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Talgo wins Saudi high speed contract
That Nice other Country are building High Speed Rail lines, When USA is Third World Country in Build High Speed Rail lines and not give Amtrak system more money.
I think it is great that other Countrys have High Speed Rail lines. I can’t wait for High Speed Rail to be built in California.
Isn’t RENFE (Red Nacional Ferro Carrill de Espana/Spanish National Railway Network, or some such) a government entity? Isn’t Talgo government-owned, too? Guess they are sucking up to the oil oligarchs. We won’t see Spanish warships in the Straits of Hormuz. Look deep in the English Channel.
It’s amazing that they will be able to build a 279-mile HSR line for only around $9 billion US dollars. California’s line is twice that length but is being estimated at $100 billion now.
Insane our country isn’t building 500 - 1000 miles of HSR per year! STOP highway expansion and invest in HS and mid speed lines instead, which is far cheaper than endlessly building new highways and expanding existing highways. Case in point, the 30 billion Oregon and Washington is going to be spending on two small projects, one to replace a bridge the other to build a short tunnel in Seattle. For that, we could have at least a moderately fast express track from Seattle to Vancouver BC.
It’s easier, faster, and cheaper to build when you don’t have to have environmental impact mitigations. How many will cry if a scorpion has to move 300 feet to stay alive? I’ll bet not many. I also doubt they have to mitigate any wetlands along the way, either.
As a kingdom, do they have to appraise and purchase the right-of-way or does the crown just take it for the greater good of the land? These two points alone can sometimes accout for 40% or more of a project.
1 of my uncles help buid the original Dhahran - Riyadh line, all U.S.A. equipment and know how, wonder if we could even do that anymore? I’m surprised it’s not going to be “Built in China” I hate to say but we are an empire in decline.