Introducing: City of the Rails

When journalist Danelle Morton’s daughter skips town to hop trains, Morton follows her into the train yard, and across America. In City of the Rails, the listener shadows Morton as she travels the country trying to understand what drew her daughter to this life. Her guides are the rail cops, train engineers, and hobos she meets along the way, each of them with their own extraordinary tales of the beauty and brutality of the rails.

City of the Rails’ mother/daughter story unfolds across a landscape of vast open spaces and filthy backstreets as Morton shows us how railroads shaped the modern world - from creating our time zones and QR codes, to the first lobbyists and unions. The story of the rails is the story of America, and through 10 episodes, Morton reckons with our history, and her family history, as she tries what she can to bring her daughter home.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Have you ever thought, get me out of here. You
take a look at your situation and think there's got
to be something better than this garbage. Was this what
my daughter Ruby was thinking when she skipped town to
have chains. It's just absurd that we live in a
country with so much wealth and privilege, and young people

(00:23):
choose to live in poverty and explore the country that way.
It's fascinating, But the rails are dangerous and unforgiving. Do
you want to play with the devil? You're gonna find
them their art, That's where they catch their prey. Like
I have to go where I'm just stuck on this train.
God knows where I'm gonna end up, and I jump.

(00:44):
What drew Ruby to this life where everything was at risk?
You force yourself to be stuck on this massive freight
train going through the elements? What aways be like? Why
are you doing this? Oh? My so I don't have
to do what you do. I thought my daddy was
rejecting me and the life I held out for her.
But Reyby wasn't running away. She was running towards something. Hello.

(01:07):
That's what I found when I followed her into the
city of the rail. This is what it sounds like
inside the box car. It's kind of like walking into
an early dimension, another world. Reclined, the ladder up on
top of the grainer, and it's just miles and miles
and miles of sunflowers. You couldn't see anything but sunflowers.

(01:28):
I'm Denil Morton. I've been a foreign correspondent, written bestsellers,
and was a Hollywood reporter for People Magazine in the nineties.
In all those years, I've never seen a story like
the City of the Rails. Jumping a freight trains, like
it's like riding a dragon or something. As I was
drawn deeper into this world, I began to learn how
the railroads created modern life and shaped our country. I

(01:52):
think the railroad kind of symbolizes a long term history
of the It's just such a hero. So railroads show
you how it's done, to show you how to raise capital,
operate things on a very very large scale, and also
they show you how to cheat. Once you touch the rails,
they change you. But started out as a search for

(02:13):
my daughter led me into a world that made me
rethink everything I thought I knew about motherhood, about our history,
and about that thing we call the American dream. Come
with me as I find out what waits for us
in the City of the Rails. Listen to City of

(02:43):
the Rails starting January on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.