08/23/2026: Ghost Train, One Mother's Story, Wild Concerto

0:07The Californians got on board for a$33 billion high-speed train that was supposed to connect L.A. to San Francisco by 2020. Instead, they have this, an unfinished line connecting, wait for it, Bakersfield and Merced. Why have 20 other countries managed to build high-speed rail while America hasn't? We've heard people saying what happened in the past is a past. Failure is not an option. Failure is always an option.

0:43It's mama. Tonight, the story of a mother who would not give up on her son after he was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th, 2023. I was always saying, I love you, stay strong, survive. I love you, stay strong, survive. I love you, stay strong, survive. Was it a command to you as well? Yes. If you're a rock fan, you already know Stuart Copeland, acclaimed drummer for the police. What you may not know is who or what he's making music with now. That's the coca-bura. Hundreds of animals turned into something wild. You put an instrument with them and those animals become Pavarotti.

1:32I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Leslie Stahl. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.

1:50It's hard to exaggerate the role of the train in the American story, or the romance of train travel, those iron horses galloping down rods of steel. Why then has high-speed rail, so common in other countries, not tracked in the U.S.? As we first reported in April, an ambitious state-run project connecting L.A. and San Francisco has lurched, derailed, cost billions, and may never happen. One private company is betting that it could succeed where the public sector is not, but that too has had its bumps. As U.S. high-speed rail remains a mirage, a ghost train, it's become a stand-in for a broader question.

2:27Can America get its act together and still build big things? The very model of modern engineering, it hums across the fruited plains at a top speed of 200 miles an hour. It's revolutionized travel. It's a source of national pride. In Morocco. Here in the U.S., high-speed rail looks like this. Hardly passenger-ready. America's hopes for its first high-speed rail were kindled in 2008, when California voters approved a ballot measure for a train connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours. The estimated price tag,$33 billion. Completion date, 2020. It would cut pollution, revitalize local economies, clear gridlock.

3:17Status update. Today, the state's high-speed rail authority is preparing to lay its first tracks at roughly the same cost. Only slight course correction here. Instead of L.A. to San Francisco, it will run one-third of that distance connecting, wait for it, the metropolis of Bakersfield and Merced, population 99 ,000. Oh, and when will it open? 2033. Maybe. I think that the California high-speed rail nightmare is the probably quintessential example of government waste and mismanagement. You say this needs to stop. Needs to stop. Congressman Vince Fong, a Republican from Bakersfield, sits on the House Transportation Committee.

3:58He says that when California voters first approved high-speed rail, the promise and price tag were more marketing campaign than realistic projection. We're now in 2026. There are no trains. There's no track laid. It's a complete bait and switch. If I vote for a mansion in Malibu by next year and someone says, actually, you know what, in five years we're going to have a doghouse in Modesto, how do things go so off the rails? The business plan that was put out in 2008 was very theoretical. You know, this is what we think is going to happen. And it became very clear that they didn't have the specifics worked out.

4:33This project... On that point, management doesn't disagree. Toks Amashakin is California's Secretary of Transportation and Anthony Williams, a Rail Authority board member. Both are relatively new to the job left to answer for their predecessors. There were mistakes made. Some of the criticism on this project, I think, are very fair. What happened? I don't think the voters fully understood, and neither did we in the public sector, what it was going to take to actually get this project delivered. To get the necessary political buy-in from the whole state, the plan called for the train to run inland, threading the farmland of the Central Valley.

5:13Yet the rail authority hadn't answered basic questions, like precisely where it could lay down its tracks, what's known as right-of-way. 3 ,000 parcels had to be negotiated just for the segments that we're working on today in the Central Valley. It seems to me one farmer doesn't want high-speed rail going through his field, and you've got a guy that can gum up the works for a long time. Yeah, that's what happens sometimes in these processes. More snarl, California's exacting environmental regulations, which triggered all manner of reviews, lawsuits, and delays. As anyone who's renovated a home knows, delay adds to price.

5:51So do the high U.S. labor and construction costs, at least compared to many other countries. And while the federal government contributed modestly under the Obama and Biden administrations, the burden fell largely on the state. When construction started, was the financing there to complete this rail? It wasn't. Let's be real. We had a lot to learn and we had a lot of growth to do. And, you know, it's arguable whether, you know, we should have been clearer about that. By 2019, cost ballooning in the timeline years off schedule, bipartisan political pressure mounted. Newly elected, Governor Gavin Newsom said this in his first state of the state.

