WISHFUL THINKING? The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel publishes its interpretation of the Midwestern high-speed rail proposal, which I analyzed in detail two weeks ago. The newspaper focuses on the Wisconsin components of the project, which include speeding up the On Wisconsin to 110 mph (something that could be done on the Milwaukee stretch almost immediately but would take some work on to Madison), followed by improving the Madison - Portage- Twin Cities section, and finally restoring the Valley 400 line through West Bend, where some of the tracks have been lifted, and pushing on to Green Bay.

Now look carefully at the Illinois section of the map. The 79 mph line to Omaha via Des Moines is illustrated as diverging from the Burlington north of Princeton and striking out for the Quad Cities. My railroad atlases show two abandoned Burlington lines, one diverging at Mendota and another at Zearing, joining to pass through Ronald Reagan's birthplace of Tampico and joining the still-operating east bank line of the Burlington to reach the Quad Cities. Because the map shows an existing stop about where Mendota is, the Zearing connection is the more likely resurrection of an old rail corridor, if the map is accurate. Might those be some of the real estate plays John Stilgoe alludes to in Train Time?

If the plan envisions keeping trains on one corridor for as long as possible, as is the case with Britain's West Coast Main Line throwing off connections to Birmingham or Manchester or Liverpool from the main stem through Milton Keynes and Crewe and Carlisle, the simpler expedient would be a connection from the Burlington to the Rock Island at Wyanet, which is west of Princeton and near the Hennepin Canal.

Sometimes, what is unseen is as instructive as what is seen. Note the feeder us service to Cedar Rapids from Iowa City (oh, for a lightweight interurban) and from Des Moines to Ames and Fort Dodge. Project a line east from Ames through Cedar Rapids: you find Northern Illinois University. You've also uncovered a 90 mph capable railroad that, going west, has a 70 mph crossing of the Des Moines River. Regular readers will recognize me calling out, once again, the passenger-train-unfriendly Union Pacific, which has of late taken to running long, slow stack trains through DeKalb on interurban headways.

Then locate Kirksville, Missouri, reached by a feeder bus from Quincy. Kirksville is on another 90 mph capable railroad, the Santa Fe's Kansas City-Chicago mainline, which at one time had an emerging-corridor level of passenger train service.

I continue to endorse these high-speed rail plans, but the Sprecher stays in the cooler until the cartel-era speed restrictions are repealed and the track upgrading begins.