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’s not profitable, it just lowers the operating ratio, which is what railroads (quite stupidly) judge their productivity on.
Operating ratio =/= more money despite what they think.
Only people that hate trains are boomers and weirdos who think gasoline is the second manliest thing other than trump.
Mass transit has also burned quite a few people with reliability. The train not showing up on time was regular enough I had to stop using it to go to work. There is only so many times you can be late to work before it becomes your fault for not fixing the issue; in my case, by no longer taking the train and driving instead.
That’s not an argument against trains, it’s an argument for running them well.
How does the quote go?
“At least the trains ran on time”?
I don’t think being a Nazi is strictly a requirement for having good train service. We should aim for non-Nazi good trains.
That quote was as often a quote of Weimar Germany, which the Nazis succeeded.
Nazi Germany tended to appoint all kinds of idiots to everything and all the most competent people had all their time wasted in “loyalty parties”. Eventually even the trains stopped running on time by the end.
For long distance trains, check out the fact that the rules give mega-long cargo trains priority over passenger trains on Amtrak. This results in negative impacts to present rail.
The metro in DC is a perfect example lol
People still used the hell out of it up until the pandemic, despite having a terrible two track design, despite having delayed maintenance for essentially 30 years, and despite having three jurisdictions arguing over how to fund what is truthfully only a commuter rail, not a proper full system.
I’d love to see more investment in Metro, but there needs to be a seismic shift in how we think about it, because commuting is only going to continue to decline in the long term, even if it will bounce a bit in the short term. I’m hoping DC can find a way to incentivize development around metro stops to make metro better for locals rather than M-Fers that the Post keeps insisting are responsible for subsidizing the city through lunches and happy hours. That includes repurposing half empty office buildings, and maybe looking at relaxing the height restriction as you get further out of the city center.
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The problem is that Amtrak doesn’t own most or even any of those rails, instead having to pay for the right to use them. The reason why this is a problem is that it’s hard to upgrade rails to high speed when you don’t own them. Amtrak trains also often have to stop and give passage to freight trains, which is unlike what you’d see in Japan where passenger trains are on their own, dedicated rails.
Flying is such a miserable experience from start to finish that I would opt for rail every time if it was viable, even if it took 3-4 times as long.
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The problem today is that it’s an order of magnitude longer. Chicago to LA by airplane is 4 hours. Chicago to LA via Amtrak is about 56 hours. I don’t know that high speed rail is going to fix that problem, sure it might get it down some, but even a 24 hour train is six times longer than flying.
I say this as someone that takes Amtrak at every opportunity because I enjoy trains and want to see them become viable for more people.
You’re looking at it from a coast to coast perspective when it should really be an intra-state one.
People aren’t regularly traveling from Chicago to La on a daily basis, even by plane. They are traveling within the same state or to nearby states instead.
Dallas-Houston, SF-LA, Miami-Orlando are all distances that people have to drive/fly to on a daily basis that could easily be replaced by hsr.
I don’t disagree, regional high speed is where it’s gotta start.
Even in Japan (basically the gold standard for public transportation) you are changing trains pretty regularly, have a LOT of stops along the way, and may need to do the last leg on a bus route that only runs twice a day.
In Europe it considered the worst PT. Bus once a day on a tiny island? Sounds insane. Japan still base their PT operation on schedules instead of intervals.
have a LOT of stops along the way, and may need to do the last leg on a bus route that only runs twice a day.
No… Even regular intercity train Moscow-Belgorod train makes about 5 stops in regional centers. High-speed like Sapsan(or a lot of similar trains) that stops only on last stop 650 km apart.
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.
Due to the large physical size of the US, aircraft have out competed rail. Cities just are not nearly as close in the US.
Reliability is absolutely an issue that turns lots of people off - Just yesterday I had to switch to a different line in chicago bc of a delay. But to say that the “large physical size of the US” has allowed aircraft to out compete rail is disingenuous. It is so because it ignores the reality of strong city pairings for rail corridors and such line of thinking doesn’t often take into account the boarding process’ impact on total journey time. A 45 minute flight is going to require you to get there an hour early for security processing and boarding. You don’t just show up 5 minutes before the plane takes off, yet that reality is true for the choo. Even then you still need to offboard, stop by baggage to get your goods and really hope they didn’t lose them and have them unpacked in a few minutes. These bottlenecks just do not exist for rail. You get on in the city and get off right in the city. 10 minute taxi to your hotel and bob’s your uncle. You simply cannot say the same for any metropolitan airport (Except metro ports that have a dedicated line from the airport to the city center). It won’t be viable everywhere but that’s not the point. The point is to remove the systemic barriers that prevent market competition where it can thrive (precision rail scheduling in many areas has made it physically impossible for freight to yield to passengers) and to provide reliable, predictable transportation not to the whims of traffic or those who can afford to purchase a vehicle.
