In his novel “Night,” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel recalls a horrifying memory: “Around eleven o’clock, the train began to move again. We pressed against the windows. The convoy was rolling slowly. A quarter of an hour later, it began to slow down even more. Through the windows, we saw barbed wire; we understood that this was the camp.”
In the dark shadow of the Holocaust, trains tell many different stories. For some, it was a ticket to freedom. For others, it was a journey from life to death.
When Elie Wiesel boarded a train destined for Poland, he didn’t understand what awaited him. People boarded trains none the wiser. They had already survived the ghettos. What could possibly be worse? Who could have imagined the horrors at the end of the journey?
In Nazi Germany, trains were weaponized to transport Jewish people out of the country and to their deaths. But they were also a way out. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who escaped the Holocaust, recounted taking the train across the United States on his way to safety. He later coined the term genocide.
Today, dictatorial governments use trains to keep people in.
At the beginning of the invasion in Ukraine, the Russian military tried and failed to secure the railway network. Now, it’s deliberately targeting Ukraine’s passenger trains with missile strikes.
In North Korea, the trains are undeveloped, undermaintained and horribly slow. Trains to China are frequently monitored with numerous checkpoints. Travel is controlled, limited and escape is nearly impossible.
In the wrong hands, trains are the perfect tool for governments to weaponize. They can easily be utilized to keep people in or kick them out. That’s why, on Tuesday, when Trump announced his takeover of Washington, D.C., Union Station, I was immediately concerned.
Union Station was once described as “the gateway to the capital city.” As you step outside the grand, Beaux-Arts style train station, you stare directly into the eyes of the Capitol Building, with the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress only a few blocks away.
The iconic station has stood the test of time. It witnessed both world wars, welcomed generations of presidents to the White House and survived the auto-industry boom that brought the original New York Penn Station to its tragic end.
The station is more than just a place to come and go; it’s part of the anatomy of the city, and it’s an important building for residents and visitors alike.
The Trump administration knows this.
While the Department of Transportation has owned Union Station since the 1980s, the nonprofit Union Station Redevelopment Corporation ran its daily management until Amtrak assumed those responsibilities last summer.
Union Station, for all its architectural glory, has long needed repairs. However, if you listen to the Trump administration, you would assume the station’s state was borderline apocalyptic.
“You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill who harass, who threaten violence, who attack families, and they’ve done it for far too long,” Vice President JD Vance said, singing the familiar tune of Trump’s capital takeover.
To be clear on the facts, crime in D.C. is on a decline, and in 2022, homeless encampments were removed from Union Station. Yet, the Trump administration is legitimizing its takeover of the train station based on crime and degradation.
Most major cities — in the United States and around the world — experience homelessness and petty crime near train stations. Most train stations need repairs.
That’s why the Trump administration’s takeover of Union Station is so alarming. Trump won’t stop at Union Station. This is just the beginning.
On Wednesday, an event in Boston to unveil new Acela trains took a dark turn. Deputy Director of Transportation, Steven Bradbury, took Trump’s Washington, D.C., plan to New England.
“Here in South Boston, we need to address the cleanliness, the crime, the safety, and security of the station for the rail workers, for the passengers, because the people of Boston deserve that,” Bradbury said. Then, he left the audience with this: “All the people up and down the Northeast corridor and Americans who travel on these trains, they need and deserve beautiful rail facilities.”
Ignore the positive spin. This is a warning.
Even worse, at a stop in New York City, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke about “transforming” Penn Station “under the speed of Trump” — whatever that means. He even joked about renaming the iconic gateway “Trump Station.”
The Department of Transportation’s sudden special interest in municipal train stations has received varying reactions from city and state leaders. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, said, “If it’s about what Union Station needs for its total transformation, that would be an amazing initiative for the federal government to take on.”
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey took a stronger stance.
“We’re not going to let the guy who went bankrupt six times take over our train stations,” Healey said. However, she also dismissed Trump’s claims as “political theater.”
For our sake, I hope she’s right. But I wouldn’t be so sure. As Bradbury notably pointed out, the Northeast corridor connects blue cities from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to New York to Boston. It’s a critical route for tourism, business and connecting friends and family who live up and down the East Coast.
But it’s also critical for a quick departure. The first thing anyone would do to escape Washington, D.C., during a federal takeover is book a ticket on Amtrak from Union Station to Penn Station. If someone needed to flee New York City, they would likely head up the corridor to Boston.
Trains are both mentally and in reality the easiest escape route. The major stations are in city centers. There’s no security. If you live close enough and time it right, you can be on a train heading out within 30 minutes. Unless Trump wants to keep us.
Or maybe, Trump is trying to control the trains to take us somewhere else.
Hillary Clinton warned us about this dystopian reality last year in her book “Something Lost, Something Gained.” She wrote, “Welcome to Trump’s America. If you live in a major city, the first thing you’ll probably notice are the soldiers patrolling your streets outside your window. Are we at war? Have we been invaded by an adversary? The answer is no.”
We are already living this reality. The soldiers are outside our windows. They are already patrolling Union Station, and they’re coming for your city next.
So, don’t dismiss this as a conspiracy theory. Don’t laugh it off as Trump wanting to see his name on another building. Don’t ignore the reality they’re shoving in our faces.
The Trump administration is using crime and degradation as an excuse to control important transportation hubs. The government controlled the trains in Nazi Germany. They control them in North Korea. And now, they’re wrestling for control of the trains in the United States of America.
Open your eyes, and if you’re not ready to fight back, consider booking a flight. Or, you could do as I have done – I’ve been stockpiling ammo: .45 and .40 caliber for my pistols; .308 and .243 for my rifles; and 5.56 for my AR-15.