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[quote user="Phoebe Vet"] How many tanks and Bradley's can you transport from the midwest to the coast on a cargo plane? You can move 100 of them on one train. If FEMA kept their supplies, mobile emergency rooms, and mobile command posts in standard size containers, 200 of them could be rapidly deployed by rail on ONE train.  If Amtrak had more equipment, evacuations could be made much faster. [/quote]No country has the air and sea lift capability to mount an invasion of the American heartland.  If war comes, at least in the near future, it will be in the form of a missile attack.  It probably will be a terrorist attack, or it will be a massive come as you are attack launched by a large adversary or coalition of adversaries.  Railroads would play no role in such an attack, other than to be partially destroyed.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>In a conflict similar to the ones that the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> has fought over the past few decades, far from its borders, the ability to move heavy equipment to seaports by rail has been helpful.  But passenger trains played little if any role in getting the troops to their continental departure points.  In fact, most of them flew to the jumping off point.  <o:p></o:p>The argument that the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> needs to maintain a national passenger rail network for military purposes is not sound.  Amongst other things the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> cannot afford it.<o:p></o:p> If decades in the future a country or group of countries had the capability to launch a massive sea and land assault against the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>, they would presumably only do so if they have sea and air superiority.  One of their first targets, as was the case in Operation Sea Lord, would be to knock out the railroads and roadways as soon as possible.  The trains, as the Germans learned during WW II, would be irrelevant.
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