“We were somewhere outside Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the train began to levitate …”
Of course not. You just get on the train. It works. Nobody hijacks trains.
Exactly. Sure, they’re a potential target for bombings, especially those passing through long tunnels (the Channel Tunnel or those through the Alps). But American subway systems are equally vulnerable.
Bang for buck, which is better, investment in improvements of public transportation systems (including but not limited to rail systems) in established high density urban to “exurb” regions, or building a high speed rail to connect far flung cities that competes only with (canibalizes from?) a struggling airline industry?
In the US (Pittsburgh) to get on Amtrak you are not even allowed onto the platform until the train arrives and then you have to show your ticket to board. This system would have Europe shut down in 10 minutes.
Here in Europe, there are hundreds of trains leaving a big station every day. You buy a ticket, go wait on the platform and board. After you are underway tickets will be checked.
Why in the US can’t you wait on the platform? Are Americans too stupid to avoid walking onto the tracks and getting run over?
Ya beat me to it!
In a word…yes.
I don’t remember a referendum about high speed rail in Texas. When did this occur?
There was a plan to set up a route connecting Houston, Dallas & San Antonio–using private funds. No referendum was needed. Lobbying by Southwest Airlines did a lot to scuttle it.
Of course, “regular” rail travel could be much quicker if the tracks were in decent shape. Back during The War, my mother used to get on the train in Houston on Friday afternoon & arrive in Dallas in time to go out dancing.
Unless the airline industry totally tanks, I can’t see high-speed coast-to-coast trains ever happening. But they’d be a godsend for shorter routes. IMO the optimum route length would be somwhere around 400 miles; the distance at which many if not most people begin to decide they would rather not drive.
Certainly between L.A. and San Francisco would be good, and also between L.A. and Las Vegas. Gone are the days when you could decide on the spur of the moment to fly to San Francisco from L.A., and actually be in San Francisco within two or three hours of making that decision. Today, good rail service along that route is non-existent, and our only options are to travel either by road or air, the former a wearying six-hour schlepp, and the latter’s usefulness reduced to about zero due to the fact that you may have to spend 2 hours in the security line before you ever get on the plane.
I once took a girl from Ontario to SF for dinner. We flew out at 4:30pm or so, took a cab to the restaurant, ate, cabbed back to the airport and caught an 11:30pm flight home. Cost me less than $200 total. Those were the days. (late 70s, to be precise).
If you get the Eurostar through the channel tunnel, there is full airport-style security with metal detectors, x-ray machines etc. Takes about 5 min or less, same as at London City or other tiny airports. I forgot this the second time I took the Eurostar, when I showed up at 7am with a raging hangover and a leatherman in my pocket. :smack:
Fortunately the nice man let me pay £12 to send it registered post to the Gare Du Nord rather than confiscating it. Phew.
Very well said. Just building a high-speed rail line isn’t much good without all the other pieces to make it convenient and practical.
I had the chance to work for three months in Germany a couple years ago, and did a lot of traveling on weekends, almost all of it by train. The high-speed lines run between the major cities; but unless you live within walking distance of the Frankfurt train station, you’ll need to transfer to a regional or local train, and then probably to a subway or tram in your hometown. Coming back from Paris, I could have taken the Metro to Gare du Nord but I was running late. (My taxi got to the station one minute before my train was going to leave, and I still caught it; try that at the airport.) Thalys (international TGV) to Brussels, ICE to Frankfurt (we left Brussels late, the engineer kept the train at 296kph all the way; that was an e-ticket ride), ICE to Nuremburg (but that line didn’t have the 300kph tracks yet), and the number 9 tram to the Hotel Euro on Pirkheimerstrasse.
You can travel far and wide without a car, and at least as quickly. I met some interesting people, and saw the towns and countryside that we passed through. The stations have enough foot traffic that there are shops and cafes to pass the time. The trains are electric so some of the stations have enclosed platforms and there are no fumes or soot. It’s amazing how well it works, but if people think all we have to do is buy a couple TGVs and clear the other traffic from the Boston-Washington corridor, it’s not that simple.
Upon review, looks like I was misremembering. My apologies.
You’re describing the Shinkansen of the 1960s. The current area serviced is significantly larger.
Bumped.
Here’s a new proposal for Washington to NYC: http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/03/news/economy/high-speed-rail/index.html?cid=ob_articlesidebarall&iid=obnetwork
The best reason “why not” is that HSR is a misplaced priority. Expanding our conventional rail, interurban rail and light rail networks is much more important, and much more likely to take some cars and trucks off the roads.
I’m not going to get on a fast train that is maintained by the lowest bidder. France and Japan maintain their 200 mph trains as if f=ma. The US would sequester the money to maintain the train.
Bumped.
A Japanese maglev train just set a new record: L0 Series - Wikipedia
Congrats to them. But high speed rail works well in Japan because you have areas with extremely high population density separated by rural areas that are sparsely populated, which solves the NIMBYism and economic problems that make HSR unsuitable for the United States.
But, in the United States, we have areas with extremely high population density separated by rural areas that are sparsely populated. And much vaster and less-populated rural areas than Japan has. As for NIMBYism, the Interstate Highways cut through densely populated areas as well as suburbs and exurbs and the countryside – if we can tolerate those next door, we can tolerate anything. HSR is quiet and innocuous by comparison.