What’s Wrong with America’s Trains

While America is a producer of cutting-edge software, has some of the best universities in the world, and boasts world-class hospitals, some of its technology for moving goods from one place to another is stuck in the 19th century.

In this report, which aired on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on April 22, 2009, PBS correspondent Rick Karr explores the problems with America’s aging freight rail infrastructure. While European nations have upgraded their train tracks, some American freight train crews, like the one Karr follows in Chicago, have to change the track switches by hand and move at less than 10 miles per hour.

MPC President MarySue Barrett is featured in this segment.