Good transit utilizes the best modes for the best routes and this is why high speed rail is really starting in cali and the texas triangle - It’s always gonna be faster for rail between two urban areas right next to each other than it is to fly, despite the fact that flying is far more common between such city pairs when people want to avoid driving or need to be there in the city center fast.
I’m far from an expert but I know for fact the United States has many cities that could be covered by HSR that are closer or the same distance as Tokyo -> Kyoto (one of the first HSRs); Keep in mind the shinkansen route is separate from the commuter route and only has a couple of stops. It’s not like they reused significant portions of commuter rail, they built a new link.
I’ll leave some reading here for more info because there’s a lot of worthwhile knowledge to try and understand in projects like these:
CityNerd - Urban planner guy who knows a thing or two about transit
City Pairings for HSR by 2050 - More about city pairings, which is specifically worth focusing on for HSR bc that’s how lines get started
America was quite literally built on the railroads. We take for granted the interstate highway system and don’t realize its exorbitant cost, but if we had given rail even half the attention we gave the interstate since its inception rail would certainly be competitive. The interstate is national, so why not the rails too? It’s not like CSX actually has to compete with BNSF - they don’t serve the same area and are inherently monopolies. A business in Montana wanting to use rail for freight has to use BNSF because they’re the only freight rail operating and owning lines there. For Denver you’re stuck with UP for the same reasons. Most areas are lucky to have a duopoly, and anywhere there is competition is area that has several rail lines merging together, which also makes it perfect for transit.
Per Amtrak (Pg 2, 2021 Report Card) freight rail caused 900,000 minutes of passenger delay across all lines, and in 2023 (Through April, Host Railroad report pg 4) the major freight carriers were responsible for 67.8% of total delays, despite freight being legally obligated to yield to passenger trains most major operators generally ignore that law (Pg 2, Amtrak 2021 report).
So what’s the point? Trucking companies don’t get to clog the interstate and force passenger cars to yield so deliveries are faster. Passenger planes don’t yield to FedEx/UPS/Amazon and circle above landing strips so freight planes get to land first. As a society we don’t generally desire to systematically degrade the quality of transit, but we do so for rails because we’re conditioned to believe that they are outmoded and just don’t work for passengers. If that was true, no where in the world would they be used. Europe and Asia do in fact have more, higher density population centers but this fact does not preclude the capability of passenger rail in America, and we shouldn’t believe in this logical fallacy that rail is outcompeted or out moded because of density. China is an interesting example, in that they too have a massive geography that is nearly as varied as America, and not every single city is inherently massive and super dense. Of course being a command economy makes it easy to do infrastructure projects but the viability of those projects doesn’t change just because a different government is involved. While we were buying into the hype of hyperloop and slowing down California’s HSR project, they built a solid 1000km+ of HSR where there originally was not.
We can do it, in many places HSR is very competitive, and it is economically viable. There does in fact exist a sweet spot of transit, long neglected in the market, where driving is just a bit too cumbersome, but taking a plane isn’t any faster.
Of course, I’m just a radical who hates driving and loves trains because of the freedom to goon around with my friends in the city and bar hop without having to DUI or spend $45 on an uber.
The US is really only bigger than Europe if you count Alaska. I doubt there would be high-speed rail to Alaska anytime soon.
The majority of Europe can fit into just the central area of the US. Aircraft scale better with distance and is the core reason aircraft have succeeded so well in the US despite the push for more trains for decades. It’s also why you do see some trains being built in CA, FL, and the NE, as the cities there are closer together, making the idea viable.
You do know that the Nordic countries are part of Europe, right? They stretch way up north past the edge of the image. They also happen to have some of the most advanced rail systems in the world.
most advanced rail systems in the world
As a Scandinavian: LOL
Sure, it may not be perfect, but it tells you a lot about the state of rail in the rest of the world. It’s really only places like Japan and maybe China that leads the way.
Most of Europe and large parts of Asia has good railways compared to USA. It’s not that the developed world has good railway systems, it’s just that USA has a completely broken public transport system. But planes and trucks go brrr
France and Switzerland. First has trains as fast as airplanes, seconds has good network.
