Midnight train from Georgia: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle in the shutdown

This image made from an Associated Press video shows passengers boarding the Amtrak Crescent headed towards New York on Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow)

There’s something melodic about watching the sun rise over a rural stillness broken only by the rhythms of steel wheels on tracks. Or so we tell ourselves.

In this case, being aboard a train at all owed more to politics than poetry.

Congress and Donald Trump were mired in their latest budget stalemate, one rooted in the Republican president’s immigration crackdown and the tactics of federal forces he has sent to U.S. cities. But this impasse has upended a foundational constant of American life today: easy air travel.