Confident that Lexington “could be the third most-visited tourist destination” behind Charlotte and Raleigh, the City Council has expanded its passenger rail advisory committee.

First step is to figure how to build a new rail depot. I don’t even need to tell you how committee chairman William Deal thinks that will happen, but here it is anyway:

Deal said a proposed train depot, similar to the 6,800-square-foot facility opened in Kannapolis in 2005, would cost $4.5 million. Deal said the most likely way a depot can be built is with 80 percent federal funds, 10 percent state funds and 10 percent local funds. He said the available federal funds, which could become available through a national economic stimulus package, may be easier to secure than the state and local matches.

This is the perfect lead-in to note how two major N.C. newspapers are cheering Sen. Chris ‘Countrywide’ Dodd’s appearance in Raleigh, where he tells us we need — you guessed it —- mass transit. The Charlotte Observer evidently thinks that Dodd’s transcontinental high-speed rail is the antidote to the “lack of creativity and leadership at the federal level,” while the News & Observer, in support of its coverage of the Emerging Issues forum, pushes for a half-cent sales tax increase to fund light rail.

Evidently, this is the mainstream media’s idea of “creativity” and “leadership.” Others — like JLF’s Michael Sanera —- say it’s more groupthink “based around a 19th century technology, the train.”