Sure, and they are about the same size as just CA, a place I specifically mentioned is viable for rail in the US.
Sweden:
Area of USA: 9,833,520 km^2
Area of Europe: 10,180,000 km^2
Did you seriously just compare the landmass of the United States with the entire fucking CONTINENT of Europe?
Yes…yes you did.
If that’s the comparison you want then the Area of North America is 24,474,000 sq km.
The better comparison would be the US and the European Union. The EU is 4,422,773 km2.
Now sit down short stack. You aren’t tall enough for this ride.
You did see that n2burns was replying to a comment that was a size comparison of the United States with the “entire fucking CONTINENT of Europe”, right?
You are highly regarded.
You are highly regarded.
Unlikely. The upside of being socially inept though is that I have more time and headspace for important things…like knowing the difference between a Country and a Continent.
Let’s go for Russia then. Compare sizes.
I don’t think Europeans understand what space is. They are all crammed in together like tuna.
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Nice rant. I was born and raised in a “third world country” with better transportation than the US despite much lower density. In fact it would rank just under Oregon, so 39 stated are more dense than my country.
California does not have good public transportation, neither does a lot of the East Coast, for that matter. I have lived on both coasts and the Midwest, and visited over 35 states. Public transportation is mostly crap with a few exceptions in the core of a few Metro areas, and the NE.
Public transportation advocates want more than to add buses and trains, you are misrepresenting what we ask for.
I have, on numerous occasions, had to throw water on European’s plans to visit all of the big sites in the US in one visit. Wanting to see the Grand Canyon, the Everglades and DC in the same visit is not terribly practical. My advice has been to pick a region and see everything there. Pick a different region of the US on your next visit.
What was throwing them off was a day-trip can drive across several European countries, but will only get you through a few states in the US.
On the other hand, I have, on numerous occasions, had to throw water on American’s plans to visit big sites in Europe in one visit. “Let’s do Amsterdam and Copenhagen and then Paris, Rome, and Barcelona.” In one week. Yeah, not gonna happen.
subsidies for roads and air vastly outnumber train subsidies and planning decisions are made around grant funding. Until the inflation reduction act there was zero grant funding for public trainways.
Part of this is the US government is just 5 oil companies in a trenchcoat
Road subsidies are 100%
Hold on let’s not forget the weapons manufacturers also in the the trenchcoat
They better fucking not be running on steam…
Steam engines are eco-friendly. Coal in, water vapor out. Voila 😅
We could run steam engines off overhead electric lines using a good old heating element.
Would it be efficient or practical (or safe)? No.
But it’d be SIICKKKKK
Switzerland used to that, before they were able to update their trains with the purely-electric equivalent.
Coal dust, carbon monooxide and carbon dioxode out
Most American thing ever.
If the article title asks a question, the answer is always NO.
Betteridge’s law of headlines
Except this one’s answer is yes?
They gave examples of new high-speed rail coming online within the next few years. This year, 2028, and 2030…
I’ve been hearing these stories for decades. I won’t hold my breath.
America well adopt high speed trains en masse the year Linux becomes mainstream
So we need Valve to make gaming on trains better?
Well, Factorio is doing pretty well on Steam. That may help.
2026?
If you have to ask, the answer is no
Thanks melon usk for his delaying tactic of proposing the “hyperloop”. That’s 20 years lost.
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.
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 can only hope.
What happened to hyperloop? 🤣 🤣
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.
What do you mean? Hyperloop is still in development.
At this rate, fusion energy will be here first.
That’s more because fusion has had a couple of amazing breakthroughs recently
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nuclear-fusion-reaction-us-announcement-12-13-22/index.html
Yeah, sure…
So you think this is fake? Honest question.
Where is the tunnel?
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.
I won’t hold my breathe until there is major progress, but all these plans will get thrown in the trash if Republicans regain the White House and if Democrats don’t either take control of Congress or at least make gains. Republicans have been trying to kill of Amtrak and any US rail improvements for decades now.
Like with seemingly everything else, if Republicans are involved, they will stubbornly try to hold us back come hell or high water.
Damn the ending makes it sound like Dr. Frankenstein is zapping his monster with a little bit of electricity from his AA battery.
Brightline is cool, but not cool. It’s shiny, new, has all the things you want to see on high speed rail but didn’t feel like high speed rail.
