More Trains

With gas price quickly reaching new leves of absurdity, Amtrak ridership is rapidly growing.

Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.

But the railroad, and its suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet the demand. – NYT

Apparently, if you don’t invest in a prticular national infrastructure for, say, thirty years or so, at some point on down the line, you’re goign to run into some capacity issues. Case-in-point: it only costs $46 for a round-trip ticket from houston to austin, but it would take about 8 hours of travel time (ususally a 3.5 hour drive).  Sadly, not very pratical.  (via kottke)