and start greasing palms to get it canceled because it might scare his cows.

if some idiot decides to shoot at it.

or even normal but more frequent train service would be wonderful.

Texas is, by all accounts, a very large state with major population centers and is an excellent place to start.

I took Amtrak a year ago from Santa Fe, NM to Portland, OR to visit my son. Wonderful trip. I booked the sleeper car all the way and just loved it. The train from Los Angeles to Portland, the Coast Starlight, has a separate lounge car just for the sleeper car passengers, which also means the regular passengers have more room in their lounge car. My car attendants were wonderful (tipped them well as they deserved), wonderful scenery, excellent travelling companions the whole way. Unfortunately, I can only go east or west from here. There should be train service to Denver and points north, but alas, no.

We have a commuter train, the RailRunner that goes from Belen, south of Albuquerque, to Santa Fe. Here's a link to a map:
http://riometro.org/maps/rail-runner-system-map

A while back there was talk of extending it south to Las Cruces and north to Taos, which would be quite nice, but haven't heard anything on that in years now, so it probably won't happen.

It is quite astonishing how many people take the train from ABQ to Santa Fe, and depending on where they get on, it makes enough stops so as to be somewhat less than ideal in terms of travel time. It seems to me there ought to be some limited or express trains during rush hours, but given that the people who planned it probably have zero experience with light rail or train service in any other part of the country, it's not bad. The biggest problem is that there is no late train from ABQ back up to Santa Fe. On a Saturday the very last train leaves downtown ABQ at 8:22pm. On a weekday the last train is at 6:48pm. Not very good scheduling. As a consequence, I've taken it far less than I should have.

Possibly from as far north as Cheyenne to as far south as Albuquerque.

That stretch is growing steadily into a single urban conglomeration, but without rail, its nature will be determined by the automobile.

Then you need to be able to get from Albuquerque to Tucson and Phoenix to the west, and Texas and other southern-lying cities to the east.

I have long understood that the essential reason we don't have very good train service in this country (apart from our irrational attachment to our automobiles and a complete lack of understanding of why we need to subsidize such service) is that other than in the northeast quarter of this country, the cities are too far apart, and the population spread out in a way that tends to mitigate against good rail service. But we still should have it. We should be willing to pay the taxes necessary, just as we pay taxes for the crumbling roads in this country.

Too many people just don't understand how important infrastructure is, and how it doesn't matter if I individually never take a train or drive on a particular road, or have kids in school, but that we ALL benefit from good infrastructure. And public education.

is that it will result in suburbs being built in what is now open country. What that argument overlooks is that that will happen anyway. Without rail, as I said, the new suburbs will come with new freeways and shopping centers. Rail can result in different and less damaging configurations -- not to mention the lower overall pollution.

If amtrak could become affordable I'd love to take it.

Although costs vary enormously depending on when you book and when you travel, just as with the airlines. I had what amounted to two nights in a moving hotel and all of my meals for one relatively low price. Plus, I arrived quite rested and happy, not grumpy the way flying tends to make us. But that's just my preference.

Recently a friend and I were considering rendezvousing in Santa Barbara, California, and one set of dates gave me a cost of under $200 on the train, and another set of dates made it something like $800. We totally bailed on that trip.

or anything good really because of a mixture of whacky beliefs and special interest payola. In this case you can expect landowners and airlines to kill it.