Shortly after noon on a sunny spring day, hundreds of onlookers gathered in a tent city, hastily constructed in the scrub-specked middle of nowhere, to witness the driving of the golden spike, the final link of the first transcontinental railroad. One of the most expensive and time-consuming parts of starting a railroad in the US is gaining the right of way to the section of land the track runs on. “In the 40 years from the 1960s to the 2000s, we spent trillions on highways; in those same years, we spent less than $10bn [£7.5bn] on high-speed rail,” says Andy Kunz, president and CEO of the US High Speed Rail Association.
Author: @NatGeoTravel
Published at: 2026-03-23 00:00:00
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