I'm excited about this news because trains rock. They are a great alternative I choose whenever possible. That was an easier choice when we were in Europe a couple months ago. Those cities are designed with trains and mind, and have been for a century or more. Here, though, we're train averse for some reason. I guess it's because we Americans love our cars.

Hopefully that love affair will finally simmer once Amtrak gets an upgrade.

North Carolina has received $20.3 million in federal funds as a first step in a plan to establish a high-speed rail link between Charlotte and Raleigh.

The N.C. Department of Transportation will use the allocation to refurbish passenger coaches and locomotives. The money from the Federal Railroad Administration represents the first installment on $545 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding granted earlier this year for N.C. passenger-rail system improvements.

Read the rest of this Charlotte Business Journal article, by Chris Baysden, here.

Here's Amtrak's Carolinian, which stops in both Raleigh and Charlotte: