Train rant

So here we are cruising along at 300 kilometers an hour.The cars are going about 90 kph.

http://youtu.be/fMminLqgEKI

For those who must have the conversion (see next rant), that is about 185 miles per hour.

We only had to be at the station 10 minutes before we boarded.
The train left on time.
It will arrive on time.
Breakfast was served:

OK, it wasn't gourmet, but it was considerably better than airline food.
It is comfortable.
There is workspace (I am typing this part on the train).
The seats recline.
I can actually cross my legs.
There is a decent and clean restroom between each car.
There is a dining car.
The emissions are a fraction of that of automobiles.
I can see the countryside go by.

What is not to like about this? It doesn't seem to me that the U.S. is so far behind that trains couldn't make a comeback. We would have to upgrade our rails to make them safe for a high speed train, but this is one time we can learn from the considerable advances in rail travel from Europe and Japan. No reason to reinvent the wheel (or train) here.

And nuts to the airlines if they can't compete.

[Note from Vicki: Dan is the optimistic one of us, as most of you know. I think that America is too stupid to go for a high-speed rail. If we weren't, we would have done it in the 1970s when the Middle East oil crises started. If anyone remembers, Jimmy Carter - still destined to go down as a visionary leader - told us that the oil problem would not get any better. Some have yet to believe it.]

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