LISTEN: An Interview with Waiting on a Train Author James McCommons

woatcov_small

During the tumultuous year of 2008—when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California—journalist James McCommons spent a year on America’s trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism.

James McCommons appeared on Up to Date with Steve Kraske from KCUR—Kansas City’s NPR affiliate—on Thursday, May 27 to discuss the stimulus and the future of passenger rail in America.

Listen Now

Explore Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service in our bookstore.

Buy it on Amazon.com.

Find a Green Partner store near you.

Share This:

Recent Articles

tops of trees in a forest

Seeing the Trees for the Forest

Michael Metivier has been an editor at Chelsea Green Publishing since 2013, joining the staff after earning his Master of Science degree in environmental studies from Antioch University New England. His editing projects have included best-selling and award-winning titles such as Eager, Pawpaw, and Farming While Black. He is also a poet whose work has…

Read More
bees on comb

On Swarms and Stings

To a beekeeper, thousands of bees concentrated in one area isn’t a nightmare–it’s an opportunity to help the bees find a new home safely when necessary. However, not all beekeepers began their career being fans of bees. It takes a lot of time and patience to gather up the nerve to walk directly into a…

Read More
desert

Hope for a Thirsty World

Judith D. Schwartz is a journalist whose recent work looks at soil as a hub for multiple environmental, economic, and social challenges and solutions. She writes on this theme for numerous publications and speaks at venues around the world. Her 2013 book Cows Save the Planet was awarded a Nautilus Book Award Silver Prize for…

Read More
factories

Using Fire to Cool the Earth

Albert Bates is one of the founders of the intentional community and ecovillage movements. A lawyer, scientist, and teacher, he has taught village design, appropriate technology, and permaculture to students from more than sixty countries. Kathleen Draper routinely collaborates with biochar experts from around the globe as a board member of the International Biochar Initiative…

Read More
seagulls on a stone wall

Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene

“An important and entirely brilliant book.  It’s a love letter to gulls and their charged relationship with humans, but it’s also a deep meditation on difficulty and waste, on the beauty of the disregarded, and on what we make of matter out of place. There’s love and death here, fear, fascination, hope, and the breaking…

Read More