http://www.du.edu/transportation/FINAL_ITI-NCIT_HSR_white_paper_8halfx11--website.pdf
..an interesting read.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
"...A 2012 poll conducted for the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) highlighted overwhelming interest in using HSR among Americans aged 18-24. In their numbers, residential location, and attitudes toward travel, Americans have thus become less different from the Asians and Europeans who make considerable use of HSR on a regular basis...."
HST eventually WILL happen here, but unfortunately its going to have to wait until this under 30 generation is old enough and influential to effect the political landscape and demand the necessary changes to our infrastructure priorities.
It also wont happen until all of those currently under the massive lobbiest influence of the road and airline interests kick off or are voted out by this newer generation. By that time however I fear Mexico will have a better rail intercity HST system than the US.
We have only ourselves to blame for this, as long as corporate greed and hubris run amok in DC we can expect nothing and we will continue to slip further behind the rest of the world and be less and less of a technological world leader.
Have fun with your trains
Very interesting! The HSR trust fund concept is essential for HSR infrastructure.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
I find the whole paper pretty general. To sum it up, it say we are not moving toward HSR right now because there is no consensus that we should. Or, in plain English, because as a country we don't particularly want to.
Recently Fred Frailey wrote about a proposal to build a rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The whole discussion revolves around who should pay for it. Should it be privately funded or should the US Government lend money for construction. As long as we are having that kind of debate we will never build any high speed rail.
Not only pretty general...but also with nothing new and not acknowledging and emphasizing the differences between the US an elsewhere when it comes to rail services. Dealing with people is expensive...you need more labor, more safety, more comfort, more speed, just a whole bunch more of everything. So our business blueprint of investor economics does not like passenger trains, or at least makes it easier to ignore passenger services in favor of freight...and that's the route that has been taken. But also, Europe, for instance, being more compact, makes moving freight more expensive on rail and passengers get the benefit; and the governments own and operate the railroads similar to far Eastern states like China and Japan. And those countries in the East are so densely populated, rail is the cheapest and easiest answer. We will waste more time and spend more money deciding who should pay for something and what it should be because everyone is afraid of losing money. And the American people have become accustomed to the idea that they don't have to pay full price for anything...so we shall walk slowly to the next station.
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henry6And the American people have become accustomed to the idea that they don't have to pay full price for anything...so we shall walk slowly to the next station.
No doubt, Henry, just about everyone wants something for nothing. But a few people actually get something for nothing. I found some of the comments to Fred's article had real insight. Particularly, how the trucking companies have never really paid their share of costs for their business and how that continuing subsidy enables them to stay in business and compete with trains as well as they do.
But someone has to pay for our highway systems. And you and I know who does.
John
More and more people in the 18-25 age group are loosing interest in owning their own cars. If this generation sticks with this as they age, we will see more of an evolution of all public transport, not just high speed.
O5 HopefulMore and more people in the 18-25 age group are loosing interest in owning their own cars.
An interesting observation. Even if young people ultimately wind up with cars still the fact that they live in the city for several years and don't have a car during those years could make a difference. A big difference. When my children were young I saw to it that that rode both buses and trains. My older son spent a year in Seoul, South Korea teaching; some of his fellow Americans not only did not know how to ride the subway; they were actually afraid of it. He taught them.
Watch throwing the term "public transit" around as it has several conotations to different people....usually more in urban transit manner than HSR or even Amtrak...
Judging by some of the comments on this thread, I wonder if some of the posters actually read the article that Don posted?
Back in February, CNN did a news item on HSR up in Vermonth (?) Critical news on how the Feds and the State spend $ 50 M to upgrade the tracks with the net results of a 20 minute drop in travel time. Additional, the reported camped out at a station the whole day saying, "well where is the trains, no trains here, sir did you know this is an active railroad and you should stop, look, listen before crossing the tracks? Why, there's never a train around!" It was such a put down on Amtrack and HSR you came away thinking trains are a waste of money. And that is how HSR is seen today, along with Amtrack, as a waste of tax dollars that could best be spent on (gasp) Mass Transit and roadways.
While the folks here all agree passenger travel is not a waste, but an investment, the general population see's news items like this CNN report as an example of wrong spending.
As an aside, my hat is off to NS, CSX and UP for actively promoting America runs on rails in the broadcast media. The toystore like NS promotional was classic. The GE promotional where Kit, the famous 1892 Trans Am having a conversation with the lastest GE unit at speed had me grinning ear to ear (yes I'll admit a Pontiac man here on TA # 4, a 1995 TA named The Phoebe Snow.)
