Ok... I can't take that kind of sarcasm.
Railroads don’t get enough appreciation. I don’t like to admit it, but it’s true. People would rather fly or drive than take a long distance train. The MBTA got less than half the amount of funding than the highways got last year. Truckers get noticed more than train engineers, and people often hate on freight trains for blocking crossings. I’m not saying trucks and planes are bad, I’m just saying that railroads deserve more appreciation. Why?
To understand the answer, we need to go back to May 10, 1969, at Promontory Point, Utah. Trains met nose to nose as a golden spike was hammered in with a silver sledgehammer. This simple act was a very important moment in our country’s history. This was the nation’s first media event. Telegraph wires were attached to the spike, and it was hammered in, a single word was flashed across the nation: “Done.” Celebrations started all over the country. A magnetic ball was dropped on the Capitol Dome, and a parade started to move in San Francisco. It was now possible to go across the nation in days instead of months. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad also opened up vast areas of the country to farmers and made the U.S. an industrial giant. Many towns sprang up around the railroads because it was easy to get goods transported directly to them. Sadly, the Transcontinental Railroad now is just a gap with no plants were the trains used to be, but that doesn’t mean trains aren’t important anymore.
Now, trains work day and night to move people and freight across our nation. Railroad employees can be called away from their families at a minute's notice, even on holidays and not return for days. The economy is dependent on railroads. According to the Midwest Blog, “The American economy depends on railroads not only for the money it saves and the jobs it supports, but also because it fuels our growth and sustains our way of life. Coal, for example, is the single greatest source of electricity in the U.S., and 70% of coal is delivered via train. Everything from food, to lumber, to motor vehicles is transported on the railways, and our society as we know it simply could not function without them.” That’s right, you can probably thank trains for the fact that your house has electricity. Trains may not get the computer directly to the store (that’s what the trucks do), but they still played a crucial role. Like I said earlier, trucks are important. But so are trains.