Sounds like you just described the situation in Sweden ;) So this is yet another similarity between our two great nations.

Okay, time to wrap up this little giveaway. Thanks for your honest opinion. I'll be back with a winner.

The unbias and totally random.org has chosen TheWhiteRose as the winner. Congrats and thanks to all for participating.

Congrats TheWhiteRose. From model train set under the tree to the virtual train set in cyberspace.

Congratulations TheWhiteRose!

Congrats, TheWhiteRose! And thanks for the giveaway, wormholewizards!
Merry Christmas all!

We're in the process of building ours. Something which really should have happened 40 years ago when the feds were willing to pay most of the costs.

I've been on the existing line a couple times and it's nice. Smooth ride, relatively quick and allows us to avoid traffic. Unfortunately, it's quite limited in reach at the moment and isn't likely to get too much better in the near future. The current set of extensions aren't scheduled for completion until 2017 IIRC.

But, much of it's under ground and the next set of extensions is going to have a train on a floating bridge which should be quite exciting.

I'm starting to think the oil companies are at work here in most countries holding back the rail industry(for passengers)...elsewise why keep most country's railways in such shoddy disrepair or built in so few areas?

It's also a great movie.

I really can't say anything about the rail system here, since I don't think there is one :\

There is a Metro rail in downtown Houston though. I think it's caused a few accidents. That's all I know about it.

Thank you, I sent you a PM.

It's more that rail is a lot more expensive than roads and is a very long term project, making it very unattractive politically.

Yes but one poster above mentioned that the feds wanted to fund a rail system or improvements to the existing one and they didn't take it yet. That smells odd to me. :\

There's also the Repub's current policy of "oppose anything and everything the Dems come up with".

Sadly that is quite true.

If you build a railroad to the countryside, you have to build normal roads anyway so that people have access to the station. If you build a normal road, there is no need for a rail network. In the light of this simple (and simplified) notion new rail services make relatively little economical sense, and economics is one of the few languages that politicians know.