Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
High-speed rail, red herring, and my lament
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
I disagree. While not up to TGV standards, Acela and the NEC is successfull and not hurting for riders, the rest of Amtrak is the problem and has been since 1971 despite different political parties being in power, numerous administrators, operating plans, studies, consultants, ad-nauseum. A half-baked version of Amtrak may serve to prevent development of HSR. Why build a HSR system and how do you cost-justify it when we already have passenger service? Also what private Investors would ever take the risk if the result has to compete against Amtrak? <br /> <br />IMO passenger trains have to go faster than cars(door to door). A fundamental problem with the current Amtrak operating model is how do you run reliably scheduled service on congested freight railroads which are unscheduled, have lots of single track, and where a single mishap delays everything by 4+ hours? How much speed differential can even the best freight railroads handle and how much would they be willing to invest for ROW improvements that aren't needed for their own trains? <br /> <br />Both the French and Japanese rail systems had serious problems that led to the development of HSR. Both of their HSR systems started small and grew gradually. The U.S. freight railroads seem to have bought into being the "low cost producer" rather than "adding value". To attract riders off airplanes and out of cars, passenger service has to be more than a second-class way to get from point A to point B, which is what Amtrak outside of a few corridors really amounts to. The U.S has historically not addressed problems until they reach crisis proportions. Kill Amtrak, dump the corridors on the States, and maybe something will happen. The wheel probably wouldn't have been invented if ancient man had to cost-justify it against the sledge. <br />
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy