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The rage for railroads is so great that many will be laid in parts where they will not pay.

I am opposed to the wholesale giving away of the public lands to railroad corporations and other like institutions; at the same time, I believe that the government can encourage, by gifts, great national enterprises which are for the common weal and are so placed that they cannot properly expect local support.

Beyond highways and roads, we need more money for mass transit, intercity passenger rail and freight rail. We have a long way to go to bridge the funding gaps.

It's hard to make something as large as a government change. It's a little bit like building the transcontinental railroad.

You and I come by road or rail, but economists travel on infrastructure.

I believe the private sector and small businesses drive our economy, and that means the federal government should work to ensure the private sector is as robust as possible.

The rail service is important for my district.

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

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.