1. They will come, sooner or later. Because high-speed train are more fuel efficient than any airplane. Because just as land for additional highways cannot be had, leading to coummuter and corridor train reuiremenets, so eventually land for new airports and airport expansion won'et be available. Admddttadly, this may not happen for the next 50 years, but it will eventually.
2. Birthline is not high-speed rail, just higher-speed rail. I do not count on the private sector doirng this. I think it will wait until it becomes an emergency response to a critical situation, and then be first a Federal Project like the Inerstae Highway Syssem.
3. The first application might be to an existing corridor, such as New York City - Albany - Buffalo, with trip times cut to 1/3 what they are. Mostly dedicated tracks on or adacent to existing RoW. Then Cleveland=Toledo-Elkhrt-South Bend- Gary-Chicago, with a branch Toledo-Detroit, mostly for the Cleveland - Detroit market. Once that happens, the Lake Shore NY - Chicago train, if Amtrak LDTs are still around, would be replaced by two high-speed consists, an overneight 11pm - 6am westbount and 11pm - 8am eastbound sleeper train and a through daytime coach and parlor train that would also provide one of the schedules each way on the two corridors. Eventually, the Buffalo - Erie - Cleveland section would be added, this probably waiting until high-speed transcontinental service is planned and under construction.
4. Upgrading the NEC to true high-speed is more difficuilt, but will come eventuallly. There are hard choices. Serving the Rhode Island and Connecticut Shore Line cities is far more expensive in construction then using the old White Train route. Ditto using the existing electrified route Newark New Brunzwick - Trenton - Philadelphia rather than Bound-Brook - West Trenton - Jenkintown - Philadelphia. When done, though, the HSR will probably extend Portland, ME - Richmond, Va, not just Boston - Washington. The two Florida LDTs will probalby still be around and might benefit by the HSR euipment, and Virginia and North Carolina may partially fund extension of HSR south and west.
West Coat HSR will probably start with Sacramento - SF - LA - San Diego as one HSR and Vancouver, BS - Seattle - Portland - Eugene as another. with the gap Eugene - Sacramento filled in when there is transcontinental HSR.
More thoughts to come.
Transcontinental HSR would have patronage if done right. One can imagine a 22nd Century Limited with the end-point timings of the 20th and the Broadway, except that the end-points would be NY and LA or NY and SF. Would BNSF Transcon or UP make more sense? UP to LA migh be helped by a then existing HSR Las Vegas - LA. Possibly HSR from the east to SF would mean copying the Swiss with a really long tunnel eliminating the worst of the existing CP-SP route, or could the HSR follow the WP's route? One can imagine a Chicago - St. Louis HSR coming in advance of any transconinental, ditto Chicago - Milwaukee - Twin Cities. St. Louis - KC might follow, with passengers prefering HSR via St. Louis instead of a relatively slow direct ride to KC, if the trains ran through St. L.
JUST SAY NO!
So your NYC-Chicago route is going to have a new-build track for two trainsets? Talk about a waste of (my) money.
daveklepperBecause just as land for additional highways cannot be had, leading to coummuter and corridor train reuiremenets, so eventually land for new airports and airport expansion won'et be available.
So you are saying that there will be less land required to build secure, grade-separated long distance HSR corridors (and it's infrastructure) than would be required by the handful of airports required to serve the same corridor?
Backshop JUST SAY NO! So your NYC-Chicago route is going to have a new-build track for two trainsets? Talk about a waste of (my) money.
I don't think his proposal is to be taken seriously. Just another scheme to preserve an archaic (since at least 1960) mode of transport. If saving LD for Boy Scouts, elderly, small towns and handicapped arguments fail, try another. Any port in a storm.
charlie hebdo Backshop JUST SAY NO! So your NYC-Chicago route is going to have a new-build track for two trainsets? Talk about a waste of (my) money. I don't think his proposal is to be taken seriously. Just another scheme to preserve an archaic (since at least 1960) mode of transport. If saving LD for Boy Scouts, elderly, small towns and handicapped arguments fail, try another. Any port in a storm.
With the efforts of the various Toll Authorities involved in a car trip from New York to Chicago + the actual costs of car operation - it is getting to the point that taking the train will be cheaper
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
There are mostly free alternative routes.
daveklepperTranscontinental HSR would have patronage if done right.
I don't think the issue was ever patronage. It starts with construction responsibility, passes quickly into relative advantage for the few at the expense of the many inconvenienced by the construction and ROW characteristics, and finishes with a bang, perhaps literally, concerning liability.
One can imagine a 22nd Century Limited with the end-point timings of the 20th and the Broadway, except that the end-points would be NY and LA or NY and SF.
Assuming you can get OPM to pay for it all, more power to you. But I'll bet you'll get very little sleep unless fascinating amounts of money are spent in compensating hydraulics for the short-period oscillations undamped by the suspension at the necessary speed, or the acceleration/deceleration profiles required for the necessary stops ... now including Chicago near the middle of the night. You'll be needed for the necessary noise blanking, too.
