ABOARD THE CRESCENT (AP) — There’s something melodic about watching the sun rise over a rural stillness broken only by the rhythms of steel wheels on tracks.
This image made from an Associated Press video shows passengers boarding the Amtrak Crescent headed towards New York on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Atlanta. ABOARD THE CRESCENT — There’s something melodic about watching the sun rise over a rural stillness broken only by the rhythms of steel wheels on tracks.
Or so we tell ourselves.Congress and Donald Trump were mired in their latest budget stalemate, one rooted in the Republican president’s immigration crackdown and the tactics of federal forces he has sent to U.S. cities. But this impasse has upended a foundational constant of American life today: easy air travel. In Atlanta, my hometown airport, cheerfully marketed as the world’s busiest, had descended into organized chaos. Unpaid federal employees called out from work, leaving a diminished security staff to screen travelers frustrated by hourslong waits in line. I wanted to get to Washington for the NCAA basketball tournament. So I eliminated the risk of a missed flight and booked the train overnight and into game day across a 650-mile route. In this fraught moment in U.S. politics, I slowed down and thought about things we take for granted. Who ever ponders the conveniences of that 20th-century innovation, the airplane, that makes 21st-century hustle possible? We book and board. An unconscious, first-world flex of modernity. It’s even rarer to grapple with the inconvenience. My decision had taken me further back, to the 19th century and another defining innovation: the long-distance train. A 14½-hour weekend train ride is time aplenty to appreciate how completely politics, economics, social strife and fights over identity and belonging have always affected the order of our lives, including how, when and where we move around in these United States. But Amtrak’s Crescent also allowed me to see the expanse of our collective experience. I traversed the urban, suburban and rural breadth of East Coast America. I learned how other travelers came aboard. And in that, I found the portrait of people, past and present, who refuse to be as paralyzed as some of their elected leaders.There is little glamour late night in a crowded Amtrak station. Children are up past bedtime and tended by frazzled parents. Older adults struggle with luggage and stairs. Airports are not red-carpet affairs either, of course. But there is a certain cache to Delta’s Atlanta-Washington flights. They typically take about two hours gate to gate. They often are slotted at a midpoint gate of the concourse nearest the main terminal. That is almost certainly a nod to members of Congress who use it — but who have lost some airline perks during this extended patrial shutdown. In normal circumstances I can get from my front porch to Capitol Hill or downtown in as little as 4½ hours. Security lines these days could at least double my overall air travel time. The train is still longer, and time is money, we are taught. But certainty has value, too, even if it means at 11:29 p.m. departure. And at the Amtrak station, there were no standstill lines, no Transportation Security Administration agents, no ICE agents as stand-ins. Passengers who arrived mere minutes before departure made it on board and found seats quickly — assigned in boarding order, not predetermined zones that yield jammed aisles. There’s no in-seat service or satellite TV. But even coach seats, the lowest Amtrak tier, are as spacious as airline first-class – and there is Wi-Fi, so it’s not the 19th century or even 20th century after all.As a boy in rural Alabama, I counted train cars and wondered where they were headed. I’ve since read diary entries and letters from my grandmother and her sisters recounting World War II-era weekend trips to Atlanta. The South’s largest city has a historical hook, too. Originally named “Terminus,” Atlanta developed in the antebellum era as a critical intersection of north-south and east-west rail routes. That is what drew Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman for one of the Civil War’s seminal campaigns that helped defeat the Confederacy. A century after the Civil War, Delta chose Atlanta for its headquarters rather than Birmingham, Alabama, which was the larger city as of the 1960 census. The company’s decision was tied up in tax breaks for the airline, named for its crop duster origins in the Mississippi Delta region. According to some interpretations, Delta’s decision was made easier because of the more overt racism of Alabama’s and Birmingham’s leaders as they defended Jim Crow — a code that, among other acts, allowed states to segregate the passenger trains that predated Amtrak. On this night, I heard many languages and accents, notable given the role that immigrant labor played in building the U.S. rail system and