solar-powered railroad

James Kunstler's comments on the national transportation mess are exactly right: we need to bring back passenger trains. Or rather, we need a whole new generation of passenger trains for the 21st century: fast, clean, and solar-powered. What airplane passenger wouldn't rather be riding a solar-powered railroad?

Yes, it's a massive project and we need the workforce of Detroit to implement it. America being America, I predict that the nation will rediscover its inner railroad industry and launch its second great era of rail -- not necessarily via the government, as it should, but via eccentric billionaires who have nostalgia for something we've lost: American technology that restores our industrial pride and defines the soul of the nation.