Is America's quest for high-speed trains finally picking up steam?::New projects in California, Texas, and Florida are a sign that the United States is finally getting serious about modernizing its commuter railway system.
At least with younger folk yeah. Only people that hate trains are boomers and weirdos who think gasoline is the second manliest thing other than trump. It’s a huge project though, don’t know if I’ll ever live to see New York connected to Texas by high speed rail
Considering railroads have done over $200 billion in stock buybacks (about the cost for coast to coast high speed rail) I think it’s very possible, we just have to nationalize.
It’s very profitable to run a railroad into the ground and push as much shipping to trucks as you can.
It still blows my mind that there's only about 50 miles of "high speed" (greater than 125mph) transit in the US, and that's only in a small pocket in tbe Northeast. For reference, the EU has over 2,200 mi of high speed rail in half the physical size running at up to 186mph.
I'd love to see the US fully mapped out with true highspeed rail, but part of the problem is the amount of time off work Americans have. We're guaranteed nothing, and a pretty good portion of us have to use vacation time for sick days. A travel option that takes longer isn't going to take off here because of that. People won't spend an extra day travelling, changing trains, et cetera, when their entire vacation is a 3 day weekend so that they only have to use one vacation day in case they have to take their kid to the doctor 4 months later.
Not even close to arguing against the trains, just saying that we need to change some other shit, too. We need better labor laws that couple with things like forced caps on flights, less subsidiaries for airlines, the tracks being nationalized, priority given to Amtrak on certain lines, and better accessibility on the trains themselves.
Amtrak already has the legal right of way on pretty much all lines it operates on, that's not the issue. The issue is that the cargo companies abuse the shit outta loopholes letting them go ahead anyways by having cargo trains so long that they cannot go onto bypass tracks, forcing Amtrak trains to wait for the cargo train to fully pass before it can continue despite Amtrak having the legal right of way.
It's basically the same thing that happens with 16 wheelers vs pedestrians. A pedestrian might have the legal right of way when the crosswalk signal is going, but that doesn't matter because that 16 wheeler isn't gonna stop in time to avoid hitting them when it's going at 40MPH. Physics beats laws every time.
I'd argue that it could be used as a more cost effective transport for businesses as well as government employees that need to travel on a regular basis. If time isnt an issue, it could be pretty viable.
Aside from that, retired folks would also be a good market for this. Thats all i got tho. I absolutely agree we need some change to labor laws. We work to live, not live to work.
Turns out making a low-pressure vacuum tube that spans 100+ miles, but lets small pods full of people be inserted on demand, was way harder and more expensive than predicted, making it poorly price competitive with existing technology like high-speed rail. For some reason.
Yeah has been since 1904 when the guy that invented liquid rockets had the same idea and the same conclusion. Doesn't mean it can't work with some effort and study even if in small areas but we suck at practical small scale thinking and humans want big answers or none.
Love to see it but can't help but be disappointed bigger projects aren't planned from Chicago. I don't understand why it will take me twice as long to take the train to New Orleans than drive or why there is only a single running east per day.
We have a newish commuter rail and surface line here. My only complaints are that it doesn't go enough places, and I want it to have road priority for both the elevated lines and the smaller, surface lines. Both should get dedicated roads where all cars must wait until it passes (save for emergency vehicles, of course).
My other complaint is that our politicians don't have the balls to build an ultra high speed network from southern California to Vancouver, BC, which is what we need. We should just have big signs advertising a state owned 250+ mph train line up and down gridlocked i5 and state/provincial routes nearby. Then, it would get voter approval immediately. Preferably with QR codes attached to the signs to sign your name up on the proposal or something.
Considering all the derailments we have had this year and “big train” cutting staffing I would imagine this isn’t happening or we will have 3 MCIs a year.