The top reaction on this thread almost refutes itself. Were this a story about autonomous rovers being ordered, I doubt anyone would blink an eye. But because it’s about even studying trains, we have complaints about cost.
> not like we need billions in R&D
But it does cost us billions more to do with trains what our peers have done.
Two, we passed a billion dollar infrastructure bill for exactly this a couple of years ago. Were you aware of this? What more do you want?
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684
Discussing things like this on HN too often consists of people arguing based on what they assume is true without knowing what they want already exists.