6:32Right now, there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. Under Newsom, who didn't respond to repeated interview requests, California decided to focus on that initial Central Valley segment, a route few clamored for and fewer are likely to ride, though the ultimate goal remains connecting northern and southern California. When you have a project like this and when the budget no longer permits you to finish it the way you want it to, you start cutting off your arms and legs. Lou Thompson helped found Amtrak in the 1970s and until 2024 sat on California's high-speed rail peer review group.

7:15We've heard people say time to cut bait. We've heard people saying what happened in the past is the past. Failure is not an option. Failure is always an option. Is that what's going to happen here? No, I don't think so. But I think what will happen in the short range is that they will cut back and do the best they can with the money they have available. Here outside Fresno in California's Central Valley, one of the few signs of concrete progress, literally, structures like this. Locals here jokingly refer to it as their own Stonehenge. Ideally, these bridges and viaducts will one day be used to support California high-speed But for now, these are curiosities in a field.

7:58Monuments to promises that haven't been met and plans that haven't been executed. Ironic, because American rail was once the world's envy. In the 1800s, the U.S. government oversaw the birth of the Transcontinental Railroad, stitching the country together as it expanded westward. We turn to the future. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration decided that the transportation vanguard was off the tracks, creating, and critically continuously funding, the interstate highway system. And the family car is in tip-top shape. Fueling the world's proudest car culture. Meanwhile, Japan's famous bullet train opened in 1964.

8:38And today, more than 20 countries have high-speed rail, generally defined as cruising at 150 miles an hour or more. Yes, Germany and France and China, but also Turkey, Indonesia. Egypt has broken ground. The obvious question there is, like, how can it be that we can't get it done and they can get it done, right? We know we can do this. It's an economic engine. Mike Reininger is managing director of Brightline West, a private company that believes it can achieve what California has it. Oh, wow. Next stop, Zurich. It's just like a European trade. This train, which opened in 2018 and runs between Miami and Orlando, hits top speeds of around 125 miles an hour.

9:23Not quite high speed, but close. It's akin to a beta test for Brightline's next project, a bullet train connecting L.A. and Las Vegas in just over two hours, a trip that can take five hours by car. Brightline West will be true high-speed rail, first time in the country, and we'll operate at speeds of about 200 miles an hour maximum. Out West, Brightline is solving the right-of-way issue by running on the median of the I-15 highway. Construction has already begun on some of the station structures. The plan is to start service in 2029. What are you telling people to get them out of their cars or getting them to avoid the airport?

10:03It's more enjoyable. It's safer. It's reliable. This really is all about changing people's behavior. You don't think we're just, this car culture is intractable. It's so hardened and it's so much a part of the American psyche, it just can't be cracked. I don't think so at all. Cultural questions aside, Brightline's Florida trains run at street level through crowded neighborhoods. And according to numbers compiled by the Miami Herald and local public radio, more than 200 people have been hit and killed by the trains in the near decades since operations began. Brightline says that running rail in the desert out west, where track crossings won't be at street level, will be a safer proposition.

10:45Then there are the finances. The stratospheric costs of building and running a rail line vastly outstrip revenues. Analysts have downgraded Brightline's debt to junk, raising questions about private rail as a business. To what extent, big picture, do you worry about the future financial viability of Brightline? The business has built slower than we originally expected it to build. We thought we would be carrying more passengers today than we are. The business is, in fact, growing month over month, year over year. That's a great thing. That solidifies in our mind the viability of the business. Brightline's West Coast project has already received some federal funding and is hoping for a$6 billion loan from the Trump administration.

11:29If you look around the world, for the most part, the infrastructure systems are funded by the public sector. You do see a role for government here. Absolutely. We welcome it. Back in California, the rail authority insists state funds can cover the cost of the Central Valley leg. As for the rest? Just to be clear, as we speak right now, are the funds there to complete L.A. to San Francisco? The entire amount of money we need, not there today. But do we believe we can get those funds to get the project done? Absolutely. How much do you estimate it's going to cost to connect high-speed rail, San Francisco, and LA?

12:07Today, we estimate with the right optimization, just over$125 billion. I think$126 billion is the current estimate for that. That's more funding than Amtrak has received in its history, and still leaves a shortfall of roughly$90 billion. That's a big gap to fill. It is a big gap to fill, but again, we have an understanding of how to get there and to fill that gap. A gap the authority hopes to fill with a new plan to cut costs, lure private investment, and connect to bigger cities much sooner. But there's another challenge to building anything today. The swirling winds of a political climate in which one party pushes and the other reflexively pulls.

