The Limitless Potential of Rail

Reihan Salam, who really loves trains, as I do, points me to this article by Phillip Longman, who really, really loves trains, and makes the persuasive case that much of the stimulus money now going to roads should go to rail. Read the whole thing:

[I]f we're willing to think bigger and more long term--and we should be--the potential of a twenty-first century rail system is truly astonishing. ... Yet despite this astounding potential, virtually no one in Washington is talking about investing any of that $1 trillion in freight rail capacity. Instead, almost all the talk out of the Obama camp and Congress has been about spending for roads and highway bridges, projects made necessary in large measure by America's over reliance on pavement-smashing, traffic-snarling, fossil-fuel-guzzling trucks for the bulk of its domestic freight transport.This could be an epic mistake.