Why can't America have high-speed trains?

[KamaAina]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/03/opinions/smart-high-speed-trains-america/index.html

Imagine being able to travel from New York to Los Angeles without having to step on a plane, yet be able to do so in a fraction of the time it would take to drive. On the surface, that tantalizing prospect took a step closer with the news last month that a Japanese maglev train had reached a top speed of close to 400 mph, breaking its own world record in the process.

And the sight of futuristic looking trains whizzing past platforms at hundreds of miles per hour isn't confined to Japan: China, France and Spain, to name a few, have their own high-speed rail networks. Indeed, while these bullet trains may look futuristic, they have been around for decades; they're a tried and tested technology that the Japanese debuted over 50 years ago.

So surely it's only a matter of time before large numbers of U.S. passengers are doing a daily commute to New York from Washington and Boston in about the time it would take them to drive to work in their own cities, right?...

While several countries have undertaken the tough work of raising the money to invest in bullet trains, it's unlikely the United States will ever see the vast network of high-speed trains that blanket other countries. Indeed, passenger rail service in the United States lags behind much of the rest of the developed world, for several reasons.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. I think it would be great, but I'm not sure they would move the ball very far in terms of numbers.

I like trains, but if you crunch it down, given the demographics of both the size of the US and where the traveling public is concentrated, high speed trains would likely not be able to alter the transportation landscape significantly.

To put it another way. Lets say you have one high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. How many people do you put on the train? How many trains do you run a day?

Compare that to the land disruption that is put into effect and the significant cost of putting together the rail system itself, and the numbers don't necessarily make sense.

I think the difference with, say, Europe and Japan, you have a much higher population density compared to the available land space, taken en total. China, OTOH, doesn't have a developed transportation infrastructure at all so they're in effect starting from scratch.

Now, the East Coast, I think it might make sense due to a more European-style population distribution versus distance.

But, again, let me reiterate I'm all for it, but I think it needs to make sense from a numbers perspective or it will never happen here.

[-none]

7. The Eastern seaboard is plenty crowded enough for a high speed rail system.

The people density rivals anywhere in Europe or Japan.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. Yeah, i kind of said the same thing.

Nationwide, though, i think you hit a point of diminishing returns, like out west.

[-none]

15. You're saying 1 person per 10 squire miles might not be enough?

Anyway, high speed rail from/to Minneapolis and Kansas City, and points south, with Minneapolis and Chicago tied together would work. Tie the big cities together.
The airlines would have a problem with it though.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. And how many trains per day per direction would they be able to run on the tracks?

How many people per train?

I'm not disputing it, I'm just wondering. Frankly, any alternative to flying would be welcome to me. I'd like to see Elon Musk's hyperloop built, too.

[spinbaby]

35. They can run more often than you think

In Japan, trains arrive every few minutes during busy times. And always on time.

[bluesbassman]

2. As long as the MIC beast continues to be fed we'll never have nice things.

[hifiguy]

3. NYC to LA is pretty impractical

but there is no excuse for not having high-speed rail connecting the West Coast from Seattle to San Diego, a midwest system from Minneapolis to, say, Pittsburgh, with a central Chicago hub being fed from throughout a multi-state area, and an extensive system from New England to the Mid-Atlantic and maybe as far as Atlanta.

It Texas wants it, let them build their own.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

30. Vancouver BC to Eugene OR seems more likely

Another would be San Diego to San Francisco. With longer routes people would be more inclined to fly.

[Dwayne Hicks]

4. Because

Europe has high speed trains therefore we cannot or we are like them evil "socialists". Honestly that is one of their reasons.

[SummerSnow]

6. Exactly. Money used for high speed trains can be best used for weapons of mass destruction.

This is what they want

[DrDan]

5. took the fast train last month from Barcelona to Madrid . . . then to Sevilla

300 kph - quiet, smooth, great service, right on time

A very pleasurable few hours. No complex boarding or disembarking.

[hifiguy]

10. When I visited France in 2003

I took the TGV from Paris to Lyon.

Grab your bag, walk to the TGV station inside the de Gaulle airport, and get on the train. Sit in a huge, first class seat drinking fine French coffee and watch the cows and vineyards whistle by at 300+ kmh in glorious comfort for three hours or so. Grab our bag and walk out to the streets of Lyon. Perfect.

