Why is high speed (200+ mph), express passenger rail service between major metripolitan areas in the U.S. non-existent? The technology is available, so what is the hold up?
Do you have any idea how much it costs per mile to lay all new track that’s off good enough quality to carry really fast trains?
Try a millions of dollar a mile IF the railroad already owns the land. ifnot, try milliopns of dollars a mile.
Then, after 15 years of construction & billions of dollars in bank loans or bonds you have a route from, say, Baltimore to Philadelphia. Then Southwest or whoever shows up and starts selling air travel on the same route for $19 one way and you go broke. Then they re-deploy their airplanes and you try to redeploy your track how?
Is it maybe in places where high speed rail exists it is government financed and run? If so, that would mean there would be no worry about airline cutting rates that would bankrupt the rail service. Governments, unlike private companies, can subsidized a rail service with tax revenues if it becomes unprofitable.
The Lyndon Larouche people have a high-speed rail system as one of their goals.
And promoting cold fusion.
And getting their founder out of jail.
Well, the experience with the govt. subsidized Amtrak hasn’t exactly been what one would call a success…but perhaps a partnership between government owned right of way and private owned operation would work.
It seems that the right of way has always been tge major problem. About a decade or so ago, a private consortium down here in Texas launched a project to put in a high speed railroad between Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, had almost a billion dollars in Capital raised (or promised?), and had already awarded a contract to a French company to supply the trains, but ran into a brick wall with the right of way. It wasn’t just the cost, which was astronomical (as one post noted), but getting the hundreds of individual land owners in that right of way to sell without the power of eminent domain proved to be insurmountable. The project fizzled out, and has never been heard of since.
Here’s a possible solution: Instead of buying new right of way, and building the line on the ground, why not let the state build it, above the ground, down the middle of an already state owned right of way, the interstate highways, then lease the right of way out to a private operator, with the state as overseers.
As for the Airlines dropping prices drastically to compete, I can’t really see that, with the rising price of fuel, limited seating capacity, and the bigger airports that will be required as a result of increased traffic. I believe a viable high speed train system would put the airlines out of the short flight (200-300 miles) business.
There are two unfortunate facts that make advanced rail systems unlikely in the US.
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Cities in the US are farther apart than in Europe. Take a look at the TGV system in France. One of the largest stretches is from Brussels to Marseille. That’s about 370 miles. That doesn’t even get you from New York to Cleveland. One exception is the Northeast Corridor, where Amtrak actually owns the right-of-way – and the Acela Express service has been sucessful there. That thing gets up to 120mph, but the right-of-way is hundreds of years old and far too curvy for sustained high-speed travel.
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This is simply a car and plane country. The federal government has spent truly unimaginably amounts of money building the highway system and subsidizing airports and the airlines. It would take a similar commitment to build a massive high-speed rail system.
And, if someone attempts to initiate any passenger rail service without owning the ROW, they’re stuck with running their trains on existing track with freight trains, and that’s no fun as freights are slow (compared to Acela, TGV, etc.) and the track’s generally on the beat-up and lumpy side.
Then you get into politics. Big-time politics over routing and what cities a train will stop at.
I had a big post typed out, and the hamsters ate it, so here’s a summary:
Brussels to Marseilles is actually well over 600 miles. Similar to New York-Chicago or Miami-Atlanta. And the TGV connects to similar systems in Spain, Italy and Germany, so it covers even longer distances.
Re. purchasing the land - is there no compulsory-purchase system, similar to how I presume roads are built? And yes, building alongside existing highways is a major element of the TGV design, not least because it keeps down the cost of the land used due to it already being blighted.
friedo has the major point, though. There’s a perception that ‘roads=freedom’, and they’re not seen as a state creation, which given the recent political history of the USA makes them desirable, and any federal (‘boo hiss’) push for decent rail travel would be struck down as liberal or left-wing or whatever.
