`BULLET TRAIN' IDEA GIVEN TO AREA BUSINESS LEADERS

The last time Missouri hosted a World's Fair and the Olympic Games, visitors were astounded to learn that soon every home would have electricity, everyone would have cars and travel along super highways, and families would be able to cross the ocean in a matter of hours on large airplanes, says Richard Pisani.

Pisani is hoping a new futuristic idea will help lure the Games and Fair back to Missouri in 2004 a century after St. Louis hosted the event.

His idea is a 320-mph high-speed train that would make St. Louis and Kansas City just 45 minutes apart and enable visitors to travel between the two cities for the events. Once the Fair and Olympic Games were over, Missouri would be left with a major high-speed rail system that could serve as a catalyst for long-term economic development, he said.

Pisani suggested that just as the widespread use of electricity, automobiles, and airplanes seemed futuristic to visitors at the 1904 World's Fair, everyone knows now that it was a natural development in technology. His high-speed "bullet trains" are the same thing, Pisani said.

"What you are going to see today is not visionary," said Pisani Friday in a presentation to area civic and business leaders sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

High-speed trains are already in use in Europe and Japan, and several states are studying the possibility of bringing high-speed rail to the United States.

Pisani, a 1971 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, now lives in St. Louis and is president of 2004 Missouri, the group trying to bring the rail, Olympics and World's Fair to the state 12 years from now.

The organization has been in place for almost 16 months, and Friday's presentation here was the 146th Pisani has made on the subject.

The group is affiliated with a national organization known as the High Speed Rail Association, which is promoting the development of a national network of bullet trains.

One potential route for a high-speed train in Missouri would be along I-55, which would link St. Louis and Memphis, with a stop in between around Cape Girardeau. The trip between St. Louis and Memphis would take about an hour.

Other routes being considered in Missouri would be along I-44 between St. Louis and Springfield. The route from Kansas City to St. Louis could also be expanded westward to Topeka, Kan., and eastward to Chicago.

The route along I-70 would provide a stop in Columbia and an opportunity to transport passengers to the Lake of the Ozarks area; the route to Springfield could be used to get visitors to the Branson area.

Not only does Pisani's group hope to bring the high speed trains to Missouri, it also is hoping that Missouri can become the state where the trains are built.

"Creating jobs for Missouri is what this is all about," Pisani said.

The 2004 Missouri group is now raising funds to hire a lobbyist in Washington to solicit federal funds for planning purposes.

Pisani was accompanied Friday by Lonnie Haefner, a Washington University professor who has done some of the preliminary work on the Interstate 66 project and was instrumental in helping secure federal money for that project.

Pisani said Haefner will be hired to pursue the project in Washington and to help Missouri catch up with other states.

"We want to go from being known as the Show Me State to the Watch Us State," he said.

Larry Malone, an engineer from Kansas City who has been a longtime proponent of high-speed trains, said Amtrak was purchasing two trains from Sweden for delivery later this year that can run on existing rail and go about 40 percent faster than what the track is rated for. He said that a few trains are already running in the United States up to 125 mph.

A group in Texas is considering purchasing trains from a foreign country for a line it hopes to develop over the next few years.

But Malone and Pisani said they are interested in having the trains developed in the United States. They are proposing a concept known as magnetic-levitation, which is the latest technology. It is now being used in Germany and Japan and will enable trains to run 320 mph.

Haefner explained the new federal transportation bill recognizes the need for domestic high-speed rail. Funds are available for studies and pilot projects. Rail is also seen as an opportunity to relieve congestion at airports by easing the reliance on short flights.

All three agreed that while funding is uncertain at this point, they were optimistic a combination of public and private financing could be done.

Looking back on the 1904 events in St. Louis, Pisani suggested it helped give Missouri the title of "Gateway to the West. After 2004, we will change our title to Gateway to the World," said Pisani.