California’s high-speed rail experiment is dead and few are mourning its loss. Donald Trump himself called Gavin Newsom’s terminally delayed pet project a “scam” and a “total waste of taxpayer money.”

 Such criticism has earned President Trump a reputation among Democrats as a hater of all things rail, but this isn’t true. The president supports more transportation options for Americans, including passenger and freight rail—he just doesn’t want any more trains to nowhere. And on freight, where America already leads the world, his job is to protect what works.

The president thinks such incompetence isn’t worth chasing with another dime of taxpayer money. But he also understands that just because California can’t build trains doesn’t mean America can’t. 

For example, in just one year during his first term, President Trump funded new rail projects in Arizona, Indiana, and Oregon. Why? He understood those rail lines were more worthwhile investments and wouldn’t fall victim to the same bureaucracy you’d find in California.

This has been the Trump approach: carefully allot taxpayer money to worthy rail proposals while cutting red tape to make sure they actually get built. It’s all part of what his administration calls the “golden age of American rail.” Just as importantly, it means preserving the competition that allows those investments to........

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