An article by Phillip Longman in The Washington Monthly titled Back on Tracks takes a detailed look at what would be required to rebuild our rail system.

Phillips cites a study projecting that an expenditure of $250 billion to $500 billion on improved rail infrastructure would get 83% of all long-haul trucks off the nation’s highways by 2030, while also delivering ample capacity for high-speed passenger rail. If high-traffic rail lines were also electrified and powered in part by renewable energy sources, that investment would reduce the nation’s carbon emission by 39% and oil consumption by 15%.

But no one in Washington is talking about investing any of the $1 trillion stimulus package in freight rail capacity. Instead, almost all the talk out of the Obama camp and Congress has been about spending for roads and highway bridges – projects made necessary in large measure by America’s over-reliance on “pavement-smashing, traffic-snarling, fossil-fuel-guzzling trucks” for the bulk of its domestic freight transport.

Phillips rightly points out that the choice of infrastructure projects is de facto industrial policy; it’s also de facto energy, land use, housing, and environmental policy. The choices we make now carry with them implications for nearly every aspect of American life going far into the future.

Steel wheel on steel rail is a technology far superior to rubber on roads, especially for long-haul freight.  Its eclipse was mostly the result of special interest politics, ill-considered public policies, and other factors that have nothing to do with efficiency. Now, much of the rail infrastructure that we once had is gone. The rail industry is starved of capital, making the rebuilding of that infrastructure impossible.

The government must either invest in shoring up the railroads’ overwhelmed infrastructure – or pay in other ways. Failing to rebuild rail infrastructure simply further moves the burden of ever-increasing shipping demands onto the highways, the expansion and maintenance of which does not come free.

Phillips points out there are many “choke points” around the country where a relatively tiny amount of public investment in rail infrastructure would bring enormous social and economic returns. Once these kinks have been fixed, we can focus on bigger things, most importantly the electrification of America’s major rail lines, as most other industrial countries have done. Electric locomotives are two and a half to three times more efficient than diesels, more powerful, cheaper to maintain; they last longer, accelerate faster, and have much higher top speeds. And rail electrification offers the possibility of zero-emission freight and passenger transportation.

Electrifying and otherwise improving rail infrastructure would enable the return of fast, efficient express freight service and facilitate the coming of true high-speed rail passenger service. It doesn’t rely on new or unproven technology. All it requires is foresight and political will.