U.S. High Speed Rail

[Snugies 91]

http://www.ushsr.com/

 

I would love this to happen to be able to go Vancouver to L.A. in a high speed train would be way better than planes. All developed countries have high speed rail why doesn't America yet?

 

Do you guys think we will see this in the future? or will the republicans find a way to stop it. We all know Exxon Mobil controls the Republican party. High speed rail is a threat to the oil industry will the republicans try to stop it? Unfortunately the republicans have not understood yet that the American oil industry IMPORTS oil therefor is not in the best interest of America. Unfortunately the majority of republican funding come from oil interests rockefellers, Exxon, so will national interest be put in front of corruption and greed?

 

 

 

[Wiimeiser 452]

Australia doesn't have HSR either. Are there any specific requirements for it? How about Maglev?

[Snugies 91]

Just a lot of electricity. Meaning a large amount of power usage coming from coal or natural gas power plants. So this would boost train manufacturing in the U.S. and power production. Australia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world America isn't. I'm in Calgary Canada so we wouldn't benefit but I might move. And would like to travel down the west coast or even to New York on high speed rail. I think planes kinda suck I think high speed rail may cost less for the consumers. If people argue 'why can't the private sector do this?'. I don't want to rant about that but the same interests that run the U.S. oil industry also control U.S. commercial banking and therefor control a significant amount of the private sector funding in the U.S.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

 

-remind folks of the 1948 American Oil conspiracy against the electric engine/ streetcar

[timmie 988]

America also never had a tradition of passenger heavy rail. The USA has the lowest ridership of all developed countries, I think.

I hope America can manage to build a high speed network, it is a comfortable and modern way of travel. It sure costs a lot, but other means of transport cost the government money too.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

America also never had a tradition of passenger heavy rail. The USA has the lowest ridership of all developed countries, I think.

I hope America can manage to build a high speed network, it is a comfortable and modern way of travel. It sure costs a lot, but other means of transport cost the government money too.

Nope, the patronage of interstate rail in Australia is lower than the US. State/regional based rail is much higher ever. Blame this on that we have about 5 different rail gauges in use.

[Snugies 91]

America did have a tradition of passenger heavy rail in the 1800's some settlers did walk but the west was mainly settled by passenger rail. These rail lines ran on steam engines powered by coal. Interesting new result also is Canadian National railway is now converting its engines to natural gas. The American Oil industry expanded heavily in the late 1800's from Ohio to Texas. Then everything got focused on the gasoline engine, cars then eventually planes in the 1950's. Also the 1950's marks the era when America ran out of domestic sources of oil. Also the 1950's marks the American Federal government funding of the interstate system leading to the mass suburbanization of America and therefor larger cars and a heavier dependence on gasoline usage further helping the Rockefeller fortunes. Luckily some American cities have kept transit and survived the era of suburbanization such as Chicago and San Francisco. However unfortunately certain American cities have been devastated by suburbanization such as Cleveland and Detroit. Cleveland interestingly enough historically once the center of American oil refining and the place the Rockefellers made their fortunes. Unfortunately Cleveland and Detroit were once centers of American Manufacturing in which there has recently been quite a decline therefor decreasing American exports and hurting the American economy as a whole.   

[bluemoose 223]

I am really hoping that the US gets on board the HSR train.  (Awful pun intended)

 

If Amtrak and the Gov follow through on the Northeast Corridor Upgrades, then I think we might have a chance.

Read more here: http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/453/325/Amtrak-Vision-for-the-Northeast-Corridor.pdf

The plan involves rerouting and upgrading existing right of way to allow a truly high speed network from DC to Boston, as well as an upgraded spur from Phila to Harrisburg PA.  As it stands now, Acela and Regional trains have to STOP and give way to freight trains on the Jersey stretch of the NEC.  That is completely unacceptable.  

 

Also, we have Caltrans trying to build a California network.

 

And there are pipe dreams of a Pacific NW HSR network from Vancouver to Portland.

 

But we also need more feeder networks.  Rail transit as it stands is only convenient if you live near a major urban center like NY or Phila or Boston.  And the ticket prices and times need to be more competitive.  Not only with air travel, but also with auto travel.  A train from Harrisburg to Phila one way for example costs $30-40, about the same as gasoline for a round trip in a late 90's sedan.  And auto travel would be quicker on this route as well.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Vancouver to L.A.?  Let's see about the barriers:

 

Winter

Earthquakes

Volcanoes - right down the edge of the ring of fire

Terrain in general is quite mountainous.

External power source?

 

Be a frosty day in Hades when they build that route.

 

On the other hand, HSR in the New York/Boston corridor makes considerable sense if the roadbed can be acquired and stabilized.

