A hat-tip to ARRA for the freight rail boom

The Wall Street Journal's Betsy Morris reports on an investment boom in freight rail and freight rail infrastructure that's aiding the nascent comeback of U.S. manufacturing.

Welcome to the revival of the Railroad Age. North America's major freight railroads are in the midst of a building boom unlike anything since the industry's Gilded Age heyday in the 19th century—this year pouring $14 billion into rail yards, refueling stations, additional track. With enhanced speed and efficiency, rail is fast becoming a dominant player in the nation's commercial transport system and a vital cog in its economic recovery.

This time around, though, the expansion isn't so much geographic—it is about a race to make existing rail lines more efficient and able to haul more and different types of freight. Some of the railroads are building massive new terminals that resemble inland ports. They are turning their networks into double-lane steel freeways to capture as much as they can get of U.S. freight demand that is projected to grow by half, to $27.5 billion by 2040, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. In some cases, rail lines are increasing the heights of mountain tunnels and raising bridges to accommodate stacked containers. All told, 2013 stands to be the industry's third year in a row of record capital spending—more than double the yearly outlays of $5.9 billion a decade ago.

As the examples of infrastructure upgrades in Morris's article suggest, freight infrastructure is financed mostly by private capital.  The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's  $8 billion in high speed rail grants, while focused mainly on passenger service, do include projects that improve infrastructure for freight rail, however. Describing rail upgrades in his book on the stimulus, The New New Deal, Michael Grunwald illustrates how passenger and freight rail infrastructure are often intertwined: