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this is what is happening from Chicago to St. Louis for the high speed rail. They are now working around Springfield .
This is amazing to watch.
They just did this operation through Sherman for the high speed rail.
People were stopping along the highway taking pictures.
For those who live in the Springfield area and have seen all the machines running up and down the tracks, here is a link to a video that shows you how the concrete ties and rail are put in place. The road bed was raised 13 inches to accommodate the new high speed rail line between St. Louis , MO. And Chicago , IL . There are only two of these track laying machines in the world, one here and one in Europe.
http://www.wimp.com/traintrack/
http://www.youtube.com/user/raimcameddy ... FE8nmKpmXY

Its a high speed rail rail machine.

Sadly, it'll probably still be cheaper for me to rent a car and pay for the gas there & back.

I remember back in the day there was regular express train service on that line. My grandpa was a railroad man - ran a small station in central Mo. I remember a trip I took with my Dad in the early 60s - train from Seattle to Chicago, then he went on to DC and I got on the express train to St. Louis, where my grandparents picked me up. It was a little while ago, but I remember the front locomotive had a bullet nose and was silver.

Riding on a high speed rail might be very costly too. A guy I work with was in Spain last year and his family took one from one end of Spain to the other, 3 people, $800 US......OUCH!!!

That looks like a typical passenger train.

Pics of high speed rails are on the lower right of this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail

That was for wvjohn. I imagine by his description and route that most likely that was the train he rode from Chicago to St Louis.

Unless he meant Amtrak. They kinda have a silver nose.