James McCommons is the author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service--A Year Spent Riding Across America. He has been a journalist for more than twenty-five years and published hundreds of articles in magazines and major newspapers. A former senior editor at Organic Gardening magazine, he specializes in ecology and travel writing. He grew up in a railroad family and has spent thirty-five years riding trains in America. He currently teaches journalism and nature writing at Northern Michigan University in the Upper Peninsula.