In several of President Obama’s speeches from the first 4 years in office, he spoke about the creation of a high speed train across the country. I was actually excited about the possibilities and I really thought he was serious about it, but it doesn’t look as though such a major project will ever get off the ground now for quite some time.
I, for one, would like to see such a system in place. I love to fly, but not everyone does and traveling by Amtrak is just not practical across country when time is of the essence. So, a high speed train seems like the best solution.
There are many hurdles though. Such as, who pays for it? The federal government? The states? Private companies? Then there is our looming national debt of nearly 20 trillion dollars. Then there are the right of way and land issues. I am sure “eminent domain” will be utilized. Which should tie everything up for who knows how long.
Obviously, constructing such a system will require time, energy and of course effort. The plus side of this is jobs and local improvements state by state where the system is placed. Local economies would benefit from such a massive project. The other plus to this is the citizens of this country will have a source of alternative transportation. It will be clean, quiet and smooth.
The TGV and other high speed trains have proven their worth in other countries that have embraced such rail technologies. However, our country is kind of funny about such projects these days and the thing is, our country will benefit from such a long term project. We are in the 21st century now. Most countries around us have very successfully planned, implemented and constructed advanced high rail systems. So, why not us?
Virtually impossible from a practical standpoint - acquiring the real estate being a major challenge. And there will be a lot of push back from folks with a variety of agendas - it might endanger the paisley newt!
I don’t think we’ve got the national will to construct a facility of that magnitude. It’d be a lot of money, and that money has to come from somewhere. I seriously doubt that private money could be found - no one wants to back something that would be a guaranteed money loser.
A certain amount of high speed rail might work - mostly in areas with population. But that’s where you’ll get a lot of real estate pushback. Getting HSR in place in “flyover country” will be a hard sell.
That said - I agree that it would be nice, as would most rail aficianados. You just have to convince the general populace that it’s in their best interests. See California HSR for examples.
A relatively high-speed train cannot realistically compete with commercial aviation at distances much over 400 miles. Consider that the best rail time between Chicago and Los Angeles was 39.5 hours and between Chicago and New York was 15.5 hours, and these times were considered exceptional. Even spending a lot of bucks to trim these times by a third would still not be competitive with commercial airliners. Long-distance high-speed rail is economically unrealistic.
The application for HSR in the US is problematic. The European model is probably the best - building rural HSR links on high density routes and keeping the expensive-to-replace, mixed service, existing urban ROW. In the US this is complicated by the need to comply with train structural strength requirements that come from mixing with US freight traffic.
There are likely corridors and hubs in the US that could benefit from HSR, but a national network would be a huge waste of money.
I am a practical idealist. Let us see how All Aboard Florida, Texas High Speed, and California work out. I would say that if two out of these three work out OK, we can next expect New York State to get serious about New York - Albany - Buffalo, and Pennsylvania finally doing something to improve Harrisburg Pittsburgh, with not much required to bring Harrisburg - Phily up to NEC “higher speed” standards. Once NY - Buffalo gets high speed corridor service, then Ohio and Indiana may opt for the concept to be extended to Chicago incrementally, ditto Washington - Florida and Washington - Atlanta.
In the Nixon and Carter years, did you ever expect the NEC Boston electrification? Also, it looks like New Haven - Springfield may be electrified soon. Obama had other problems that were more important at this time, but some future President may take up this challange.
HSR is most efficient in corridors between 300 and 500 miles long. Air travel is more efficient past that point. I think we may eventually see HSR in many corridors that warrant it, but a national network is impossible with current population densities in much of the US.
Be careful with this argument. In the 19th Century, Weed was proposing 10-hour or quicker service from New York to Chicago – on narrow gauge. Were a dedicated track or route provided either on NYC or PRR, devoid of weird convolutions and slow orders Ithink Zoo, Portal/Gateway improvement and the Baltimore tunnels as examples) some very positive decreases in time can be made.