If a more civilized form of land-bound travel has ever existed, I know not what it is.

[tk2kewl]

8. because we suck

[Cirque du So-What]

9. Fits the repug pattern of wanting to leave everything up to the private sector

and that's reason enough for government involvement. Corporations won't do diddly unless they see big profits starting in the short term. Highways aren't profitable; they cost billions to build & maintain, yet they contribute to this nation's wealth. Austerity pinheads will continue holding this country back on high-speed rail and a host of other issues.

[Vinca]

12. We can't have nice things because rich people need tax breaks.

[LuvNewcastle]

14. How can we get a project like that

off the ground when the government won't even allocate money to fix our already existing infrastructure? They only vote for projects that hand out fat contracts to wealthy contractors and investors. Public money can't be spent directly on the project itself; the money must be funneled through middle men so they can get their cut of the tax money. The GOP (and some Democrats) won't vote for infrastructure improvements unless their donors can make a fat profit off of it.

[HereSince1628]

16. Because our normal speed passenger engines are burning?

At noon today...

http://www.wisn.com/news/amtrak-locomotive-catches-fire-in-third-ward/33023476

Fire crews from Milwaukee and West Allis are pouring water on the locomotive near Barclay and Walker

Milwaukee fire crews were called to the scene around 12:06 p.m. The Hiawatha Line train was arriving in Milwaukee from Chicago

http://www.wisn.com/news/newschopper-12-flies-over-burned-out-amtrak-locomotive/33024536

[Daniel537]

18. Allocating money towards an actual public service and good?

Perish the thought you leftie loon. We got a military beast to feed.

[SheilaT]

19. Lots of reasons.

In no particular order:

People who make these decisions NEVER take public transportation. So they have no idea how important it can be.

Our existing infrastructure is old and out of date.

In this country public transportation is often expected to pay for itself. It can't.

Most people have no clue how much public money is spent on roads. That's invisible.

[Xithras]

20. $277.5 billion dollars.

That's what it would cost to run a 300MPH maglev from New York to Los Angeles. No spurs to other cities are included with that...it would just allow New Yorkers and Angelenos to visit each other. Can't even afford to route it through Chigago at that price. Those numbers are based on the $100 million dollars PER MILE that the maglev system costs to build in Japan. The Japanese, of course, only have to go a few hundred miles with their system. We have to go 2700+ just to connect our two biggest cities.

You want to include the top 10 biggest cities? You're talking about a trillion dollar project, and that still doesn't get you cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Boston, or Atlanta. In fact, that doesn't even get you Washington D.C.

America is a big place, and Maglev is REALLY FREAKING EXPENSIVE.

Which brings up a good question. Which is more beneficial for America...a trillion dollar maglev system that benefits tourists and business travelers, but still skips scores of major cities and offers little benefit to those it passes by, or a trillion federal dollars sunk into local and regional rail that gets millions of commuter cars off the road around the country?

IMHO, we should focus on regional transportation first, and then link those regional systems via HSR when they're working. That's the way every other nation with an HSR system did it. Building HSR without regional interconnects is pointless, because across vast stretches of the country people would still have to DRIVE hundreds of miles just to get to or from the train station.

[KittyWampus]

26. So we'd have to choose infrastructure and transport over military industry.

ah well, we know which wins.

[drray23]

28. its a matter of priorities.

that amount of money is 6 months of pentagon funding...

[elleng]

33. Thanks. Good to see the real numbers and facts.

[1939]

21. We do have a world class freight system.

The Santa Fe Railroad ran world class passenger trains right up to the advent of AMTRAK. One of the executives said in the 1960s,

" I f every passenger that showed up each day in Chicago to buy a ticket to Los Angeles was just GIVEN an airline ticket CHI-LAX and we didn't have to run the train we would lose less money."

[KamaAina]

23. Where is CHI?

O'Hare is ORD and Midway is MDW.

[elleng]

32. And the freight carriers, Santa Fe and others at the time,

begged the govt to get them OUT of the passenger business; hence, Amtrak.

