On Easter Sunday, I rode Amtrak from New York City to Washington, DC. This is route of the railroad train that connects our largest city with our nation's capital. The route is shared by commuter trains into New York, Newark (the largest city in New Jersey), Trenton (the capital of New Jersey), Philadelphia (the largest city in Pennsylvania, and one of the largest in the United States), Wilmington (the largest city in Delaware), Baltimore (the largest city in Maryland) and Washington. Tens of thousands of people ride this route every day.
What a pathetic view of our nation. It filled me with sadness. There are a few suburban locations along the route -- Metro Park, NJ, New Carrollton, MD -- with new buildings, and in Philadelphia and Wilmington, clustered for a few blocks at the downtown, there are also new buildings.
But otherwise, when not in the woods or suburbs, the scene is desolation. In Baltimore and Chester, PA, numerous burned out houses not yet demolished. Throughout Trenton and Philadelphia and Baltimore, countless warehouses and factories abandoned, with broken windows. All along the route, trash, decrepit foundations and walls, rust, broken windows, and grafitti -- the hallmark of abandonment.
In Wilmington, Delaware, the train station that has been the daily destination for 36 years of the distinguished U.S. Senator Joe Biden, now our Vice President, paint is old and peeling and the steel is rusting after years of neglect.
Every day, wealthy business and political leaders ride this route. For decades the artery of our principal Eastern cities has simply flaked away, or is allowed to burn and is ignored.
Can all these properties be worthless? Can these properties adjacent to one of our busiest passenger rail roads be worthless?
I taken some trains in Europe -- old Europe. The property adjacent to the railroad is not squalor.
Doesn't this tell us something terrible about America?
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