GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER:

As a Senator, now president-elect Joe Biden famously commuted 110 miles daily on Amtrak, from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to Washington, D.C., for the entirety of his 36 years in office. Biden estimates he's traveled back and forth on that route more than 7,000 times, amounting to some 770,000 miles total--enough rail traveled to theoretically circumnavigate the earth almost 31 times.

But his support for travel by train goes beyond the personal, too: As vice president to Barack Obama, Biden was largely responsible for directing funds toward California's high-speed rail project, 150 miles of which are currently completed. He even published a 2010 op-ed in Arrive Magazine titled "Why America Needs Trains." In it, Biden wrote that "support for Amtrak must be strong--not because it is a cherished American institution, which it is--but because it is a powerful and indispensable way to carry us all into a leaner, cleaner, greener 21st Century."

As he prepares to enter office, Biden has promised his own administration will usher in "the second great railroad revolution" in the U.S. While the president-elect himself has yet to release any concrete plans, rail advocates around the country are hopeful for a potential Biden boom. A rail-forward president, they say, has the potential to transform domestic travel by train.

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