Reconnect America

Knox Ross is chair of the Southern Rail Commission , an interstate rail compact between Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that advocates for and engages stakeholders around the expansion and revitalization of rail service in the region. In this timely Rail Bite, Mr. Ross—who is also a practicing Certified Public Accountant—illuminates some of the widespread misconceptions behind the expectation...

If you look at Amtrak’s national network on a map, you will see a giant hole spanning roughly a third of the contiguous United States. Two states in this area, Wyoming and South Dakota, have no intercity passenger rail service at all. The lone route that crosses the northern tier of the country through Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota lies far away from most of the major cities in each state. For...

In this timely meditation, author and professor David Alff probes the inner tension of rail transport in the U.S.: that it is expected to make a profit while providing an essential public service. Mr. Alff is associate professor of English at SUNY Buffalo and author of the 2024 book The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region (Code: “UCPNEW” for 30% off). The following...

Meredith Richards is chair of the Rail Passengers Association —the country’s largest passenger rail advocacy organization—and president of the Virginia Rail Policy Institute . Those who follow U.S. passenger rail closely know that Virginia has accomplished a lot in the last several years, and Mrs. Richards has been one of the figures at the center of it all. In this clip, Mrs. Richards discusses h...

John Robert Smith is chairman of Transportation for America . He is a former chair of Amtrak's Board of Directors and served 16 years as mayor of his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi. He first became a passenger rail champion while serving as mayor, when Amtrak proposed cutting service through Meridian, and he has since become a highly respected voice for restoring and revitalizing passenger serv...

Listen and subscribe on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube . 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 peop...

Listen and subscribe on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube . Reconnect America is the new podcast from Solutionary Rail that presents a creative yet common sense vision for U.S. railroads. It weaves together the genius of community and technical experts, workers and policymakers, advocates and scholars. Reconnect America reflects a decade of research, writing, and advocacy...

How can railroads reduce political polarization—and facilitate a renewable energy revolution? Reconnect America is the new podcast from Solutionary Rail that presents a creative yet common sense vision for U.S. railroads. It weaves together the genius of community and technical experts, workers and policymakers, advocates and scholars. Reconnect America culminates a decade of research, writing, an...