As Plans For Europe-Africa Rail Link Develop, U.S. Lags

"A high-speed rail line connecting Europe and Africa that has been on the drawing boards for a quarter of a century is finally being ushered along."

"To join Spain and Morocco by rail across the Strait of Gibraltar would be among the world's most ambitious, expensive and complex civil engineering feats, alongside the Panama Canal and the Channel Tunnel. The project is now edging closer, with Morocco having hired Lombardi Engineering, a Swiss engineering firm, to begin planning."

"Throughout the world, rail, one of the older forms of passenger transportation, is undergoing a renewal, with the Europe-Africa rail link being only one example of new passenger rail lines being considered."

"The United States is like a developing country when it comes to passenger rail, and various Democratic and Republican presidents have been nearly uniformly hostile to Amtrak, which was created in 1971 to relieve private railroads of the financial burden of passenger trains. Congress has consistently saved the trains, but without enough subsidies to expand."