One Positive Step We Can Do

Our railroad system is in shambles, AMTRAK, while good when it works and goes where you want it to go, has no national goals--they only want to hang on to the NE corridor and eke out what they can from that.
I am almost old enough to remember rail travel, or so I am told by older relatives who say I took train rides when young.
Maybe that explains it.
Who knows?
As James H. Kunstler explains on his site from whence I stole this picture , "After a half century of neglect, America now has a railroad system that the Bolivians would be ashamed of. There isn't another project we could do that would have a greater impact on our oil consumption than fixing our rail system and restoring passenger service. It's a project that would put scores of thousands of people to work at good jobs at every work level from management to labor. It would benefit people in all ranks of society. The fact that we are not doing it, or even talking about it, shows how unserious we are. We are entering an era of energy scarcity. We can't afford to ignore this task any longer."

Indeed. A string of cars all headed the same direction for dozens of miles twice a day is a poor substitution for even the worst-run railroad. I suffered through the Long Island Rail Road twice a day for years, and I sat in Long Island traffic too.
I much prefer the time on the rail road. Even that one.