12:50Remember Gavin Newsom's pessimism? In recent months, he's championed the project. This is not just a transportation project. This is about reimagining the future of this region. Meanwhile, in 2025, President Trump canceled$4 billion in federal grants for the train, swiping at a political nemesis in the process. Did you ever hear of Gavin Newsom? He has got, that train is the worst cost overrun I've ever seen. In a statement to 60 Minutes, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the administration is in favor of high-speed rail, but this project has, quote, wasted billions in taxpayer dollars, yet delivered nothing.

13:31Can this be done without help from the federal government? This initial segment, we believe so. The ultimate 494 miles of building this out without the federal government's help will be challenging. There's no doubt about that. Is this a nonstarter to build a project like this without federal funding? Well, not only can't it be done, it shouldn't be done. Because a lot of the benefits of the project, the reason why you build a project is public. Pollution reduction, congestion reduction, improved safety, comfort, reliability, all of those things are public benefits. There are other ideas for U.S.

14:11high-speed rail, say Dallas to Houston, but nothing else in the building stage. Leaving that uneasy, overarching question. Morocco has high-speed rail, and Serbia and China and Japan and Western Europe, why don't we? What's your simple answer? Well, the simple answer is they've decided they want to do it and pay for it, and we haven't. You think we will in our lifetimes? I don't know. I'm dubious. I'm dubious. Absent a national political will to work with the states to create some of these systems, I think it's going to be, in, of course, my lifetime, almost certainly not. But maybe yours, I don't know.

14:56On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves. Every Tuesday on Crimes of Reddit, we read these posts out loud. I'm Sabrina DeAnaroga. And I'm Alexis Linkletter. One of us brings the story, the other goes in blind, reacting in real time, just like you. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

15:29Since Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel nearly three years ago and the war in Gaza began, far too many mothers, Palestinian and Israeli, have lost children. This is one mother's story. Her name is Rachel Goldberg Polin. She's an American-Israeli who moved to Jerusalem 18 years ago with her husband John and their three children. Her only son, Hirsch, was badly wounded and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. Rachel and John worked tirelessly to bring Hirsch and the other hostages home, but on the 328th day of his captivity, Hirsch was executed in a tunnel in Gaza. When we met her earlier this year, Rachel Goldberg-Polland told us that now, like so many others.

16:14She's trying to figure out how to live after her child has died. To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused, is maimed. And that's an excruciating form of suffering. And then what's so fascinating to me is that But when they came to tell us that Hirsch had been executed, then I realized that those 330 days had been the good part because he was alive. And now I'm in this place and this is the rest of my life. How do I walk through this place without a piece of me here? Have you figured that out yet? I'm trying to re-understand what it means to be in this world. There are millions of us right now who have buried children.

17:15There's nothing unique about me, but it creates light for me to try to give words to the pain. What was Hirsch like? Easy. Easy. The universe really knew what it was doing when it said, Rachel's going to have one son, so this is the one for her. I was really blessed. Hirsch and his best friend, Anir Shapira, were at the Nova Music Festival near the Gaza border on the morning of October 7th when Hamas terrorists attacked. They slaughtered 378 people and wounded hundreds more. What do you remember about the morning, October 7th? The siren started, and I went and turned on my phone. And at 8-11, two messages had come in from Hersh.

18:11The first one said, I love you. And the second one said, I'm sorry. And that was it. Everything that had ever happened in my life from the day I was born until that second was over. Hersh sent those texts from inside this bomb shelter, crammed with more than two dozen people. That's Hirsch against the wall and Aner near the entrance. Hamas came to the doorway and was throwing in hand grenades. Aner was picking them up and throwing them out. Picking them up and throwing them out. According to survivors, Aner threw back at least 10 grenades. When he was killed, others took his place. In all, 16 people were killed in the shelter.

19:01The first survived, but was seriously wounded by a grenade. There were four young men who were not able to hide under bodies. They were all wounded, and they were taken outside and put on a pickup truck and driven into Gaza. And that footage we saw for the first time when we talked with you. We spoke on October 16th on CNN, you and John. Our son, by all accounts of the witnesses, had his left arm blown off. When John said that, I realized I'd seen their son being kidnapped. Four days earlier at the Nova festival site, Israeli soldiers showed me this gruesome video recovered from a terrorist cell phone.

19:44That's Hirsch with the bones sticking out of his left forearm, being forced into a pickup truck. As soon as we got off, I said, I need to call you. But I still...

20:00To this day, I am sorry that that is how you found out that I was the one to tell you that there's this video. But we were so thankful. And it made us know that he was taken alive, that he walked on his own two feet. And we also were really grateful that you did it in such a human way. In this sideways world, When we had the proof that he was kidnapped, that was actually good. The time is running out to save them. The time is running out to save all of us. Rachel became for many the face of the hostage crisis, meeting the Pope, world leaders, and giving hundreds of interviews. We want to save Hersh's life.