 

As for power, I prefer an on-board source.  We have become quite adept with small nuclear power reactors.  The extra tender shouldn't take much more space than the reactor on a nuclear submarine.  Get over it folks, you aren't going to power a thing like this with fossil fuel produced electricity.  It is time to stop being so stupid about nuclear power or we'll all freeze to death in the dark.

[AkemiAzula 280]

Nuclear powered trains. Hmm yes that may well be the future.

 

Back in Wollongong there was talk of a HSR link from Syd-Mel that might have a stop at the Gong but they said the escarpment would be too tough to get through.

 

Here in England they are planning a route from London to Birmingham but UKIP is right against it

[Snugies 91]

By the way all the track already exists so there is no barriers just needs upgrades to accommodate the speeds. The problem is Calgary as we have no large U.S. city anywhere near us we will never get high speed rail here, I just really can't envision a Calgary- Billings route. The population is way to sparse in the prairie areas to have train travel. But I do believe the large Eastern cities and West Coast could easily accommodate it. It would bring downtown L.A., Downtown Toronto etc. back to life. Good for cities, good for business. The future is in electric and natural gas engines if the U.S. doesn't get this their economy will fall further behind. Unfortunately the Canadian government is dominated by Oil interests, our prime minister is heavily funded by them and his father worked for Esso the Canadian subsidiary of Rockefeller's Exxon. So I doubt Canada would be engaged in getting this done until we get a Liberal government in power.

 

As for funding maybe the Federal Reserve could fund it? Put billions of dollars to better use than funding the for profit day-trading activities of the large commercial banks.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Speaking of Calgary, why not an HSR route between Calgary and Edmonton.  Sure would cut down some of the highway traffic.  Oil town should be easy to connect to the Capital.

[Snugies 91]

As for Alberta again our politics are dominated by the oil industry. We are actually facing cutbacks in Alberta right now, due to the massive reductions in oil taxation caused by successive right wing governments. Alberta if you can believe it is running out of money, as Big American oil companies have managed to get our politicians to reduce taxes so much on the oil companies here. So they can get there profits back to America. Therefor we couldn't afford to build it here. Plus our population is spread to thin. And I mean wouldn't you rather goto LA than Edmonton?

[Superbacon 380]

The things with real-life HSR is that it's expensive to build, and would require years of planning. Regular heavy already has tracks through and into major cities. In order to get HSR through and into major cities, it would require a lot of careful planning and development, and destruction of private property. Another thing is that the tracks need to have their own dedicated line. Can't merge with other lines. 

 

One of the things they could do, is build elevated HSR lines running through the countryside, and build them underground in the cities. Or they could rip up some of the other heavy rail lines and build the HSR tracks on that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

However you look at it, an American HSR line would put a lot of people to work.  It is, therefore, a good thing.  When did congress or the government ever opt for a good thing before it became too late or turned into a bad thing?

 

An overhead high speed monorail is rather a good idea provided it can also dive underground as needed.

[Jazzmaster 716]

America also never had a tradition of passenger heavy rail. The USA has the lowest ridership of all developed countries, I think.

I hope America can manage to build a high speed network, it is a comfortable and modern way of travel. It sure costs a lot, but other means of transport cost the government money too.

That isn't true, really.  It wasn't until the commercial airliner and interstate highways that passenger rail in the states took a serious hit.

 

Anyways, High Speed Rail only makes sense up to a point, but a high speed train from New York to LA will never outrace a plane.  For certain distances and areas trains make sense, and depending on the city you visit (especially Chicago or major cities along the Northeast Corridor) you'll find a thorough passenger heavy rail system.  It's just that they're used largely for daily commutes and day trips, not really long distance.

[Snugies 91]

the other problem with high speed rail in America is the lack of decent public transit in American cities. Why take a high speed train to Detroit for example? what does downtown Detroit have to offer? bad public transit and brutal gun crime. Ya it would be tough to get Americans to take high speed rail. HSR in America has deeper problems than just funding and track its the state of American downtowns is another serious problem with it. Now interest rates are going up again and maybe New York will go super ghetto again too just like in 1980.   

[FreewayofFlight 41]

I would prefer taking a train over an airplane, since airlines are trying to squeeze more seats into those sardine cans. A round trip train ride from Charlotte, NC to Washington, DC would be $306, but a plane ticket would be over twice that ($779.) Both take the same amount of time to complete the journey.

[Snugies 91]

Agree exactly trains are way more comfortable and cheaper plus you get to see the cities and the countryside.

[FreewayofFlight 41]

And I don't have faith in the TSA at the airports anymore

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Couldn't agree more.  Airline travel is now an ordeal as well as expensive.  I prefer surface transport by train or ferry.  It may be slower, but there is no question about comfort.

[FreewayofFlight 41]

I think the only way I'd get on a plane anymore would be a transcontinental or transoceanic flight.

