"There is nothing grand about the vitesse of US intercity trains. That makes President Barack Obama's $13bn plan to introduce an international standard of high-speed rail travel on the country's 10 most heavily travelled routes nothing short of revolutionary. It's been widely touted as doing for trains what Dwight Eisenhower did for interstate highway system. If Obama can pull it off, the Philadelphia Inquirer editorialised, "he would be both magician and miracle worker." Jump-starting shovel-ready rail projects in the name of economic recovery does sound magical and miraculous – until you read the fine print. The $8bn in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds is "only a down payment on a longer term passenger rail development strategy". A second component of the plan relies on a grant-based proposal in the president's 2010 budget that would parcel out $1bn over five years to worthy projects." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet