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Railroads are the primary economic beneficiaries. It's a difficult project for the public sector.

We continue to subsidize highways and aviation, but when it comes to our passenger rail system, we refuse to provide the money Amtrak needs to survive.

We should not be waiting until trains derail, bridges collapse and people die to adequately fund our transportation infrastructure.

I had a great job with the railroad, a good salary.

Yet, in 1850 nearly all the railroads in the United States lay east of the Mississippi River, and all of them, even when they were physically mere extensions of one another, were separately owned and separately managed.

We are also ignoring and underfunding high speed rail which is one of the best ways to move citizens and improve congestion on our highways.

Whether it's steamships disrupted by the railroads or railroads disrupted by the airlines, it's typically the large entrenched incumbents that are displaced by innovators.

If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.

Many of the railroad evils were inherent in the situation; they were explained by the fact that both managers and public were dealing with a new agency whose laws they did not completely understand.

As more workers lose manufacturing jobs as companies cut back, some are being forced into lower-paying retail jobs. But they still have union cards in their wallets.