[Meg 368]

There is the Acela Express in the northeastern United States.   Before they started running it, they closed or redesigned all intersections of roads and train tracks along the route.   Which can create bottlenecks in traffic on the roads that have bridges over the tracks.

[TekindusT 3,809]

I remember we had a similar thread here and I see the premises hadn't changed in 3 years... Neverhteless, I keep defending the opinion I defended back then.

The supremacy of HSR over air routes is only demonstrated on mid-distance routes, not further than 400-600 km apart. From 600 kilometers in advance, the combination of time commuting to/from the airport + time at the airport + flying time is shorter than the HSR travel time.

If the US wants to jump on the real HSR bandwagon, it has to be done wisely. It would be pointless and REALLY expensive to build a NYC-LA HSR route, but the worst thing is that it would never be profitable, given that planes would keep being faster than trains for that distance. Even though there are no stops in the middle.

The correct approach, as far as I see it, is focusing on that mid-distance routes. LA-SF, deal. Boston-NYC-Philadelphia-DC, deal. Florida-Orlando-Tampa, deal. Houston-Dallas/Ft. worth, deal. These are profitable routes, running between big, populated and relatively close cities, where the HSR can compete and be profitable against air transport.

You know, you only have to play a bit Railroad Tycoon to realize of this fact.

[timmie 988]

Here in England they are planning a route from London to Birmingham but UKIP is right against it

The situation in the UK is different of course, since it is a much more compact country than the USA. Plus your average train service is already very fast. Many lines can already handle trains that run 200kph! You actually already have a high speed network, hence the opposition. Plus the costs are very high (I've compared the costs per km with the existing high speed lines in Belgium, the difference in cost was really huge).

 

There is the Acela Express in the northeastern United States.   Before they started running it, they closed or redesigned all intersections of roads and train tracks along the route.   Which can create bottlenecks in traffic on the roads that have bridges over the tracks.

But even the Acela Express is not really a full high speed service. The service could be a lot faster. It's really more of a super intercity than a high speed train. Still, it's better than nothing.

 

 

The correct approach, as far as I see it, is focusing on that mid-distance routes. LA-SF, deal. Boston-NYC-Philadelphia-DC, deal. Florida-Orlando-Tampa, deal. Houston-Dallas/Ft. worth, deal. These are profitable routes, running between big, populated and relatively close cities, where the HSR can compete and be profitable against air transport.

 

As far as I can judge, this is exactly what some are proposing for the USA. It wouldn't make sense to connect the two costs by HSR, the cost would be too high and it would be completely uncompetitive. But I would go further than 400-600 km. Even if slower on the longer sections, there are still people who prefer the comfort of a high speed train. So I'd rather say 800-1000 km. (I would rather take the high speed train from Brussels to Avignon than go by car or plane, and I would prefer the train to Berlin over the plane, even if it takes 7 hours to get to Berlin.)

[Snugies 91]

I believe it was 1869 when the U.S. was connected by the transcontinental railway. Profitable or not can't the government pay for it? The U.S. did the panama canal, hoover dam. I really think they have resources for high speed rail.

[Duke87 1,070]

By the way all the track already exists so there is no barriers just needs upgrades to accommodate the speeds.

 

Just because track already exists does not mean it can be "upgraded" to HSR usage. The design constraints on grades and curve radii (horizontal and vertical) imposed by a train traveling 200 mph are a lot stricter than those imposed by a train traveling 70 mph. (for example, note the table here. Truly high speed trains require curves with radii 4-8 times that of conventional trains). You can't do that just by modifying an existing right of way. You have to plot out a new one. In areas that are already built up, this is very difficult: in fact, this is part of the problem the US has with building HSR compared to Europe. Our cities have a lot more suburban sprawl than theirs do, so you have to go further from the city center before you reach an area with freer reign to build a new ROW.

 

As for funding maybe the Federal Reserve could fund it? Put billions of dollars to better use than funding the for profit day-trading activities of the large commercial banks.

 

Printing money does not count as funding. Deficit spending is slowly destroying our financial solvency as a nation and we need less of it, not more. This means raising taxes if you want to embark on another big infrastructure project. Also, our existing infrastructure needs fixing first!

 

There is the Acela Express in the northeastern United States.   Before they started running it, they closed or redesigned all intersections of roads and train tracks along the route.   Which can create bottlenecks in traffic on the roads that have bridges over the tracks.

 

The Acela "Express" is a joke as far as HSR goes. It takes 5 hours and 37 minutes to go from Boston to DC, which is an average speed of about 80 mph. Yawn. Now, granted, regular Amtrak takes 8 hours and 57 minutes to make the same trip (average speed = 50 mph), but as far as I'm concerned that's just a huge argument in favor of driving. It's faster than the regular train and cheaper than the Acela.

