August 15th - Taking to America's railroads
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pulling out of Detroit by rail, you really get a glimpse of America hurtling by. As I made my way to Chicago, you can see the ghosts of suburbs long gone, forests and woodland and a slightly archaic train system in operation. Here's what to be aware of if you're making your way by train in America.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the first travel podcast of the week with me, Simon Corder, brought to you by The Independent. |
| 0:10.6 | And as you might hear from the Rumbles Off, I'm on the move again. |
| 0:16.9 | Actually, on a train from Pontiac, Michigan. |
| 0:27.6 | Yes, it is a place to Chicago, which as you know is also a place. And I love traveling by train in America because it gives you the greatest insights into the nation and its lives. So for about the last 10 miles or so, |
| 0:43.3 | we have been going through kind of lost suburbia where you can see the actual homes that have been |
| 0:53.3 | demolished, where you can't see them anymore because they've |
| 0:55.7 | been demolished. You can see their ghosts, you can see the telegraph poles that used to connect |
| 1:02.1 | each of these homes and communities with the rest of the world. But the police did not have |
| 1:10.1 | the resources to police all those empty properties |
| 1:13.5 | and so they were just bulldozed now we're into a slightly scraggie woodland not quite out into |
| 1:22.2 | farming territory yet we're between Detroit and Dearborn and actually Dearborn ironically is where I should be getting off just crossing a freeway here one of these |
| 1:33.3 | nameless eight-lane highways that the Americans are so fond of. The reason I'm taking the train here is because, ironically, Henry Ford's empire at Dearborn is best reached by train. |
| 1:52.0 | Well, obviously, everyone assumes that if you look on the website, they assume that nobody would ever arrive other than by train. |
| 2:01.6 | But by car, forgive me. |
| 2:04.6 | But there's a big, important municipal building just there. |
| 2:10.6 | I'm going to be getting off the train in a moment. |
| 2:13.6 | And I've got my bags with me, as they say I may possibly need to oh I think that big |
| 2:23.4 | important building might be part of the Ford Empire anyway you can hear the the groaning train |
| 2:30.2 | best best train song of all time by the way is the train I'm on by Tony Joe White. |
| 2:39.0 | Give it a listen. We will be glad that you did. |
| 2:41.0 | Oh and here we are at Deerborn and I'm just trying to get the rest of my breakfast into the bag before I pile off this train. |
| 2:51.6 | Let's see if I can do this without causing too much damage |
... |
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