JACKSON - Gil Carmichael was as happy as a kid in a candy store that President Obama put $9.3 billion for high-speed rail transportation and upgrading Amtrak into the $785 billion economic recovery package.

Carmichael, otherwise a Meridian businessman and former Republican leader, for 20 years since he served as Federal Railroad Administrator has been preaching a vision of a vastly expanded national system of passenger rail transportation he calls "Interstate II."

His name for the rail system connotes it as the nation's second major transportation step from "Interstate I," the 43,000 mile four-lane network of paved highways President Eisenhower launched 50 years ago.

In the Obama recovery package is $8 billion for some 30,000 miles of inter-city high-speed rail transportation and $1.3 billion for Amtrak whose ridership has risen since gas hit $4. The high-speed rail system would significantly benefit all states, even a rural state like Mississippi, as Carmichael will explain in a moment.

He praised Obama's inclusion of the rail system in his package: "President Obama clearly understands this necessary new approach to meeting 21st century transportation needs." Parenthetically, Carmichael, who was made the nation's railroad administrator by the older President Bush, pointed out he could never get the younger Bush interested in railroads.

What many don't realize, Carmichael said, is that hundreds of thousands miles of railroad rights-of-way are, with small upgrade, ready to handle high-speed rail transportation (among them, for instance, the East-West rail bed across mid-Mississippi from Meridian to Vicksburg - on to Shreveport - via Jackson known as the "Meridian Speedway.")

Imagine, Carmichael says, within a few years under the new high-speed rail transportation program you could board a train in Meridian that travels up to 125 miles an hour and be at Jackson's already-modernized passenger terminal in 45 minutes.

"It would mean great business for our downtown areas," Carmichael said.

The route of the old "Southerner" route (now owned by Norfolk Southern) crossing Southeast Mississippi from Meridian through Laurel, Hattiesburg, Picayune on down to New Orleans was designated years ago as a high-speed corridor, but never fully implemented. Since plans for the corridor are on the books, Carmichael says it would an early candidate under the Obama inter-city transportation program, adding: "Those tracks are already handling 80 mph freight traffic."

Though high-speed rail seems an exotic idea in this part of the South, it has already come to Charlotte, N.C., connecting several cities by high-speed rail, with usage thriving. America's rail system, Carmichael says, is now under-utilized and most of it is single tracked.

Surprisingly, the Mississippi Legislature was not asleep in preparing for the advent of high-speed rail service. A bill pushed by Rep. Warner McBride, (D, Courtland) creating a $20 million fund to enable the state to utilize federal funds for inter-city and high speed rail, cleared the House with bi-partisan support even before the Obama stimulus passed.

The 81-year-old Carmichael (who has founded a masters' degree intermodal transportation institute at the University of Denver) says the nation because of economic volatility and the need to achieve energy independence will be forced to adopt a new lifestyle that includes economical, environmentally sustainable transportation.

"Our nation urgently needs a new vision for its outmoded transportation system and the president's new policy is a step in the right direction," he said.

Obama's ambitious rail transportation infrastructure program in the $785 billion recovery package, will mean thousands of jobs. "It will create huge numbers of needed jobs and stimulate economic growth," Carmichael continued. And if Obama offered to appoint him Federal Railroad Administrator, would Gil take it? In a New York minute.

Bill Minor is a syndicated columnist who has covered Mississippi politics since 1947. His address is Box 1243, Jackson, MS 39215. Send e-mails to Minor through edinman@earthlink.net.