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<p>[quote user="JT22CW"]Actually, it [i]was[/i] starting to work.  Then 1950 rolled around, and ICC mandated new signaling requirements for passenger train operation at and above 80 mph, and told the RRs that they had to fund the upgrades themselves.  (In many countries of Europe, the level of signaling that the ICC and FRA restrict passenger speeds to 79 mph at, passenger operation is permitted 100 mph at.)  And of course, the federal government was funding the infrastructure of the competition at an accelerated pace.[/quote]</p><p>It was, in today's terminology, an unfunded federal mandate. This is related to what I was talking about above. Lack of capital for upgrades. Even the post WWII investments in streamliners was essentially an investment in more pre-war technology (except for the addition of domes). And these trains, as of 1950, were forced to operate at slower speeds than in the 1930s! How could these railroads hope to compete under those conditions? High speed technology was just around the corner, but if there was no capital to fund federal signaling mandates, there certainly was no capital to invest in high speed technology.</p>
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