Business travelers in Europe are making full use of the high-speed European trains system, reports the New York Times. Of course, with downtown stations and congested roads to airports in London and Paris, that makes sense.

With large populations in compact areas, the Europeans have a natural advantage in using high-speed rail. As one traveler puts it, the only remotely comparable part of the United States is the Northeast Corridor and that's the only American trains he rides

We could undoubtedly do more here with high-speed trains although various schemes to build a high-speed train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas seem like pipe dreams. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., did secure funds for final preliminary work on a test track from Las Vegas to Primm. That, if it's ever built will now benefit Terrible Herbst's new operations out there. The latest scheme was a train from Victorville to Las Vegas. That plan tried to avoid the huge cost of getting land or rights of way through Southern California. But those savings may also doom it because the part of the journey that would really benefit from the high-speed train was precisely that part of it.

Still, there is one overriding reason high-speed rail fares much better in Europe and Asia than it does here: It's subsidized with tax money which makes it cheaper than driving. Here we expect commercial airlines to make money and they are the main inter-city transport aside from the private automobile. Of course, we subsidize roads and airports but that's a choice we make. That choice, though, almost guarantees we won't put the same money into high-speed rail.