“I love public transportation.”

— Clint Eastwood in the film “In the Line of Fire”

HANNOVER, Germany — I love public transportation, too.

A concern I’ve had since living in Amarillo for the past 21 years is that it isn’t terribly available in the neighborhood where my wife and I reside.

We have no train service. The bus system doesn’t actually reach the farthest corners of the city; thus, we’re stuck.

Well, we have developed a taste for it in Europe, where they’ve perfected the system to the letter.

We traveled from Nuremberg, Germany to Amsterdam, The Netherlands the other day in about six hours. We returned from Amsterdam to Nuremberg, but it took a bit longer. Why? Because we took a different route, changing trains in Hannover.

I have to say that the Germans — and the Dutch — know how to make the trains run on time.

The weather was perfect on both trips. So, we didn’t have any rain washouts, or any high winds, or fog … the kinds of conditions that can impede public transportation.

We stopped about eight times on both legs of our journey. We’d pull into the station, sit there for, oh about two, maybe three minutes, then depart — right on schedule!

The longest stop was for 12 minutes, at the first station in Germany on the trip back from The Netherlands; they had to change the crews and the engine. No sweat, man! We were rolling at precisely the correct time.

It’s a high-speed rail system. We clocked one leg of the trip to Amsterdam at about 165 mph; I did some quick math when I saw the screen that had the speed posted at 272 kilometers per hour.

Are we going to get this kind of rail service in the United States of America? I don’t know. I keep hearing once every three or four years about ideas to build a bullet rail line between Houston and the Metroplex.

One big problem? Condemning all that private land between the cities to make room for the public rail right-of-way.

When it’s done well, I have to agree with Clint Eastwood’s character.

I do love public transportation.