Luxury train car will be site of events to benefit St. Bernard Project

"The Patrón Tequila Epicurean Express is a restored 1927 luxury rail car that will be pulling into the New Orleans Train Station this week to help raise money for the St. Bernard Project.

Last week, in two events held in Washington DC's Union Station, the train and chefs helped raise nearly $20,000 for the group, which will help the group's response to the oil gushing from the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico."

For more on this tasty approach to helping others, click here.

High-speed rail: Train cars, locomotives may be on track for rebound

"Smack among the vast green and gold farm fields of southern Illinois, a steel graveyard filled with unwanted, broken-down locomotives symbolizes the weak state of the train-manufacturing industry in the United States.

A fertile opportunity lies ahead, however, for entrepreneurs who figure out how to safely, comfortably and economically transport passengers at higher speeds than today's Amtrak service over most of the nation."

For more on the future of rail service, click here.

Obama's $8 billion plan would dramatically shorten trips from Chicago to other Midwest cities

"Year after year, high-speed rail in the U.S. has been a popular idea that never left the station because of a lack of political will. All that changed Thursday.

Passenger trains traveling at 110 m.p.h.—arriving in Chicago from St. Louis in under four hours—could be operating in three or four years after President Barack Obama allocated $8 billion in federal stimulus money to begin building a national high-speed rail system, Illinois officials said Thursday."

Click here for more on this exciting plan.