Funny thing, we can spend billions in this country bailing out the airlines, and billions more to
subsidize highways and all those orange barrells.  Yet we spend very little to provide decent
passenger rail service.  Some states have none at all.   We have a few stations in Kansas, but
service at them has been badly cut in recent years.

Particularly vulnerable to the budget vultures are long distance trains.  Most of these start out
in Chicago and fan out across the country.  We have had the pleasure of riding the
Southwest Chief (to Santa Fe and Los Angeles), the Texas Eagle (to Dallas), the Lakeside
Limited (to Cleveland, Rochester, and New York),  the Capital Limited and the Three Rivers
(to Washington DC),  the Silver Meteor (to Florida),  the Silver Star (to Charleston, SC), and
the Coast Starlight (to San Francisco and Seattle).  A good regional train is the Carolinian, which we took from Durham to D.C.

Train travel is something most civilized countries take for granted.  In the US we have to bite and
claw to keep decent rail service.

If you'd like to help, join the National Association of Railroad Passengers: http://www.narprail.org/

Also, write your representatives and ask them to support Amtrak.