Updated

President Obama and Vice President Biden are using a trip to Tampa, Florida to announce $8 billion in stimulus money to develop America’s first program of high-speed trains. During a Florida town hall, they will announce the awards which will go toward developing or laying the groundwork for 13 new, large-scale high-speed rail corridors across the country.

Florida proponents of the rail system say it will create 23,000 jobs in the Sunshine state in areas such as track-laying, manufacturing, planning and engineering, and rail maintenance and operations.  The White House says over 30 rail manufacturers, both domestic and foreign, have agreed to establish or expand their base of operations in the United States if they are hired to build America’s next generation high-speed rail lines.

The White House says this will not happen overnight and a fact sheet released by the White House explains "Spain spent two decades and $35 billion developing its high speed rail system. South Korea took 12 years and more than $10 billion to build a line stretching from Seoul to Busan, comparable to the distance between Boston and New York."

Click here to learn more about Florida plans for a high speed rail.