Americans know basically squat about railroads, railroading, freight trains and passenger trains and services. And the media knows less. We hear of these 200 + mile per hour trains and compare them to a rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral or the local weed covered streaks of rust without knowing what American railroading is all about. Our parents or grandparents wax nostalgic about troop trains and upper births and hourly train service on the main and the mail being delivered even on the branch. We, as railfans...assuming all here are railfans...should know more about railroads and trains than the average American but still too many eyes are blinded by the glamour of HSR or closed by the way things used to be. The Nation's whole read and attitude on transportation...all means of transportation....is clouded in politics and dampened by money to make things happen. So we ignore at worst, pay lip service at best with neither approach bringing us closer to a total and viable national rail passenger system much less a HSR system.
henry6: Have you ever extensively used a modern passenger rail service, such as Germany or France, which includes HSR, but also lower speed services to link smaller communities?
No, I haven't. But why do you ask? It is apparent that is another reason Americans don't understand railroads, particularly passenger rail. And that's my point.
One of the points the paper makes is about the level of knowledge of the state of the art and the applicability of that knowledge to the US - depending on what you try to do.
If you are trying to do an off-the shelf, self contained, point to point HSR line, then the knowledge exists and is easy to apply. You just plop down the line and run the trains.
If you are trying to overlay higher speed operation on existing US rail lines then the knowledge really doesn't exist (it points to problems getting Metroliner and Acela working) . Notice also, that we have taken totally different approaches to development on the NEC, Michigan and Illinios with no coordinated collection data and analysis along the way.
They also make the point that to go from a 79 mph corridor development to 90/110 mph, you triple the cost. To get from 90/110 to true HSR, the cost is X10. So, the easy, low risk approach is also the vastly most expensive.
One of the major problems is that we have never defined High Speed Rail nor identified expectations for it here in the US.
What I liked about the paper was that is was short and to the point. It covered a lot of territory simply and succinctly. It could actually be useful in shaping the debate going forward. It explains how we got here, what the current state of affairs is, and suggests how to move forward - not in terms of a grand plan or "lines on a map", but in terms of policy and knowledge-base. THIS is the stuff we need the debate to be about. It's foundational.
schlimm henry6: Have you ever extensively used a modern passenger rail service, such as Germany or France, which includes HSR, but also lower speed services to link smaller communities?
Please don't make me remember how good the TGV service was in France, I'll get depressed when I think about schlubbing across America on Amtrak.
henry6 One of the major problems is that we have never defined High Speed Rail nor identified expectations for it here in the US.
vsmithPlease don't make me remember how good the TGV service was in France, I'll get depressed when I think about schlubbing across America on Amtrak.
oltmannd henry6 One of the major problems is that we have never defined High Speed Rail nor identified expectations for it here in the US. The FRA did define it a couple years ago. There are three tiers. Overlayed 79 mph (think Norfolk/Lynchburg). Overlayed 90/110 mph (think Michigan, Illinois). Stand alone 125+ (think CAHSR). It's in the paper, among other places.
But has the public defined and what are their expectations? The only exposure the public has had is through the media tossing the term around and pointing to Japan, China, Germany and France.
oltmannd One of the points the paper makes is about the level of knowledge of the state of the art and the applicability of that knowledge to the US - depending on what you try to do. If you are trying to do an off-the shelf, self contained, point to point HSR line, then the knowledge exists and is easy to apply. You just plop down the line and run the trains. If you are trying to overlay higher speed operation on existing US rail lines then the knowledge really doesn't exist (it points to problems getting Metroliner and Acela working) . Notice also, that we have taken totally different approaches to development on the NEC, Michigan and Illinios with no coordinated collection data and analysis along the way. They also make the point that to go from a 79 mph corridor development to 90/110 mph, you triple the cost. To get from 90/110 to true HSR, the cost is X10. So, the easy, low risk approach is also the vastly most expensive.
I think the paper implies, at the least, that overlaying HSR on existing (read: freight) lines is problematic.
henry6: You ask why I ask. Your answer explains why you seem rather lukewarm about HSR and mid-speed services ( > 110 mph) in the appropriate corridors and seem more enthusiastic about conventional railroading (long distance trains) brought back up to the higher standards of the 1950's. Folks tend to appreciate and advocate only for what they are familiar with. If you ever spent some time riding the many types of trains in Germany (for example, but Italy, France, or the UK in Europe or Japan or China) with ICE on down through IC, EC, RE and RB and S-Bahn, maybe your views would change.
