A bold plan for nationwide Maglev and electrified rail. While it is nice like many of the other infrastructure projects from Larouche it will probably never exist. In theory you could sell it to voters as a Jobs program being as “real” unemployment remains very high.
Smells like an electrified “Grid and Gateway”, to me. Lots of tracks connecting lots of places that wouldn’t fill a bus a day.
What happens if the freight railroads do not want to share their corridors with this new rail vision?
The promoters must try to find other rights of way.
As to maglev,I did not know that there were so many projects. I knew of one in southern California; a college friend of mine was involved in it A few years ago, I asked our physics professor what he knew about it, and he was able to tell me very little. Perhaps my friend will be at the alumni gathering in three years (sixty years after he graduated) and I can ask him about it.
What about wing levitation. Oh we already have that.
Everything I have read about just simple national HSR assumes that running on the freight railroad corridors will be essential because it will be nearly impossible to acquire new corridors.
And along with that conclusion is the nearly universal consensus that the freight railroads do not want to share their corridors with nationalized HSR.
Freight would be part of it passenger rail would just be corridors. Maglev would do most of the passenger travel. Freight get convinced with track upgrades and electrification. Electrification would be done in a matter similar to how it would be done in the steel interstate where in you build along Rail ROW and charge for its usage.
Since Maglev has to be grade separated anyway, it might be possible to get easements on highways - like down the middle of existing freeways. Note that I made no mention of this being smart, or even necessary.
As for any proposal from Larouche - isn’t he the clown who looted his supporters’ credit card accounts to finance his failed run for president?
Chuck
This reminds me of a question posed in a humor section in the American Boy more than seventy years ago: A Scottish laird sent his son, Bruce, and daughter, Alice, on a trip to America in company with a trusted servant, Angus. Some time after they left, the servant sent a cablegram (up to ten words for a fixed price) which read, “Bruises hurt erased afford erected analysis hurt infectious dead Angus.” The laird was able to understand the message and wept; what message was Angus conveying? But, I cannot understand the above post.
OLD freight corridors are not suitable to high speed rail.
New ROWs are not hard to come by. Build along side and or above existing interstates. Yes, curves and grades will need modification, and some variances and shortcuts will be required, but most of the ROW already exists.
In North Dakota, and I presume in most western states, SECTION LINES are by law 'Rights of Way". A neighbor can ask you to move your fences back so that he can open a right of way to his property.It is not difficult to usurp section lines for High Speed Rail, especially since the project requires almost 100% elevation anyway to protect the track from trespassers and to allow snow to blow off of the structure.
ROAR
Okay. Not all places are created equal. You want to put a HSR line or maglev in from Albequerque to Flagstaff? You could use the ATSF ROW, I-40 corridor or a new alignment. It’s wouldn’t make a bit of difference.
Atlanta to Charlotte? The SR alignment would be terrible. I-85 would be only a bit better. But, a new alignment wouldn’t be to hard to come by.
Phila to Trenton? Bring your wallet…
Many Interstate curve and grade profiles are utterly unsuited to true HSR – that was well-understood when I was in the transportation program in the mid-Seventies, and has only gotten more true as the construction standards for high-speed Interstate design slipped in the 55-mph-limit years. This is even true when higher peak grades are permissible – inherently for passenger and express-only traffic – because the long vertical curve profiles required for maintaining high speed do not match the road grade.
Co-location in Interstate medians looks like a good idea, until you get to the issue with overpasses. You’re NOT going to have 220-mph or even 110-mph traffic running at road level in the median – that’s just asking for massive head-end disaster. And if your grade is elevated in the median – and it isn’t practical to loop it up and over in a short distance around each existing overpass – you either have to raise all the overpasses at tremendous cost or raise the HSR guideway high enough to clear, which may be an even more tremendous cost. I will not go into how much additional noise-barrier installation and raising will be required for the train noise.
This is not to mock the idea of co-locating HSR on highway medians, particularly in the West where there are long, straight stretches of road with few people adjacent. It just isn’t a particularly universal solution, as LION seemed to be saying.
The studies we did for new American ROWs (in the 1980s) often found that straight alignments with very substantial peak grades were preferential to following highways – assuming that relatively long-distance passenger (and expensive express) was the only service. The ‘new line’ across the Alleghenies in central Pennsylvania (I called it the New Allegheny Portage Route) might have up to 10% grade, but goes places where real-estate values (and opportunity values for speculation) are relatively limited. This presumed – as I think
Yes! It features very high speed - about 500 mph. Very low cost ROW - just have to staff and pay the dispatchers. 100% grade separated, too boot! Terminals are pricey, but you generally can locate them adjacent to cities where land is cheap. Private companies are willing (and able!) to provide service, although there is some indirect subsidy. Network is adaptable to hub and spoke and grid and gateway type service.
[}:)]
“Terminals are pricey, but you generally can locate them adjacent to cities where land is cheap”…
Not so much nowadays, if you are referring to the US, anyway.
New airports get NIMBYS riled up as much otr even more then new HSR corridors…
I don’t know the exact number, but I’d guess It’s fair to say they’re not 100% grade separated all the time. Perhaps 99.999999999% would cover the margin of error that includes an occasional airplane in a corn field.
This project is not advocating for HSR. It advocating conventional passenger rail for short trips and local trips plus electrified freight rail. For example the surfliner route still uses wood ties and has no electrification it could be rebuilt with modern standards. Maglev would be used for most passenger trips. The electrification would mostly be done in existing areas. Maglev can be built at tighter curves and taller gradients. Maglev can be built along more rugged terrain than rail and thus can be built along interstates.