[1939]

34. The railroads tried

At the end of WWII, most railroads were in pretty good shape financially. They expected the wartime passenger boom to continue. They made massive investments in new streamlined passenger equipment. Unfortunately, WWII also promoted the building of airfields all over the US. Business travelers (the railroads bread and butter) deserted in droves to the airlines. All o9f those 10 roomette-6 bedroom cars were designed for single business travelers. Railroads began discontinuing their marginal and branch line trains after 1947. In 1963, there was still a substantial passenger network. The government then pulled the RPO (railway post office) cars off the trains. This was the final nail in the coffin. Railroads petitioned the ICC to discontinue more and more passenger trains. By 1971, when AMTRAK was formed, the existing passenger service (I will no longer call it a network) was a pale shadow of its former self. AMTRAK has since created new routes and eliminated more.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Because We Can't Have Nice Things

Look what we did to the Middle East.

[MicaelS]

24. Where are you going to get the track from?

Amtrak runs over tracks owned by private RR companies.

I worked as a Freight Brakeman / Conductor for 17 years. The RRs back then did NOT want passenger trains on their tracks. AFAIK, they still don't. The only reason they tolerate Amtrak is because the US Government gives them so much money to allow trackage rights. Frankly, we freight crews hated Amtrak back then. Because oft times we had to wait for Amtrak, and that delayed us getting over the road, and either getting home, or getting to the terminal at the other end of the road, and getting our rest. The one who really hated Amtrak were Maintenance of Way people who could only come out, work for a few hours, then stop, and clear Amtrak one direction, then repeat the process for Amtrak the other direction.

In the US we have High-Speed passenger rail traffic in the only place the population density is high enough, which is the Northeast Corridor with multiple main lines.

If we want widespread High-Speed passenger rail in this country, then we will have to spend the money to build dedicated High-Speed passenger only rails lines and all that entails. That means no rail crossing at grade. No chances of any car / truck and train ever colliding. Ever. Bridges / overpasses everywhere train and surface roads meet. How much will that cost to build per mile? I have seen estimates from $20 million a mile to $2 billion a mile. And that is just the track, no rolling stock.

The legal bullshit would be monumental. Everyone would have both hands out thinking they won the Lottery because the government was going to buy their land for rails lines. Politicians would fight tooth and nail to have the train come thought their city or town. There would be the NIMBYs who would try to stop they whole thing because of the noise, or it ruined their quality of life or their view, or some other excuse, just like they do with wind energy. Then the environmentalists would get into the act claiming animals would be driven to extinction or the local ecology would be irreparably damaged, or some other excuse.

We can't even build wind turbines to help us become energy self sufficient without someone whining and crying about THEIR view being spoiled, or birds being slaughtered, or the desert ecology being destroyed, or someone suffering from some nervous complaints because of noise and vibration from wind turbines, or some other excuse, and you think we're going to get widespread High Speed Passenger rail in this country?

Personally, I would love to see it, but I doubt it will ever happen.

[KamaAina]

25. Acela Express is hardly "high-speed" by world standards.

And California is planning to build its own tracks for its planned high-speed system.

[MicaelS]

27. True Acela is not by world standards..

And other than California, where are you going to get the track from? How much are you willing to pay for each mile of high speed rail?

[elleng]

31. Thanks for this personal, up-close reponse,

with which I agree 100%.

[elleng]

29. This country's too big.

France, Spain and Japan are MUCH smaller, and China's less populated between major cities. AND there's too little interest in such travel in the US. Who HERE, thinking/needing to travel to/from CA and NY, would actually CHOOSE to take a train, regularly, even if it were available?

Any IDEA the time and expense involved in constructing such, coast to coast?

Let's be real, think of appropriate corridors here where it SHOULD and COULD be done, and see how much actual interest, passenger-wise and business-wise, there is.

And Congress! Positive Train Control??? https://www.fra.dot.gov/Page/P0152

[Skidmore]

36. America won't have decent infrastructure until

every living bit of it has been privatized so that some over-inflated billionaire ego can aspire to the next level of self-importance through raking in profits off of it. Profits and subsidies.

[B Calm]

37. Because Americans are lazy

and vote republican.