Indeed we are indebt to the builders of our rail systems and those who made it happen. Both the capitalists and the politicians; you see the flow of distribution and transportation are one of the most important parts of any civilization. Without rail it is difficult to get products to market, but more importantly raw materials and raw resources to where they need to be you see;

http://worldthinktank.net/wttbbs/index.php?
s=d07cb41ea7543e7105ce9c53afd7746c&showtopic=7

Sometimes it seems a shame our planners, politicians and nation does not look more long term at these issues. You see the better the flow of transportation and distribution work and the more efficient they are the stronger the civilization.

As you noticed with Hurricane Katrina, with rail and Freeways out, it was hard to get rescue and supplies in. This shows us how important rail really is. Luckily due to the ability to move stuff by air immediately (yes much high costs) we were able to make due and trucks going around the problem areas continued to move freight across the land without too much problems.

Our redundancies and competition for more efficiency and our capital expenditures in this rail sector are well spent because they do indeed add strength, efficiency and growth potential in productivity and GDP. We should be grateful to all those who came before us an invested and built our railroads, which made all the rest possible. Consider all this in 2006.