Answer the following question to the best of your ability:
Q) Europe is best known for:
a.) Being really old
b.) Bidets
c.) Hygiene – or lack thereof
d.) Great rail service
e.) All the above
The correct answer is: D (though you could make an argument for E).
Nobody gives better train than Europe. They’ve been at it for a long time, to be sure. Furthermore, the point-to-point distance between the Continent’s urban areas make rail travel the most ideal mode of transportation. Consequently, the countries that make up Europe have combined to build the most enviable intersected transportation network in the world. Not only do the trains run dependably, but they do
so on the smoothest rails imaginable. Zooming along at over 100 mph in a first-class coach through Great Britain, drinking English tea and eating biscuits, while being able to set your cup on the window ledge without worrying about it spilling, is one of the real joys of life. It’s the same throughout the rest of Europe as well. No, it’s not because I was in a first-class car…it’s the same rails the other classes are riding on, Roscoe…just free coffee.
Before the advent of mass travel by air trains were the means of travel throughout the nation (seconded only by bus service like Greyhound and Trailways). Locomotives that blackened the sky like a raging fire at a tire factory gave way to clean, swift diesel engines. Once it became economical for all to fly and airlines like Southwest, many railroads gave up on passenger service (and life itself, for that matter) and the state of the nation’s tracks fell into disrepair. Unless you were trying to shake loose a kidney stone, trains were not the first choice from city-to-city. Oh, every few years perfunctory attention was paid to improving train service throughout the Northeast Corridor when Congress would realize how much sense it made to ride a train from Boston-New York, or New York-Washington. But other than occasional press releases from the Department of Transportation citing pairs of cities they’re looking at for possible future rail service, not much more than lip service was paid.
“If we had more point-to-point urban centers like Europe has it would make more sense to spend a 
major amount of money to build an adequate system” you say? Look at a map, Balboa. For every Dresden-Berlin and Paris-Brussels route the Euros have the United States has a Los Angeles-Las Vegas and Chicago-Detroit pair that would be ideal for high-speed rail service. That’s not to say you can’t take a train now from Detroit-Chicago; it’s just that you may miss your newborn’s high school graduation if you do so. The usual explanation the government gives is there’s not enough money available to do an adequate job of funding a self-sustaining rail service. Amtrak is proof of that. Oh, really, Senator Full O. Guano?
Let’s look at some of the Congressional pork that has been shoveled throughout the country that benefits few, if any people. There are the more publicized ones like the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska or the “Capitol Hill Tourist Office.” 
I’m even one of the first to admit there are a lot of questionable dollars spent on incredibly-expensive projects for my beloved military. But for every well-known boondoggle there are hundreds, if not thousands that fly beneath the radar. Things like the breeding habits of the rhesus monkey when in close proximity to a rock and roll band; or a Woodstock Museum; or a six-year study seeking the financial reality of rerouting the Colorado River because a rogue family of titmice was sighted by the town drunk in Durango. As facetious as these are, there’s equally-ridiculous examples of others that are true. Put all the money together and there would be more than enough money to fund a workable plan to give the United States a rail system that rivals those of Europe and Japan. I don’t know about you but I’d trade funding a museum in Hollywood to honor the gerbil for a high-speed rail train between Detroit and Indianapolis any day.
Think of this as a wake-up call to those in Washington to pull their heads from the safety of their own colons and do something that will benefit the majority of people instead of old Betty that you’ve been trying to pork since you first entered the Congress six terms ago. The money is there…just ask the governments of countries that hate us throughout the world. There are about 
300 million people in this country, which equates to an estimate of about 550 million middle fingers. Let’s use part of them to send messages to those nations that despise us and earmark the money we would have pissed away on them to put into a “lock box” (a term about as realistic as an “honest politician”) to use solely for the construction and maintenance of a high-speed, point-to-point rail system that will bring urban centers together.
Much like the golden spike at Premonitory Point, Utah, when the east and west portions of the country were united. There are few things more satisfying than sitting in a comfortable seat for several hours, sipping some hot, fresh coffee and reading a newspaper (or girlie magazine if that’s your desire), and occasionally seeing huge traffic jams outside caused by severe weather, accidents or the dreaded orange construction barrels. As the old saying goes, “There’s plenty of room on our plates for endangered species…right between the mashed potatoes and the corn fritters.
Al’s review of the Gerbil Hall of Fame could appear next Monday, when his column runs here next week at the same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.
