Composer George Gershwin, who rode by rail from New York to Boston, claimed that “it was on the train with its steely rhythms, its rattlety bang” that “I suddenly heard – and even saw on paper – the complete construction of ‘Rhapsody [in Blue]’ from beginning to end.”

Their fellow passengers included luminaries like poet Marianne Moore, jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellington and orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski, along with countless ordinary riders whose lives sprawled across the region.

In 1961, French-Ukrainian geographer Jean Gottmann called the Northeast a “new order in the organization of inhabited space.” Gottmann observed that unlike European nations, which developed around dominant capitals like London and Rome, the United States grew from a “polynuclear” fusion of cities and suburbs that he called “Megalopolis.”

The relative proximity of megapolitan cities generated a “tidal current of commuting” between them, which Gottman experienced firsthand while riding trains between academic appointments in Baltimore, Princeton and Manhattan.

One of Gottman’s adherents, Rhode Island Sen. Claiborne Pell, imagined the Northeast in 1962 as “one long metropolitan industrial unit.” A frequent rider, Pell believed that trains played an essential role in the region’s interlocking economy.

As railroads lost riders to cars, buses and jets in the 1960s, Pell urged President John F. Kennedy to create a government agency that would operate passenger trains for the public good. He called the tracks between Boston and Washington a “passageway for gargantuan surges of movement along our Northeast seaboard” – or, a “corridor” for short.

The name stuck. When Amtrak took over U.S. intercity passenger rail travel in 1971, the Northeast corridor hosted its most popular trains – including the stylish, if breakdown-prone Metroliners, which whisked business-class passengers between New York and Washington at velocities topping 100 mph.

By 1978, the Northeast accounted for over half of Amtrak’s ridership. The region’s rail revival convinced Congress to spend US$1.75 billion in the 1980s on the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project, a multi-year effort to modernize the line, renovate stations and trim schedules.

In 2000, Amtrak debuted the Acela Express, a sleek and pricey train that was billed as the first U.S. high-speed passenger rail service. Acela grew synonymous with its well-heeled clients, but seldom reached its top speed of 150 mph on the corridor’s curving and congested tracks.

The train still became a symbol for Northeasterness. Pundits took to calling the presidential nominating contests held on the same day in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland the “Acela Primary.” Conservatives railed against “Acela Corridor” ways of thought.

Today, President Joe Biden – a longtime corridor commuter – is proposing to kick off a “second great rail revolution,” with billions of dollars in funding to strengthen and expand Amtrak’s network.

High-speed rail projects in California, Nevada and Texas, meanwhile, promise to bring world-class service to the West and South. Construction has begun on Brightline West, a high-speed link from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. What these ventures will make of their regions remains unseen. But if the Northeast corridor is any indication, new passenger trains will redefine both the working lives and cultural perceptions of those who use them.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.

Read more:
Rail travel is cleaner than driving or flying, but will Americans buy in?

Congress passes $1T infrastructure bill – but how does the government go about spending that much money?

David Alff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.