Well, what do you think?

[Gramp]

Do these sound like plausible innovations?
https://www.railwayage.com/news/why-high-speed-rail-is-such-a-heavy-lift/

[Convicted One]

The presentation of the economics as a zero sum trade off between citizens owning private vehicles vs having an ubiquitous public transport system, makes sense.

I'll be all for the system you propose so long as I only have to pay when I ride.  The thought of having to pay to support any system than never gets within 20-30 miles of where I live, seems like a skrewgie

[SD60MAC9500]

 

Ahhh.. So again we have an engineeer with an idea that has too many complicated parts.

So essentially he's pushing the idea of a monorail. HSR in America has very limited application. The East Coast, and West Coast. The area's experiencing the most population growth. There may be limited potential in the Midwest with Chicago as a hub.

Do people realize the vast majority of America is still rural in a land sense when they make these claims about how we need HSR? Europe and Asia, are poor comparisons. One for example is China... Over 95% of the Chinese population lives east of the Tibetan Plateau and nearby desert geography of Western China. HSR makes sense with China's high population density.. Also take note where all of China's HSR network exist.. Certainly not the Western half to connect the remainder of its population.

Same with Europe.. High population density in Western Europe notably; France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and Italy.

Yet even with those examples HSR is only constructed where population density is high..

I also question the no maintenance items he bullet pointed in his article.. All materials are subject to thermal cycles that degrade performance over time.

We don't need a new project that looks good on paper but fails to perform in reality. What America could use is an expanded conventional passenger network running 90-125MPH. With reliable consistent service, and connections.

Amtrak won't cut it until they foot the bill for expanded RoW capacity with the C1's..

P.S. to his point of European's have low car ownership.. On average 560 per 1000 EU residents own a vehicle.. Vehicle ownerhsip has grown almost 10% in the last decade in Europe..