20:49We want to save all of those hostages. Every day, she wore a piece of tape. On it, she'd written the number of days since Hirsch and the other 250 hostages were taken. I was always saying, I love you, stay strong, survive. I love you, stay strong, survive. I love you, stay strong, survive. Was it a command to you as well? Yes, because there were times when I would just get seized with emotional and psychological and physical pain. and I would keel over onto John and I would just say, how much longer, how much longer, how much longer? On the 201st day, Hamas posted this video of Hirsch. And we see the stump of his arm.

21:36It was a propaganda video. Yes, and that gave us another bolt of adrenaline. Keep going, keep going, this child needs you.

21:53It's Mama. On the 328th day, Rachel and John joined other hostage families, screaming their loved ones' names into a microphone towards Gaza.

22:09Rachel didn't know it then, but that was the day her son was murdered by Hamas. We ended up finding out they killed him that day. And so I wonder, did he hear me? Do you think he did? I think there are other ways that you can hear your parents screaming for you, even if you don't hear them. It was in this underground tunnel in Rafa on August 31, 2024, Israeli soldiers found Hirsch's body. He and five other hostages had been executed. Hirsch was shot six times at close range. When his body was brought back to Israel, thousands lined the streets and attended his funeral. Finally, my sweet boy, finally, finally, finally, finally you're free!

23:00Rachel and John continued to advocate for the remaining hostages, but they were desperate for details about the last year of their son's life. Then, in February 2025, something remarkable happened. A hostage named Orr Levy was released by Hamas along with two others. When Orr was reunited with his family and three-year-old son, he learned his wife, Einav, was killed on October 7th. He was also told Hirsch had been murdered. It broke me, and I told my parents right away, I want to meet their parents. It turned out Orr had spent three days with Hirsch in a tunnel, and he says something Hirsch told him saved his life.

23:47Seeing this guy without a hand, and you know what he did? He laughed about it. About his hand? Yeah. He laughed about everything, and he smiled the entire time. He wasn't broken. No, he wasn't. Hirsch kept repeating this mantra. He who has a why can bear any how. He who has a why can bear any how is a mantra Hirsch got from this book, Man's Search for Meaning, a 1946 concentration camp memoir by a survivor, Viktor Frankl, who'd adapted a similar saying by Friedrich Nietzsche. It became our mantra. Everybody there. Everybody there. That idea that if you have a why, you can survive. You can do anything.

24:33Soon after, he was freed or got Hirsch's mantra tattooed on his arm. My son, he asked me, what does it say? He doesn't speak English. And I just left and I said, your name. Your name. Because that's your why. This is my why. The only reason why I survived was him. What was Hirsch's why? I asked Orr that and he said, he went like this. You. It was this shocking, life-affirming CPR from beyond to have Hirsch through Orr telling us, what's your why going to be? Because you can bear this, even this, even losing me, you could do it. And so part of what I'm trying so hard to do now is to figure out what is my why.

25:26Rachel was told something else by Orr that gave her tremendous comfort. He said, it's important that you know that he told me that my mother spoke to the Secretary of State in the U.S. Hershey told him that. Yeah, and I said, he heard on the news I had spoken to the Secretary of State, and he said, no, he heard you on the news. And it was like all of a sudden, thank God. First of all, that he heard my voice, and that he knew we are nobodies. We are absolute nobodies. I even say the equivalent of John Doe in the Jewish world is Rachel Goldberg. But we tried so hard, and he knew. When we met Rachel in Jerusalem in February, days before the new war with Iran, she'd recently finished writing a book called When We See You Again, which came out in April.

26:30You write in the book, people want hope, resilience, recovery, strength, survival, healing. They want thriving and rising from the ashes like the phoenix from the days of yore. But the pain is chronic, ever-present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear. That's how it feels. That's how it feels. Now. I'm open to it feeling different. Have you noticed a change? I think my understanding of grief has changed. I was dreading and uncomfortable with grief. And recently I had this whole different thought of maybe grief is actually just this precious badge of love that you wear because someone has died and your love is continuing to grow.

27:27When the body of the last hostage was returned this past January, it had been 843 days since the October 7th attack. Rachel and John finally took down the pieces of tape their family had worn and stuck on a wall in their apartment. That's the day we buried her. So many lives, so many innocent lives. on both sides, lost. Rachel has kept Hirsch's room as he left it. And that's the tape that we took down. Oh, my gosh. It's extraordinary to see all the pain and everything that is in that ball. You know, it's like these symbols of failure. What we were fighting for did happen. We got all of these people home, not as we wanted.