Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Let's work to build a rail system
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William E. Baker Sr.
Baker was president of Solar Systems of Virginia Inc. in the early '70s when our need to alter our national energy priorities became apparent. He is a retired U.S. Naval Air Reserve captain.
"Rail passengers travel back in time" (Nov. 9 news story) took me back to 1942 when, as a wide-eyed 6-year-old, I rode the Norfolk & Western passenger train to Washington. My dad worked for the streetcar company here in Roanoke, and was a representative on the Federal Transportation Board. He had to attend a major conference in D.C. and decided to take me along.
With utter amazement I watched the beautiful green countryside and waved back to all the people along the tracks who were waving at us as we passed by. A beautiful love affair with trains was born while taking that trip.
In D.C., we stayed with my dad's sister, Gracie, and her family. Her husband, Giggs, worked in the telegraph office of the White House. Each day my cousin Eddie and I would ride with him to work, and he would drop us off at the Washington Zoo, the Smithsonian or the Washington Monument. At noon, we would hike over to the White House to have lunch with him in the ground floor Navy Mess.
One day, Uncle Giggs hurried us through lunch by saying, "Today, I am going to introduce you guys to the boss."
He guided us though a small door in back of the dining hall, up a spiraling staircase into a little office where a pretty secretary winked and said, "The boss will see you now." My 6-year-old mind had no idea who "the boss" was.
Uncle Giggs ushered us into this huge, funny-shaped room and introduced his son and nephew to the big man behind the desk. Eddie, two years my senior, immediately shook the man's outstretched hand. I stood frozen, literally dumbfounded, for all I could see were the wheelchair he was sitting in and the steel braces and crutches leaning against the wall.
His voice sounded so familiar. Then suddenly it hit me. I had heard this voice before in those "fireside chats" my folks listened to on our old Philco radio. My tiny hand was smothered by the strong, warm, calloused hand of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I unashamedly blurted out, "Mr. President, did you fall down and hurt yourself?"
The president's response was classic Roosevelt. Stretching back in his wheel chair laughing he said, "Thank you, son, for caring, but I'm going to be all right." And all right he was.
As I recalled that youthful experience of my first round trip to D.C. on the train, I was hit by the thought: The railroad brought our country together once. Why not do it again?
Just imagine the jobs that would be created if we rebuilt a national railway system with as much dedicated vigor as we built the interstate highway system and set our sights on the moon. What about injecting Amtrak with steroids and converting all these discarded factories and auto plants into building modern, high-speed trains?
What about our being farsighted enough to realize that if ever our shores are threatened by foreign aggressors, we will need a fast ground system of transportation to move our defenders where they need to be?
We need our trains back, not just around our Christmas trees. We need safe and secure travel for a whole nation of people and a whole world full of prospective tourists waiting to travel in climate-controlled safety and comfort gazing through reinforced bubble-top glass at our cities' skylights; our majestic mountains; our elegant national forests, scenic seashores and those amber waves of grain we love to sing about.
Why not let your congressmen and senators know how you feel?