I can imagine and appreciate HSR as done in other countries...but being in marketing and advertising, and I guess as a railfan, too...I hear the arguments both on these discussions and elsewhere and know that there is not a public consensus of understanding of what we have, don't have, and what HSR is in comparison. Jet planes are high speed in the US and the family auto is the comfort zone. The HSR people have not satisfied either nor bridged the gap. Nor has any public forum.
schlimm henry6: You ask why I ask. Your answer explains why you seem rather lukewarm about HSR and mid-speed services ( > 110 mph) in the appropriate corridors and seem more enthusiastic about conventional railroading (long distance trains) brought back up to the higher standards of the 1950's. Folks tend to appreciate and advocate only for what they are familiar with. If you ever spent some time riding the many types of trains in Germany (for example, but Italy, France, or the UK in Europe or Japan or China) with ICE on down through IC, EC, RE and RB and S-Bahn, maybe your views would change.
With most post-war rail passenger traffic limited to 79 MPH by the signal systems being used by the carriers, rails lost market share to the 40/50 MPH automobile in the era before the construction of the Interstate system which permitted speed limits up to 75 MPH. The Interstate system just put the nails in the coffin of 'private' rail passenger service, which by the formation was far from being a service. (daily departures and arrivals - does not constitute service).
In the present day world of the completed interstate system and extensive airline service (multiple arrival/departures to most destinations served). 125 MPH and less do not represent a marketable High Speed rail alternative to the traveling public. To be marketable, the speed must be sufficient to equal or beat airlines on a city center to city center basis for the business traveler that will form the core of the traffic. Wherever HSR is constructed, there must be a signifigant amount of business travel between the end points, without the business travel there is no core, without a core there isn't enough 'pleasure' traffic to make it worth the time an effort.
HSR, when initially constructed, cannot be everything for everybody - NOTHING EVER is. Unless and until a viable Origin-Destination pair is selected - anything else is just lip service. HSR can become a valued transportation service in selected markets, but it can't serve every possible market, and that is the red herring the anti's will use to defeat HSR - they have done it before and they will use it again. That being said - the Interstate System didn't start out being 'fully complete' in 1956 when it was authorized and truthfully there are several segments that were originally drawn up that still haven't been completed - over 50 years after the original authorization.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
henry6 I can imagine and appreciate HSR as done in other countries...but being in marketing and advertising, and I guess as a railfan, too...I hear the arguments both on these discussions and elsewhere and know that there is not a public consensus of understanding of what we have, don't have, and what HSR is in comparison. Jet planes are high speed in the US and the family auto is the comfort zone. The HSR people have not satisfied either nor bridged the gap. Nor has any public forum.
In order to have High Speed Rail we need a fairly substantial investment and acquiring right of way and in building the tracks. It is hard for me to see how a House of Representatives which today refuses to subsidize intercity routes of fewer than 750 miles within states would be willing to spend the much greater amount of money HSR would require. Right now the current law will yank the support to a number of intercity routes next October 2. These are, as many point out, the most successful routes Amtrak has. Maybe individual states will pick up and reassemble the pieces the House has knocked down. We will have to see. HSR would not only be more expensive than these inter city routes; almost all of it would be relatively short distance in one or a few states. Having denied continued support to Amtrack's intercity routes why in the world would the House provide much more funding for new high speed routes?
As Don says, a starting point would be having Amtrak reduce its dependence on the high operating loss appropriation, stemming primarily from the antiquated LD routes. Long term, what is needed primarily is infrastructure funding (Trust Fund or maybe tax-exempt bond issues?). Following the current German and French models, have a separate government corporation for track ownership and maintenance, and allow routes to be operated by private concerns and/or Amtrak. Even with the current congressional makeup, bipartisan support could be found. The keys are: 1.a rational route structure 2. private operation.
schlimmI think the paper implies, at the least, that overlaying HSR on existing (read: freight) lines is problematic.
schlimmAs Don says, a starting point would be having Amtrak reduce its dependence on the high operating loss appropriation, stemming primarily from the antiquated LD routes. Long term, what is needed primarily is infrastructure funding (Trust Fund or maybe tax-exempt bond issues?). Following the current German and French models, have a separate government corporation for track ownership and maintenance, and allow routes to be operated by private concerns and/or Amtrak. Even with the current congressional makeup, bipartisan support could be found. The keys are: 1.a rational route structure 2. private operation.
If the current state subsidies + farebox really does = 88% of the operating costs, then perhaps getting it to 100% is possible. Maybe just some trimming of LD train costs and/or improving revenue could do it. Congress has and will pony up $$ for infrastructure provide you don't come calling for operating subsidies. Let's see what the next couple of years bring. I think that'll be make/break for Amtrak and/or HrSR in the US.
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