It is short-sighted, to say the least, to form such close attachments to the automobile. Created just a brief hundred years ago, this noisy, polluting machine has infiltrated our lives as a bare essential of life. I must say now that I do think cars and trucks and the like are a necessity to some aspects of our transportation system. Certainly in navigating the freezing streets of Platteville it can be a godsend to have a car. But I have to question its legitimacy in parts of the country where seven feet of snow and twenty below weather are not the winter norm. Namely, I am talking about bringing back the trains.

I have one major problem with automobiles: in one’s own private car, contact with others is unnecessary. A driver opens his or her window to pay a toll or ask for directions – although these menial communications have now been made unnecessary by Global Positioning Systems and Smart Tags. Safe in the confines of the car, its occupants now have the ability to traverse hundreds of miles without need of meeting new people or seeing new things. They pass billboards advertising the views; but what is the point in stopping when the final destination is still a fourteen-hour journey away?

Our cars have become our second homes. They have their own television sets, radios, reclining seats for a makeshift bed; in the tricked-out versions we see on fancy TV shows like “Pimp My Ride,” our cars now hold hair salons and coffee makers in their bowels. We are made more mobile by our cars: but to what avail? The comforts they allow us make leaving them an inconvenience, just as leaving the home was once an inconvenience for those traveling by horse and wagon.

We may travel across the country, but with our eyes straight ahead on the destination, not on the sidelines. As masters of our vehicles, we are unable to pay attention to the simple things: the field on the side of the road filled with deer, desperate to escape the gunshot of hunters; the roadside store with fresh fruit plucked that day from the trees of local farmers; the landscape; the ocean view; the birds in the sky … all of this is beyond us while we huddle behind our steering wheels, eyes on the road for fear of accident.

It is difficult, understandably, to put one’s life in the hands of another. This is perhaps the fear of those who dislike trains: that the conductor can choose at a whim to crash and kill the passengers. But is this not also a worry on the roads-especially on the highways, with hundreds of people each with their own killing machine at their control? In high-speed, congested traffic down a highway, what would happen if one person swiveled the steering wheel just to the right? According to the World Heath Organization’s Web site, about 1.2 million people are killed in automobile accidents each year worldwide. Fifty million on top of that are injured. If this number were applied to airplanes, would we still take to the skies?

Unfortunately, according to parade.com, $40 billion were given to highways and $14 billion to airlines in 2006. The U.S. government only spent $1.3 billion on Amtrak last year, and the Bush administration is determined to shrink this number to $800 million for 2008.

Nearly all of Europe accommodates speedy, comfortable trains at relatively low cost. Last year Japan unveiled its new N700 bullet train, which travels at 186 mph. Applied to the United States, you could go from New York City to Los Angeles in about 15 hours with no stops. The bullet train also, according to inventorspot.com, uses 19 percent less electricity than the current N300 trains. N700′s designers say, “The substantial reduction in power consumption and CO2 emissions contributes significantly to the effort to counter global warming.”

Doesn’t this sound great? Trains are the way of the future, I think. Once we learn to sit back and relax while the train conductor ushers us to our next stop, we can again have that unbroken conversation, again play that game of cards as we wait to arrive in comfort, again meet new people, again look out the window and stare, undisturbed, at the passing mountains and rivers. We can take it all back, and with it will come our lives.