Now, the ‘deeper’ discussion involves the need for sleeper service on almost any HSR train that involves extended journey time or a link between destination pairs that occurs ‘at night’. I have seen conflicting information on just how fast permitted speed on “LGV” track structure can be and still permit easy sleep; many of the transmitted forces at high speed, while of course not dangerous, are still more ‘alarming’ to normal human perceptions than shocks from slower-speed sources that might be stronger but with different time and force characteristics. (I suspect schlimm can provide us with direct studies into these phenomena.)
A California Zephyr-style solution (where the daylight portions are “HSR” speed and the nighttime parts are slower while people are presumably sleeping) is of course possible. But that’s unlikely to win approval for the trillions of dollars needed to provide full HSR track structure, with the required absolute separation from any slower traffic where high speeds are required, and the likely optimization to high ruling grades with the high civil and maintenance expense of limited horizontal and vertical curves – whether or not a top-down class 9 track structure that is structurally ‘freight-compatible’ is utilized.
And then we get into electrification rather than gas-turbine
Exactly. Even between CHI-NYP with a sustained speed of 125 mph (really good), the trip would take 7 hours +. Overnight would have to be slower (and very expensive), even on a new, very straight, dedicated RoW to be tolerable. The cost would be enormous and it still would not really compete with air, only roads and would be too expensive for most of those travelers…
East of and along the Mississippi River city pairs most all fall within these ‘limits’. How you link them together and what the traffic level between them is the question that needs to be answered prior to putting shovels in the ground.
Much of the effective answer is going to involve either buses or regional-size light/heavy ‘accommodation trains’ (with reasonable end-to-end speed but scheduled only to be 'the trolley that meets all the trains) for whatever route the actual HSR line would follow.
Even today, we have a problem with some major potential traffic centers being on the ‘wrong side’ of the river from a route with more individual sources. The recent discussion of St. Louis being served by an Amtrak City of New Orleans is a particularly interesting example. The concern is further amplified by the almost inevitable fact that any ‘new’ true HSR line running in this corridor will be steering clear of many of the logical ‘end destinations’ for the service, and something very effective that makes end-to-end time reduction ‘worth’ the much higher cost to build and maintain HSR is going to have to be assured.
In my opinion, that’s going to involve a great many specially-configured buses. (I am sorely tempted to put the ‘Infinibus’ parody here, as the idea I had in mind is distressingly similar in a couple of only slightly different senses!)
These would run at high speed in dedicated areas, and at permissible or safe road speed otherwise; they would also be inherently capable of things like quick multiple-hotel pickup and dropoff (a la the post-1926 B&O New York service) and, while not a one-seat high-speed ride, constitute a two-seat fully climate-controlled ride, with access to amenities, nearly end to end. They are also, even at multiples of Prevost pricing, orders of magnitude cheaper than HrSR lines from all the ‘bypassed’ regions to t
Just FYI: Figure 3,000 miles +/- NY - LA via CHI, at $100 Million per route-mile (2 tracks, electrified, probabaly enough to cover some big bridges, etc.) = $300 Billion. That’s ‘only’ about $900 per man, woman, and child in the US for 1 year.
“Your Millions May Vary” . . . [swg]
As I recall, the annual US Federal Budget is on the order of 4 to 5 times that much.
What about all the money our country literally gives away to countries that just end up using that money to fund wars that kill millions. Surely, we could take that money and put it to good use.
Aviation, as in commercial flights, have far too many restrictions and these days many uncertainties. Flying involves greater risk, though those risk are statistically lower versus driving an automobile. A high speed train could be constructed in different regions of the country. Then they could be linked up together at some point in the future.
The TGV is capable of speeds in excess of 350 mph. The record was higher, but the fact is, that was simply a test of that train sets capabilities regarding physical speed. The French are very adept at high speed trains.
The arguments against HSR in here are understandable and each of you has cited pretty much the same basic arguments. Money, Land, viability, airline competition etc. However, consider this, regarding airliner vs HSR. The commercial jet lands in LAX. You then must take additional transportation from LAX to say downtown LA. A HSR would literally drop you off in downtown LA and perhaps much closer to your final destination point. Trains are far more efficient people movers vs commercial jets. Even the largest commercial jets may seat between 250 and 350 people and usually not on domestic flights. Only international. Yet, trains can seat 500 and up depending on the number of cars utlized. Couple that with speed and I believe that addresses the alternative choice for crossing our country.
