Once again, we can see Toney Anaya smiling: As New Mexico's governor 25 years ago, he proposed high-speed, city-to-city rail travel. The name in vogue then was "bullet train" — as Japan's 180-mph system is known.

Anaya saw such a system as the excellent commercial and touristic tool it would have been — and still would be — as well as a way of getting New Mexicans out of the cars clogging the Río Grande traffic route.

Too few New Mexicans shared his vision — and when he left office in 1986, dust began piling up on proposals that had been drafted.

Then Gov. Bill Richardson took office in 2003, and lost little time twisting legislative arms to invest in commuter trains. Today, the Rail Runner serves Santa Fe, Bernalillo, Albuquerque and Belén — at its leisure: Despite train technology proven in Europe and Asia, our car-consumed nation has been slow to follow.

New Mexico was no exception: About the only difference between the Rail Runner and the Santa Fe Super Chief of 1950s fame is the welded rails reducing the romantic clickety-clack. The new train's hour-and-a-half Albuquerque-Santa Fe schedule won't take anyone's breath away. Price-tag and other considerations cost our state's taxpayers a chance to be national pace-setters in train travel.

But hark! The governor and Sen. Tom Udall yesterday announced that New Mexico is joining Colorado and Texas in a new push for high-speed rail.

In April, the Obama administration designated
10 high-speed corridors, and said there's room for an 11th in its plans; we'd be in the middle of it.

Presumably, that would put us at the back of the line, but at least the three Río Grande states would be in consideration in case this idea takes off.

Higher priorities, to our minds, would be the already-designated New York, Pennsylvania and New England, as well as lines in and out of Chicago. So would the Los Angeles-San Francisco run, which has state bonding — whatever that's worth in the bankrupt Golden State — as well as one from Portland to Seattle.

And, of course, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made much noise about a supertrain from L.A. to 'Vegas, where on many days the freeways between 'em are bumper-to-bumper. So nobody in New Mexico should hold their breath waiting to board a two-hour train to Denver or take an hour ride to El Paso.

Just the same, it's good to see Richardson and counterparts Rick Perry of Texas and Bill Ritter of Colorado getting their dibs in. By the time today's toddlers are old and gray, and trains zip through our corridor, cities in all three states will be big enough to fill the cars.

Would a bullet train stop in Santa Fe? Preliminary talk has it running only "near" Albuquerque — so rather than an advance in mass transit between here and the Duke City, this train line is being dreamed up as a quick and handy alternative to flying between Colorado, New Mexico and Texas; one that might need its own roadbed, or monorail route.

Sen. Udall: "Today, you cannot get from Albuquerque to Denver by rail without changing trains in Los Angeles or Chicago and our regional railways run from east to west, with no north-south connections."

This would, indeed, be a breakthrough — back to the days when the Denver & Río Grande carried people between its namesakes. But this would be a highly desirable to long drives and long airport waits.

It's a good beginning to the long journey to reality.