High Speed Rail in America?

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I stumbled upon an op-ed the other day that gave me hope: high speed rail in the U.S. may yet become reality. The columnist, Don Young, is a Republican congressman from Alaska, the least-dense state in the union. None of those factors suggest support for rail, yet he does because he sees the economic necessity of a cross-country rail system.

I hope they do it one day. I've taken the train from DC to New York a few times, but it's top speed is only around 100mph. Elsewhere, trains are not only slower, but completely impractical.Web Page Name

A lot of the stuff they're talking about isn't really high speed rail. The supposed "high speed" rail they want to build here in Wisconsin from Milwaukee to Madison's top speed would only be like 78-100 mph. God knows why they want to build a train between Milwaukee and Madison, not like it's that hard of a drive, taking a train would certainly take long, and you'd probably spend less on gas than you would on a ONE ticket. Students at UW-Madison already have a bus line between Madison and Milwaukee. It would just be a giant unwarranted money pit that would have to be subsidized by the tax payer.

China is building thousands of miles of high speed rail to cris-cross the country.

America can't even keep the existing roads and bridges in good repair.

A generation ago America was the most advanced country in the world and Chinese were seen as ignorant peasants in pointy straw hats.

Who is laughing now?

There are a huge number of impediments:

1) High speed rail is primarily a passenger requirement. But passengers make up a tiny fraction of the use of railbed. Freight operaters will have little use for high-speed rail.

2) High speed rail requires dedicated tracks. High speed rolling stock can't use conventional track, and you can't run at high speed if your track is occupied by conventional rail traffic ahead of you.

3) New infrastructure for high speed rail is spectacularly expensive, given the size of the US. It is precisely the places where high speed would make most sense, areas of dense population (the North East, the Pacific Coast) that the land acquisition costs are the most expensive.

Highspeed rail is competitive with air travel and road only in the "sweetspot" of journeys of about 2 - 5 hours. Less than two, and road can demonstrate itself significantly more efficient. Over 5, and the speed of air travel takes over. Given this limited scope, high speed rail is only practical in a handful of regions in North America.

High speed railways would help alleviate oil dependency and introduce a more effective, affordable means of interstate transit.

I doubt that high speed rail will happen in our lifetimes. Passenger rail in the US is already pathetic as it is because of the lack of maintenance. They need to improve regular passenger rail first and get it up to speed before even thinking about high speed rail.

But with America constant worship of the car, it will never happen or they will drag their feet.

Ha! That'll be the day.

It's hard enough just trying to get a dependable bus around here. America is car guggling country and you're either damned if you do or damned if you don't in our transportation system.

There really isn't a market for a nationwide high speed rail system. It would only be feasible between a limited number of cities, like a line between San Diego and San Francisco, or a line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas for example.

They've had it in England for years, so why not have it in Canada and America?

Well, England is about the size of the state of Louisiana and a lot more densely populated. Like John_Browning said, it's only feasible between a limited amount of cities. (Madison to Milwaukee would be a place it would not work.) Nationwide is simply not going to happen, the costs would be astronomical and it wouldn't be able to support itself.

It could really only travel between major cities. Boston to Washington, San Diego to Sacramento through LA and SF, LA to Vegas, maybe New York to Chicago through Philly, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Indy.

Going across the country, we need a collapse of a oil based society.