It goes beyond distance between cities. Once you get to a city by train how do you get around? Phoenix is a textbook example of a pedestrian hostile city with limited choices of public transport. Light rail is going in but it will be 2008 before we have any service and that will be for only a tiny percentage of the metro area.
Certainly, if high speed rail service works in Europe and Japan, it could work here.
We’re talking about non-stop runs under 300 miles. The airlines can handle the longer stuff.
The fact that America now has an “auto/airplane” mindset, doesn’t mean that can’t change. As the danger of being on super highways increases–especially with the inevitable increase in truck traffic–and air travel becomes more tedious, congested and expensive, people will naturally become more acceptive of an alternative way of traveling intermediate distances.
To travel 300 miles by air–in most of the major cities–one must waste two hours getting to and from the airports, which–because of increased size–have been moved to the outskirts of town, spend another two hours checking in and checking out to make a 45 minute flight! That’s almost five hours to travel 300 miles! That’s about the same amount of time it takes to travel that distance–on an interstate highway–in a car. This, folks, is not a viable alternative.
I find it hard to believe, at todays gas prices, that Americans would not embrace a mode of travel that will get them the same distance–from downtown to downtown–in an hour and a half, at about the same cost that it would take to drive a car that distance.
Well, a person flying into Phoenix, or L.A., for that matter, is similarly situated. But a high-speed train between L.A. and Phoenix? Or L.A - Vegas, or L.A. – S.F.? Why not? It would be a perfect alternative to air travel for the reasons mentioned by the OP. Especially for L.A. it would be a good thing to divert some of the traffic away from the airports, not least since O.C. put the kybosh on having a major airport there.
LSLGuy, I’m sure the OP realizes that rail systems are expensive to build, but that’s not really the question. The question is, why are these magnificent public works developed in Europe but not here? And so far, I think it’s mainly been because of the differences in geography, politics, and culture distinguish America vis-a-vis Western Europe. But that doesn’t mean we should refuse to think out of the box and consider creative solutions to transportation problems.
Expense is the clear issue. And there’s also population density: Amtrak does OK between major population areas, especially in the Notheast. A train to NYC from Albany round trip is cheaper than flying, puts you right in the middle of the city, and is much easier than flying. It’s about 3 hours, about the same as a drive, and, with security restrictions and transit time, less than a flight.
The problem is that they’re making money going on the regular 3-hour run, so why spend the money to cut it down to an hour and a half?
Amtrak is losing because of politics – it is required to keep servicing unpopular routes. Then they get castigated for their losses, as though politicians don’t know that all countries subsidize their railroads. At the same time, no one sees any issue with spending millions to rework highways, even if there is no particular need for them (check out I-88 in New York – I’m glad it’s there, but it was a waste of money – and the connection between I-88 and route 5).
In addition to the Northeast Corridor, the line between Santa Barbara and San Diego is popular and profitable. Even if Amtrak were abolished, there’d still be trains in these two regions.
Amtrak
The other major problem with Amtrak is it must share the line with frieght trains–at least that’s the case down here in Texas–and because the railroad companies own the right of way, they want big bucks from Amtrak to put their trains on the side track. In my opinion, trying to turn Amtrack into a really viable alternative source of public transportation would be the equivalent of trying to make silk purse out of a sows ear. Let’s scrap it and start over with a long term plan utilitzing state of the art technology.
They do own track & rights-of-way in the Northeast. Thus Accela exists in the NE.
But Amtrak in great measure exists because the private passenger railroads died in the 60s, and “something had to be done” (famous last words…) or we would end up with NO passenger rail service anywhere outside some high-density regional “corridors”. Amtrak got the tracks and ROWs of those railroads that had not yet been sold off or become freight-only. Guess what, it did happen that we lost passenger rail service across much of the USA anyway.
And yes, part of the problem is the vain politically-driven insistence that Amtrak at some point become self-sustaining AND continue serving some routes as a matter of “public utility”. These are conflicting aims. Either you have a profitmaking business, which means ditch the losing routes, or you have a Public Service which means subsidize it as required and learn to like it.