Perhaps, but there are things that don’t make economic or operational sense. With our scarce resources, we only have money to do the essential. Building corridors where there are no economic reasons for their existence is a bad plan.
I’m not against HSR, and actually support it in markets where it makes sense and doesn’t wreck the US freight rail system. Nationwide networks don’t make sense at this time.
Because Americans have decentralized since the dawn of the automobile, coming straight into downtown is less of a concern that it was. A large percentage of the population probably wants to go elsewhere in the metropolitan area, so a downtown terminus while convenient is not essential. Transit to airports is an easy solution.
A note from a plane enthusiast- airlines are more efficient when they fly more flights with smaller planes than larger planes on fewer flights. They can offer more choices and destinations that way. Consequently, point-to-point routings are more common than before deregulation where hub-and-spoke models were more common. Even with HSR there are corridors where HSR is not practical due to geography and other factors, so smaller planes still fill a market role. There’s room for everyone.
As a country, we must either evolve or be left behind. While it is true that we have made some rather incredible advances in technology, overall, our infrastructure is severely lagging. This includes, but is not limited to, our passenger railroad system. Amtrak does what it can, but it is getting very old and quite frankly, antiquated.
The market, in my opinion, could not be more ready for a project of this magnitude. The benefits of such a system far outweigh the negative aspects. Such a project would require a great deal of thought, in terms of where exactly the line will run. Of course, it would be a multi rail system. East, West and a line for servicing and repair of both track and train sets. The technology utilized would be the very latest in rail technology. Safety being at the top of the list.
Not everyone can fly. Just as many cannot drive across country. Many already travel by Amtrak, but even their fastest train is between 4 to 5 days depending on routing, track and the trains locomotives. Just to many unknowns with Amtrak. I spoke with one passenger on a regional
It is getting old and antiquated because we can’t get funding for it thru Congress.
Again - $$$ is just not available.
But never enough to support the cost.
We can’t get a moderately moving coal/freight train across a few miles w/o running over something or somebody. Even in The Netherlands - passenger train ran into a crane moving over a crossing. They have fast trains down to a science, and yet… And you just can’t block each and every xing. We can’t get rail service between 2 major cities in this state. The powers that hold the purse strings just ignore all the ideas. And that is about 55 miles of HSR.
Ah - now we get the heart of this: 2016 - no one wants to travel by train right now because they want to be there 5 min ago.
No one wants to fund fast trains because the return on their investment isn’t there. No one wants to even think about what they would have to do to get from Chicago to LA on a fast train or even Chicago to Denver. Short corridors in the east might work out. X country, isn’t even considered.
As long as we have aircraft that can get you to you
As noted, society has decentralized. This is a problem even for local transit projects. Back in the day, everyone worked “downtown” and transit systems ran like spokes on a wheel from downtown. It might take a transfer downtown, but you could get anywhere.
Nowadays everyone lives everywhere, and works someplace else.
Another roadblock, if you will, is getting downtown. Odds are you’re going to have to go underground - and that gets really expensive, really fast. Nobody is going to let you tear down their skyscraper, and I’m not sure that ripping down block after block of houses is going to sell well either.
There’s no denying that HSR has benefits - the question is whether society will regard those benefits highly enough to offset any negatives, real or perceived.
Jack, As a country, we must either evolve or be left behind. While it is true that we have made some rather incredible advances in technology, overall, our infrastructure is severely lagging. This includes, but is not limited to, our passenger railroad system. Amtrak does what it can, but it is getting very old and quite frankly, antiquated. Our infrastructure is in trouble, very true. But, spending billions on coast to coast HSR is not the solution to cross-country travel. If money is to be spent, is to spend it on major improvements the the existing railways to build the capacity for Amtrack to consistantly operate at maximum speeds perhaps raised to 90+mph. HSR can’t happen, your idea would be cool but it is a nearly impossible dream. Bob