JOE BIDEN'S LIONEL CATALOG.

There might be money in the various pork-barrel, er, transportation infrastructure, spending proposals making their way through Congress for an expanded Amtrak.  Or maybe a functioning demonstration project for high-speed trains in California.

Vice contributor Aaron Gordon got himself in some trouble for suggesting "The U.S. Is Not Ready for High Speed Rail"  Look, I don't care if he even heard of Cold Spring Shops.  It matters more that people take this argument seriously than who ultimately gets it widely circulated.  "Do we take the lower risk, lower reward path to drastically improve the rail infrastructure we already have? Or do we go with the big swing and try to start all over with high speed rail? We have a passenger rail network. It sucks right now, but we can make it better a lot easier than we can build a new one."

It might be wise to read his full article.  Let me direct your attention, dear reader, to one paragraph, which addresses a project that has received a lot of my attention over the years.

In fact, the Chicago to St. Louis route is a perfect example of both what can be achieved and what still stands in our way to better rail service. The route has already received $2 billion in order for trains to have fewer crossings with roads and can travel at 90 mph (soon to be upgraded to 110 mph). But as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2019, that is unlikely to make a significant impact on people's travel habits because the trains rarely go that fast. They often get stuck behind freight trains. And since the freight companies run the rails, they rarely prioritize passenger rail as they're legally required to do. So, despite spending billions of dollars on useful infrastructure improvements that would cut travel times by 20 percent, it doesn't matter because the trains are still scheduled to travel an average of just 53 mph, anticipating inevitable delays. It often goes even slower. If Amtrak could schedule St. Louis to Chicago to travel at, say, 70 mph by finally getting those 110 mph sections and ensuring passenger rail has priority, it would be faster and cheaper than driving.

Union Pacific are willing to work with the Illinois Department of Transportation, they've gone so far as to build a new intermodal yard outside Joliet, although the real heroics would be in restoring the second main track all the way through Illinois, and improving passenger train routes through the Chicago and St. Louis terminals. The market might not be so much the full length of the line, although beating drive time on Route 66, er the double nickel, shouldn't be that hard to do; rather it's the tourists for Springfield or the collegians for Illinois State or the Pontiac shoppers bound to the Mag Mile, that is if the Mag Mile ever becomes a shopping destination again.

There's a lot in the article that's only tangentially about railroads; it will reward careful study for an understanding of the trade-offs involved in any sort of hero project, a number of which weren't respected when the Interstate Highways got started.

There might be a more realistic Christmas wish being offered up by Jeremy Cooney and Timothy Kennedy, both state senators from upstate New York, in one of the Gannett papers.

As people discover that they can reside in affordable areas and work remotely, businesses are thus incentivized to expand in regions that have a talented workforce and a lower cost of living. New York’s “Big 5” upstate cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Yonkers meet this new normal. High-speed rail that connects regions beyond the Metro-North line would be a significant factor in stimulating our state’s recovery through workforce attraction and retention.

Although the authors write about high speed rail, they are really offering up the Cold Spring Shops vision of diesel trains good for 125-140 mph.

Imagine your permanent home being in Western New York, the Mohawk Valley or the Hudson Valley. A short trip to a rail station will have you heading at high-speed upstate or downstate at 90 miles-per-hour, working remotely all the while. Tourists would be making similar trips, as would students attending Upstate colleges.

Shifting our mentality around what an Upstate business commute looks like is vital to our economic development strategy. Our roads need fewer cars on them, but all our cities and towns still need people in them to be healthy.

Some of what follows is wishful thinking, and the way to discourage the use of the roads is to price them like the productive assets that they are (and to tear up the ones that aren't.)  But the same logic I applied to the Alton Route applies to the Empire Corridor: collegians for Rochester or Syracuse, rent-seekers for Albany, shoppers bound to Manhattan (same caveat as applies to the Mag Mile.)  It helps to be able to have multiple trains calling at the intermediate stations, as well.

In the realm of the reach, but as long as you are asking Santa, is some thinking about that fast train to Las Vegas.  Brightline are working on something from Victorville to Las Vegas, but now Amtrak are hinting at getting in on that.  If only Amtrak, and the California department of transportation, and Amtrak, might get together on something like a true high-speed capable transit of the mountains west of Victorville, then that other fast line taking shape in the Merced area might have a way into Los Angeles.  And if I had some cold cuts, I could make a Normandie sandwich, if I had a baguette.