The op-ed on high-speed rail by Ray LaHood, Anthony Foxx and Norman Mineta brought bitterly to my mind the extravagant promises in the 2010s for much faster trains between Chicago and St. Louis. For an investment of nearly $2 billion from taxpayers, people would be able to ride on Amtrak trains averaging 110 mph. All that money was spent, but to whose benefit? The municipalities that got new Amtrak stations, such as Normal, Illinois, and the corporations that own the tracks on which Amtrak runs its passenger trains saw roadbeds vastly improved. But the passenger trains themselves still go no faster than 79 mph. In a larger sense, this expensive effort was foredoomed. The op-ed writers laud France and China for their remarkable achievements in high-speed passenger rail while advising that the U.S. launch a huge program of its own. But the obstacle in the way, the derailment as it were, is that those two nations have nationalized railroads, while the U.S. does not — nor will it ever if Republicans in Congress or the White House continue to have their way. In China and France, the rails are for the people. In the U.S., the rails are for the thousand slow freights per day whose dispatchers give them right of way, and Amtrak gets later and later.