GorillaMan, part of the problem is that expropriation, though an available tool, is much, much costlier in the USA.
I’ll bet the idea of HST has become more popular after the airline fiasco this holiday week. Trains run in lousy weather, and baggage goes with you. And they’re 10 times more comfortable. Given the chance to fairly compete for the traveler’s affections, I think fast trains would do quite well.
Who doesn’t hate flying coach, huh?
[QUOTE=JMS@CCT]
Here’s a possible solution: Instead of buying new right of way, and building the line on the ground, why not let the state build it, above the ground, down the middle of an already state owned right of way, the interstate highways, then lease the right of way out to a private operator, with the state as overseers.
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I don’t know if this is accurate, as it was told to me by a teacher about 20 yrs ago:
On Long Island, NY. There was some studies done on the LIE (Interstate from the far end of the island into NYC). One study was to put a HOV lane in, the other was to put a high speed rail in the center. The studies didn’t know about each other and it was found that the high speed rail down the center would cause wind patterns that caused the cars in the ‘closer to the center median’ HOV lanes to be blown off the road.
Again it is hearsay, from a teacher, but if the roads are wet, or worse icy, I can see a trail traveling at 200 mph causing loss of control. Add to that the higher profile SUV’s and how it feels to be passed by a truck at just 20 mph over my speed, I can see a point.
[QUOTE=kanicbird]
[QUOTE=JMS@CCT]
Here’s a possible solution: Instead of buying new right of way, and building the line on the ground, why not let the state build it, above the ground, down the middle of an already state owned right of way, the interstate highways, then lease the right of way out to a private operator, with the state as overseers.
That sucker would have to be elevated at least 30 feet off the ground, but this is already being done with elevated freeways over ground level freeways, utilizing single, center column support of a contilevered roadway, so why can’t this be done with high speed rail? If that column was big enough (at least one lane of the highway would have to be knocked out). I don’t see why the road bed couldn’t be built wide enough to accomodate at least four lines.
You could run a rail line on posts along the middle of an existing freeway. And when you get to an interchange with another freeway, you’ve got to go even higher to get over that bridge. And if you’ve got a rail line running on that freeway too, then that rail line has to be bridged over the other.
A highway cloverleaf interchange has 2 layers of roadway. A modern direct-flow or “stack” interchange http://www.kurumi.com/roads/interchanges/stack.html has 4 layers of raodway. Adding 2 more layers for through trains will get pretty tall.
For ease of retrofit, you’d want to build the train bridges as the topmost layers, above the existing 4-level roadway. But … trains are very sensitive to grades; a small incline kicks their butt performance-wise. So if they’re going to end up 200’ in the air at the top of the interchange, they’re going to have to start climbing at least a mile beforehand, and two miles is better.
And a 200 MPH train is traveling about 3x faster than car traffic. That means any vertical acceleration as the train swoops and dives along the raodway will feel 3 times more severe than it does in a car. Train-sickness would be commonplace unless the train’s roadbed was a lot flatter than freeways are in much of the country.
None of that is to say it’s impossible, merely real expensive. I’d love to have the concrete concession though.
I think the days of large-scale Federal construction projects are behind us. If the interstates didn’t exist today they’d never be built. You could never overcome the environmental impact whining from the Left, nor the anti-big government boondoggle whining from the Right, nor the NIMBY whining from everyone along the proposed route.
Thinking like a Society, rather than thinking like a gang of selfish shortsighted 12-yearolds seems to have abandoned us.
Also in Southern California. In fact, on some stretches of the L.A.-San Diego run, there is just one pair of tracks for both directions; how they have six or seven daily Amtrak trains, plus the freights, I don’t understand. I suspect that, sometimes, when the train gets sidetracked on that route, it’s not for freights, but for the oncoming passenger train in the opposite direction.
At least if you like trains and like to see people using them, it’s encouraging.