Rails to Trails

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Abandoned railway lines are being turned into trails for biking, jogging and hiking. The underground railroad was an escape network that freed up to a hundred thousand slaves in america. Between 18 70 and 19 hundred, the railroads helped millions of east coast Americans head west towards the sunset.

Trains. Locomotives. Choochoos. Bullet trains. Hyperloops. Subways. How fast can they go? How did they change American history? Why do people love them? What should we do with all that abandoned track? Can you marry a train? What's it like to shovel coal into a steam engine?

Alie went off the rails at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan talking to an official ferroequinologist and curator Matt Anderson -- who confessed to some youthful railroad mischief, delivered a succinct slice of U.S. History, has train movie recommendations and discussed cars vs. trains in the great transportation debate. Also, why transporting isn't always about the trains.

The Henry Ford Museum Railroad Exhibit

More episode sources & links

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month

OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!

Follow @Ologies on Twitter and Instagram

Follow @AlieWard on Twitter and Instagram

Sound editing by Jarrett Sleeper

Theme song by Nick Thorburn