Americans are cuckoo about choo-choos.

There are dozens of train museums around the country. There are hundreds of model train clubs. From "Murder on the Orient Express" to "Bullet Train" to "Snowpiercer," pop culture is full of stories about locomotives.

It seems we love everything about trains except actually using them for transportation.

I thought about this a lot during recent trips to and from Miami on Brightline trains.

Brightline is a private company that offers high-speed rail service between Orlando and Miami, with a few stations along the route. (My departure/return station was in West Palm Beach.) The company has also been pursuing plans to offer service between major cities in Texas and California.

Gas prices being what they are, and the cost of everything – cars and car insurance included – going up, you might expect people to be clamoring for alternative ways to get from Point A to Point B.

Brightline train isn't moving fast enough to outrun critics

Yet if you see a lot of the media coverage about Brightline, particularly in my home state of Florida, you might get the impression the trains are transporting the Ebola virus, not passengers who have discovered an antidote for road rage.

Brightline is a boondoggle! The trains kill people! And when they aren't killing people, they're making too much noise trying to warn people of their approach!

It's true that a substantial amount of public money, roughly $500 million from cities along the route, has been invested in Brightline's tracks, stations and crossing improvements. That might seem like a lot for the........

© USA TODAY