye-opener, says Chris Haslam
STATES OF PLAY
vu: a pair of cops sprinting
down a street; a heated
argument in a junkyard; a
ragged pair of hoboes sitting
on the wrong side of the tracks.
“Trenton Makes, the World
Takes” states the sign on the
Lower Trenton bridge as we
cross the Delaware River into
Pennsylvania, and then the
guard comes back on air to
remind us that anyone caught
with their mask off will be
escorted off the train and earn
“an extended stay in
Philadelphia”. Imagine the
complaints if he worked for
Thameslink.
The names here are all
from home — Bristol, Camden,
Deptford — the autumn colours
as magnificent as anything in
New England. In Tacony we
flash past a house from which
clothes are being thrown out
of an upstairs window at a man
standing ruefully below.
Philadelphia is dereliction,
rust and uneven rows of
two-storey houses that line the
cracked streets like bad teeth,
bathed in autumn sunshine
that somehow makes the
scene sadder. At 11.30am we
cross the Christina River into
Wilmington, Delaware. This
city looks better off. Adverts
in the station suggest putting
faith in an MBA rather than
Jesus, and the passengers who
board look like commercials
for career fulfilment.
The further south we go,
the bigger America gets.
Deeper forests, wider rivers,
more extensive trailer parks.
I see a lifesize crucifix in
blood-red wood and tap the
irritated girl sitting next to me.
“What?” she snaps, looking
up from her screen and
fiddling with her ear buds.
“Too late,” I reply.
Baltimore is a study in
bleakness: a red-brick
wasteland that looks as Berlin
did in 1945. President Biden isT
he exhilarating
feeling that I’m
embarking on a
great adventure
hits as I push
through the huge doors of the
Moynihan Train Hall, across
8th Avenue from Penn Station
in New York. While the latter
is a reminder of how great
America once was, Amtrak’s
bright, polite and efficient
new terminus offers hope that
this battered nation can be
that way again.
The politeness stops when
I board the train. “You people
wear that mask at all times
unless you’re eating,” growls
the guard over the tannoy.
“And by eating I mean eating.
I’ll be checking.”
I’m in seat 9A in car three
of the Acela, Amtrak’s high-
speed electric express that
runs 457 miles from Boston to
Washington DC at speeds of
up to 150mph. Unlike the
Amtrak trains of old, ignored
by the high-flyers and used
mainly by the poor and the
aimless, the 10am departure
from New York is packed with
climate-conscious Gen Y types.
“Didn’t anyone tell you that
flying is killing the planet?”
the Starbucks-sipping girl in
the seat next to me says with
a groan when I ask why she
has chosen the train. “I’m
guessing you didn’t come
from England by boat, right?”
It’s going to be a long journey.
But a thrilling one, too,
speeding through the golden
era of the New Jersey autumn,
past baseball diamonds,
used-car lots, housing projects
and churches — “Jesus Christ
is Lord of Newark” proclaims
one trackside billboard — and
across tracts of swampland
and forest. It all reminds you
of the size of America in a way
that Boeing never could.
Every scene snatched from
my window is one of TV déjàON TRACK Penn Station,
with the New York skyline
stretching beyond. Right,
from top: Central Park, Lady
Liberty and a light deli snackIt’s a thrilling
ride, speeding
through the
golden era of
the New Jersey
autumn
in town as I pass through,
signing off a $17 billion deal
to update the city’s port
infrastructure. Like many
of America’s urban spaces
it seems haphazard and
accidental: a temporary
settlement that somehow
acquired foundations, but is
still young enough to fail.
Tourist boards would prefer
us not to witness the nation’s
fragility. They promote a land
of magnificence and bounty
where every kid has a shot at
the American dream.
Amtrak’s beauty is that it
doesn’t follow this line. All the
train wants to do is take you
from A to B. And DC.
It’s hot when I arrive: 23C in
November. “I worry about the
future,” says my taxi driver. He
drops me at the Smithsonian
Museum’s Arts and Industries
Building (AIB) for a glimpse
of what’s coming. Closed for
refurbishment for the past two
decades, this gorgeous Arts
and Crafts hall was built at
ground level so the populace
wouldn’t be intimidated by a
grand staircase, and out of
bricks rather than monumental
stone to be inclusive.
It’s a surprisingly socialist
statement in the Capitol of
capitalism, and it reopens
this month with an equally
unexpected exhibition.ht deli snackIt’s
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ition.The Futures show does as it
suggests, presenting visions
of the world to come.
“The future is usually
presented as a pretty grim
place,” says Rachel Goslins, the
director of AIB. “We wanted
to present a more optimistic
vision, because if we can’t
imagine a better alternative
we’ll never get there.” She
stops next to a machine the
size of a fridge. “This is the
Hypergiant Eos Bioreactor,”
she says. “It’s full of algae that
consumes CO 2 and excretes
oxygen. It absorbs as much
carbon as 400 trees. We
could have one on every
street corner.”
She marches on, past a
closed-loop home laundry
solution that feeds waste
water through a mini reed
bed, and past the Bell Nexus
autonomous air taxi and the
Virgin Hyperloop prototype
(“We cleaned up the vomit”).
Further on she announces:
“This is my favourite: the
pan-Smithsonian cryo initiative
freezes the biomaterials of
endangered and extinct
species, such as this
blackwood ferret. Hopefully
we’ll be able to recreate them
in the future. It’s like, er.. .”
She pauses, searching for
the words but I’ve already
found them. They’re
“Jurassic” and “Park”.
My head is spinning as I
leave, walking across the lawns
of the National Mall in search
of more recently departed
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