High Speed Rail Finally Has A Voice In Washington

One of the major factors working against passenger rail in Washington has been the lack of a lobbying group capable of competing with the highway lobby. Now there appears to be such a group working for high speed rail that could help all passenger rail efforts.

The US High Speed Rail Association is a slick high tech industry lobbying group backed by big money from manufacturers of high speed rail equipment. It has already started lobbying Congress, and has held some fancy conferences to attract attention.

The organization also has a very impressive website that includes lots of pictures of cool looking trains. The best feature is a neat looking map of a national high speed rail system the US HSRA wants to build by 2030. Unlike the plans “unveiled” by President Obama last year this high speed rail system would connect every region in the Lower 48 states and most of our cities. It would be backed up by a system of 110 MPH trains which would provide regional service.

Perhaps this is just what high speed rail and passenger rail need in Washington, a professional lobbying firm with some real bucks. Maybe this will finally get Congress paying some attention to high speed rail and more importantly throwing some real money at it.

Let’s face it folks $8 billion for high speed rail is a joke especially when we can come up with $1 trillion for the bank bailout and the war in Afghanistan. Maybe this lobbying group can tip the balance.