L.A.’s Past and Future Railroad Heydays
Trains Built Southern California, Then Angelenos Rejected Rail. But According to Tom Zoellner and Ethan Elkind, a Comeback Is Afoot.
“Can you think of a city in the United States that was more determined by the railroad” than Los Angeles? Chapman University English scholar Tom Zoellner, author of Train, opened a discussion of the future of trains in L.A. by presenting this question to a standing-room-only crowd at Grand Central Market. L.A. may be famous for its car culture, but “railroads were an integral part” of the “great civic experiment” that is L.A., said Zoellner. Yet connecting Southern California to the rest of the country by rail was an afterthought, …
