We repeatedly hear and read comments that go something like this: "Trains are an antiquated form of transportation that use way too much in the way of public and private resources. They have limited societal benefits and are a drag on development of newer forms of transportation. The only good place for trains is in a museum — but not in my backyard or anywhere near it."

These ill-informed statements can be easily refuted by taking a logical look at where trains and railroads augment or supersede benefits from other forms of transportation. I will address air, road and water transport in this article.

Although basic railroad engineering and technology is generally the same now as it was 100 years ago, this is also true of the other modes we consider. All four modes have benefited greatly from advances in engineering, metallurgy, electronics and computers, but none more than trains. We cannot therefore hang the antique sign on railroads based on this consideration.

I would argue, in fact, that railroads have done a better job of creating works of civil engineering that endure the strain of heavy use than any of the other three. Most highway departments could take a few lessons from the way railroads maintain their rights of way. Most airlines could wish for an air traffic control system as modern as the Positive Train Control now being installed on railroads. The navigational systems in inland waterways are the same as those in use 50 years ago.

Railroads and trains are as ready as any inland mode of transportation to move the people of America and their goods in a modern way.

Roads

Looking to roads, we could say the Interstate Highway System was a big mistake. Given the capacity of railroads and trains to adapt to growing volume, we had only to untie the ropes of government regulation that bound the railroads almost from their inception. By doing so we would have created a giant transportation system and obviated the need for the Interstate. We would have also removed the incentive for the increase in the volume moved by trucks and private-passenger automobiles.

But this would be as fallacious an argument as those who argue against railroads. Both roads and railroads are vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters. To have both is a bulwark against a crisis in one. And to have both competing for business is an incentive for both to grow in the use of modern technologies and efficiencies. This is a balanced transportation policy.

Airlines

We could also say we could do without the giant drain on resources of these comparatively inefficient, fuel-burning behemoths that can only make a profit by turning passengers into something like canned fish and by deafening the residents of our larger cities. We almost never consider whether the amount of package cargo carried justifies the low energy efficiency achieved in getting packages delivered in 24 hours or less.

A balanced transportation policy would have limited the enormous subsidies expended by government chasing an air traffic control system that accommodates this and instead poured some of that into the ultra-efficiency of high-speed rail freight, a chimera even the Europeans are not able to achieve because of civilization's late start in realizing the enormous fuel efficiency of rail transport.

Water

For boats and barges, often transporting their bulk cargoes on publicly funded waterways, we might say it's too much of a risk to carry crude oil in hulls often much older than the average railcar and much more exposed to the elements. A breach or accident spills these bulk commodities into waterways that are a trust for the public benefit.

Should we then say barges and boats on public waterways have limited public benefit? No, because a balanced transportation policy recognizes bulk must be moved. If railroads are in crisis, we need those boats. We need those waterways. But just because we need them, we cannot dismiss railroads.

Railroads are still the only self-guided form of transportation, and not because of computers or electronics, but because of the basic engineering that allows the right of way to guide the train. This virtue also makes railroads a good backup for those other transport modes that may not be able to function in a crisis.

Railroads are perfectly capable — and have been so for a century — of operating by long-established rules that have no need for even the most rudimentary electronics, or even for electricity, for that matter. In a crisis where highways may be jammed if traffic signals don't function, where airliners may be grounded for failures of the control systems, where waterways may be the only other form able to function without electronics, railroads can and will continue to move people and goods.

Let us lastly not forget railroads were developed in a time when there were only two other forms of land transportation available to most individuals. These were walking and riding animals (or animal-drawn conveyances). But in public transportation policy, these forms are not usually considered.

The fact that most trains do not move people is a function of politics and public policy over more than 150 years. It can be reversed.

Railroads and trains still speak to the need of individuals and groups to move farther and faster without reliance on human or animal power. Likewise, we should be prepared to realize that trains today can also move us farther and faster while using less, not more, public resources.

We only need balanced public transportation policies supported by the right arguments, and the public will, to make it happen.