 

 

One other note: if HSR is ever going to get going in the US, the FRA first has to get its head out of its ass with regards to safety regulations. Rather than rant myself about this, have a link.

[timmie 988]

 

Amtrak decided to buy an existing design from a European or Japanese manufacturer

 

Ahaha, this makes me think of the recent Fyra-fiasco in Belgium and the Netherlands. Our national railways wanted to buy a train, but their demands resulted in only one competitor surviving the bidding process. This company was AnsaldoBreda, who was going to build a completely new train. To cut a very long story short: the trains are complete rubbish and after half a month in service they were pulled from rail traffic and recently it was decided it was definitely forbidden to let these trains run on the network. They are so unsafe that people wonder how this train was ever allowed to run (every train is built in a different way, cables are unsafe, batteries explode, the bottom of the train gets damaged very easily, parts just come off the train,...).

 

If only they would've decided to buy an existing train...

[Snugies 91]

I understand the track need big upgrades but at least a lot of the tunnels and bridges have already been built and the shortest path laid out. I am sure there are existing transportation corridors used by rail in the U.S. that can be bought from the already existing railway companies.  

[TekindusT 3,809]

HSR needs some different features that regular railroads don't meet, specially regarding curves radii and camber, and the maximum track steepness. Think of it like playing SC4 with a very rigid slope mod. A whole new infrastructure has to be designed, otherwise, the problems mentioned by Duke87 about the Acela trains arise.

[hym 358]

Do you guys think we will see this in the future? or will the republicans find a way to stop it. We all know Exxon Mobil controls the Republican party. High speed rail is a threat to the oil industry will the republicans try to stop it?

 

This particular portion of energy politics doesn't really relate to the issue of HSR, but it is helpful to understand where I am coming from, so I'm going to discuss it.

 

Many people look at ExxonMobil (particularly the roughly $40 billion per year profits) and see an industry run amok.  The part that doesn't get mentioned so much is the sheer size of ExxonMobil.  When you have a company that requires roughly $400 billion a year to run, it is inevitable that you are going to make more than a few billion a year in profits (and if you think about it, ExxonMobil is only averaging about a 10% profit margin, which most individuals consider to be a totally reasonable margin).  If you look at the company from a relatively objective, non-emotional viewpoint, what you have is a company that has achieved its position by supplying a highly demanded product, doing it better than its competitors, and making smart business moves.  (And if you want to talk about the obnoxious size of ExxonMobil, take a look at some of the state oil companies in other countries.  Many of them make ExxonMobil look like a small company.)

 

Ironically, while people understand that the oil and gas industry is a large, powerful, industry that is largely only concerned with itself, they assume that it is intensely interested in efforts to dethrone it from its position of prominence.  For the most part, it isn't worried what its detractors are doing or thinking, as they are little more than a minor annoyance in the greater scheme of the industry's concerns.  A reporter once asked a Royal Dutch Shell executive whether he was worried about oil losing its importance.  The executive summed by the industry's opinion on the question by laying a cell phone down on the table and saying," This is an iPhone.  A drop of gasoline contains enough energy to completely charge this phone every day for the next two years.  When you find an energy source that can do that, with all the desirable properties that gasoline has, we can seriously discuss whether I am worried about the future of oil."

 

To tie this back to the original issue, the oil and gas industry isn't really worried about this stuff.  The industry is far more worried about things that impact it much more directly, such as regulations on fracking, the Canadian oil sands, shrinking US gasoline demand, new fuel blending regulations, access to cheap feedstocks, the predicted collapse of the European refining industry, etc.  A new HSR line that is likely dead in the water from the beginning is not exactly something the industry is worried about.

 

 Unfortunately the republicans have not understood yet that the American oil industry IMPORTS oil therefor is not in the best interest of America.

 

The situation is much more complicated than this.  America is simultaneously an importer and exporter.  The US imports oil to satisfy its demand for petroleum products.  It also exports oil to satisfy other nations' demands for petroleum products.  If this isn't confusing enough, the US also imports oil so that it can export the refined products to other countries.  More importantly, while the US is a net importer, this is expected to change soon.  Fracking changed the world energy map and suddenly made America one of the most important fossil fuel sources of the future.  The International Energy Agency expects the US to become a net petroleum exporter by 2020 and the most important petroleum exporter in the world.  Arguing that HSR is in America's best interest because it promotes energy independence is really a non-argument.  In overly simplistic terms, energy dependency is soon to become a concern of the past for the US, and in more realistic assessments, it still doesn't matter.  (People place more value on energy independence than is really there.  Not saying that there isn't value there, but arguing that "it reduces our dependence on foreign oil" as a basis for doing anything is effectively worthless.)