I haven't done a lot of studying of other countries, but as I understand it, high-speed rail is in other countries that have cold climates as well without a problem. It also depends on what type of rail system you're going to go to. If you go to the maglev, the magnetic levitation, it's higher and it's its own fixed stand that the train runs on. If you go to the 400-kilometre-per-hour train, fixed standard rail, anything under that you get onto the subgrade, and you're going to balance the subgrade, which is what we run with anyway. You need continuous welded rail, or CWR, and you will have brakes and rail no matter what, but you have to get out to fix them, and you will, as we do now.
On May 28th, 2009. See this statement in context.