Interstate rail network proposed - Metro-rail Inc.'s Alexis Parks considers a system comparable to the interstate road system - Brief Article

Railway Age, Sept, 1992

Meeting in Whitefish, Mont., on Aug. 19, the National Conference of State Rail Officials heard a proposal for the creation of a National Interstate Rail Network that might one day rival in importance the Interstate Highway system.

The proposal came from Alexis Parks, director of Metro-rail, Inc., of Colorado Springs. She called on states to adopt "a cohesive policy that identifies all existing rail lines and uses land-use planning and population growth projections to help prioritize them into future primary, secondary, and recreational passenger rail 'highways'."

She sketched this picture of what such a policy could mean in her own state: "You might fly into the new Denver International Airport with a combination air and rail pass which gives you ten days unlimited travel by rail in the Rockies. So you would take the train--which would run on Union Pacific's east-west Kansas City line--into downtown Denver, stay overnight at the Brown Palace Hotel, and then the next morning you would go to Denver's Union Terminal and board another train that would take you to Glenwood Springs and Aspen, or Cheyenne or Santa Fe. All of these rail lines exist today, and only one of them has sufficient freight traffic to warrant double track along certain parts of it."

She suggested that states, using an agreed-upon set of guidelines, inventory and prioritize existing rail lines and enter them into a common data base. "With such an informational data base, experts and people with a wide range of responsibilities would immediately be able to assess whether or not a line coming up for sale, lease, or abandonment fits a long-term regional or national need."