especially striking now with immigration — legal and illegal — at the forefront in Washington, my destination. I saw faces that reflected U.S. pluralism, a different mix from what my grandmother and aunts would have seen a lifetime ago. The array of voices celebrated the freedom and ease of rail travel. So did Agatha Grimes and her friends after they boarded in Greensboro, North Carolina, as part of a long weekend trip to celebrate her 62nd birthday. “I got stuck in the Atlanta airport last week,” Grimes said, as her group laughed together in the dining car. “It’s just nuts.” Beretta Nunnally, a self-described “train veteran” who organized their trip, said, “There’s no worry about parking. No checking bags. You come to the station, you get where you going, and you come home.”Still, that is not as easy in the United States as it once was. Just as politics, economics and subsidies helped grow U.S. railroads, those factors diminished the network as auto manufacturers, oil companies, roadbuilders and, finally, airline manufacturers and airlines commanded favor from politicians and attention from consumers. Riding hours across rural areas, I noticed the junkyards where kudzu and chain-link fencing framed rows of rusted automobiles. I saw the farmland and equipment that helps feed cities and the rest of the nation. I awoke to see the night lights of office towers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and its NFL stadium. I saw vibrant county seats — and I thought of countless other towns like them that are not thriving as they sit disconnected from passenger rail and far from the Eisenhower-era interstate system that we crossed multiple times on our way. In each setting, voters — conservatives, liberals, the extremes and betweens — have chosen their representatives, senators and a president who now set the nation’s course. When I arrived in Washington, I paused to enjoy Union Station’s grand hall and its Beaux Arts appeal, and I lamented how much splendor has been lost because so many striking U.S. terminals have been razed. I stepped outside and looked up at the Capitol dome. While I had slept, the Senate managed a bipartisan deal to fund all of the Department of Homeland Security except immigration enforcement. As I continued northward, House Republican leaders rejected it. The stalemate continued.Midnight train from Georgia: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle in the shutdown ABOARD THE CRESCENT — There’s something melodic about watching the sun rise over a rural stillness broken only by the rhythms of steel wheels on tracks. Or so we tell ourselves. In this case, being aboard a train at all owed more to politics than poetry. Congress and Donald Trump were mired in their SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The 14-year-old was riding an electric bicycle at an estimated 25 mph when he slammed into Janet Stotko during her evening walk, leaving her unconscious and bleeding on a sidewalk in her Minnesota neighborhood. The 2024 crash nearly killed Stotko, who was raced to a hospital with severe brain injuries, With spring break in full swing, airline passengers continued to wait it out at major U.S. airports after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to pay Transportation Security Administration officers aimed at alleviating long security lines. Trump’s executive order on Friday instructed the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSA officers immediately, although it’s When stock markets are rattled, even by war, it usually pays for investors to be patient NEW YORK — When stock markets are as manic as they’ve been recently, it’s natural to want to do something to protect your retirement savings. Historically, though, staying calm has usually been best. The U.S. stock market has a track record of recovering from every steep drop it’s taken. Whether it’s a global financial Maybe Dad was right about getting to the airport early. But it turns out there’s still such a thing as TOO early. Travelers panicked by scenes of never-ending lines at U.S. airport security checkpoints and frustrating tales of missed flights over the past few weeks are now showing up way before their departures. Some airports WSECU Community Champion: Chrystal Ortega’s mission to feed Spokane Chrystal Ortega's tireless dedication recently earned her the WSECU Community Champions Award and a $1,000 grant to further the mission.When Shawn Tibbitts opened Tibbitts FernHill, he was just trying to survive. The small Tacoma restaurant has since earned culinary awards and praise.Wilcox Family Farms is continuing its cherished holiday tradition of giving back by donating nearly one million eggs to food banks across the South Sound region this season.Matthew Ballantyne has transformed that early awareness into action, embodying the organization's mission:"No Kid Sleeps On The Floor In Our Town."
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