The problem is partly that, for at least three orders of magnitude less money, you can acommodate all the prospective users on much more luxurious aircraft, which already make this trip in far less time with little actual fuss. Easy preboarding for the rich, you know, especially as this could be handled as charter access via TSA. And the tech for near-supersonic operation without ground shock waves is well in hand, and likely workable for wide-fuselage vehicles, giving fast turnaround and hence the same justification for using greater fuel for higher speed that was one of the legitimate drivers for the SST all those years ago.
Would BNSF Transcon or UP make more sense?
For what? They're utterly unsuited for conversion to anywhere near this speed of HSR; to allow even substantial running at 150 to 185mph would require tilting equipment run with great care, with very dubious 'bang for the buck' compared with air transport at that speed ... outside of corridor traffic, which would be covered by subsidized train traffic. I agree with the idea of sharing California HSR west of LV, but think of the fun and the politics to arrange this cost-effectively, or the hailstorm of complaints about the increased traffic or the implied elitism or the right of Californians to ride any train on 'their' railroad or all the fun insurance and legal concerns... and the relative likelihood of making a 'deal' that would stick between epochs of government administrations, a necessity even at this level of capital investment and stranded cost.
Possibly HSR from the east to SF would mean copying the Swiss with a really long tunnel eliminating the worst of the existing CP-SP route ...
Right across the San Andreas? Under mountains known for seismic activity?
... or could the HSR follow the WP's route?
Take this simple quiz. Secure USGS topo maps of the route at convenient scale. Make up a couple of French curves with the transition spiraling and vertical-curvature limitations and see just what kind of route you can lay out, then calculate the amount of above-ground viaducting and cuts/tunnelling needed to achieve that.
One can imagine a Chicago - St. Louis HSR coming in advance of any transcontinental...
That's explicitly a corridor train at current speed. Some fun ensues when you look south from there to figure an actual LD route ... it would be highly difficult on the Memphis side of the river, as well as fun to get there except pokily from the station stop in StL across the river there ... or would you tunnel obliquely under the Mississippi at some well-chosen bend, right in the interesting part of the p-wave section of New Madrid seismic activity ... you might be better off implementing HSR or even maglev as a sort of HSR shuttle 'that meets all the trains' on a more logical route near Carbondale (or HrSR-grade along the new prospective construction of "I-69" as it goes north ... it's worthless south of Memphis as a co-route for center-median rail until you get at least as far as Tunica, and Tunica now has 10,000' runway capability making regional HrSR much more likely 'bang for the limited-access ROW buck' than Chinese-wall HSR going through at high speed between St. Louis and the Jackson area.
ditto Chicago - Milwaukee - Twin Cities.
This is even more a corridor train than the Chicago-St. Louis service; even the Hiawathas were day trains. It is difficult to imagine any LD train for this routing that would have endpoints either further south and east (e.g. to Indy or Louisville along the MILW's old corridor there) or west of the 'Twin Cities' to any particular transcontinental distance (don't even ask if parts of the old Pacific Coast extension are suitable for rebuilding to HSR standards)
St. Louis - KC might follow, with passengers prefering HSR via St. Louis instead of a relatively slow direct ride to KC ...
This raises an interesting point for HSR: when is a longer and vastly more expensive route still 'more attractive' to prospective riders than any slower speed alternative? The example given is an interesting one (although it does tacitly hinge mre than a little on the presupposition there is adequate 'corridor' traffic for the St. Louis-KC leg); in fact, the speed gains from a more-easily-subsidized Chicago-to-St.Louis service might make even relatively leisurely service to KC preferable to any cost-effective more direct run. Where are other potential service corridors where PRIIA-level HrSR speed linked to an indirect HSR 'backbone' might produce similar advantage?
The whole LA-NYC HSR thing would miss the things that the OP keeps pontificating about in LD trains. You'd lose the sleepers and the whole "see the country" thing. To meet the same schedule as the 20th Century or Broadway, you'd have to have an average moving speed of 200mph+ because of station stops and winding through urban areas. How much scenery will you see? You won't need the sleepers because it would be a day train. Then you'd have to add large rental car lots near the stations. All in all, it's a nightmare...
As Overmod and Backshop pointed out, and I will add succinctly, HSR or ultra-HSR make little sense for those longer distances. They can never come close to airplanes. Let's stick with the 90-250-500 mile corridors.
BackshopThe whole LA-NYC HSR thing would miss the things that the OP keeps pontificating about in LD trains. You'd lose the sleepers and the whole "see the country" thing. ... You won't need the sleepers because it would be a day train.
The whole point about the "22nd Century Limited" is that it would reproduce the 'experience' of the Century -- something proven in a number of contexts to be useful and desirable. While it was nice to watch the scenery up and down the Hudson, that wasn't the primary 'draw' of the Century: the point was to have the use of what was a good private club, after the close of business in one city, that would have you at a convenient point in the other city rested, refreshed, and ready to go do business right from the train door.
The New York-to-SF or LA train wouldn't be about 'scenery' or even the cruise-train experience so much as being equipped and timed for 'overnight' service eliminating all the rigmarole of flying "quickly" and then securing a rental, going to a hotel, etc. to be fit and ready for the reason you traveled. A "day train" defeats the point at either end, and while one might be put on to serve intermediate points 'not in the middle of the night' this could even more easily be served by across-the-platform coordinated corridor services than by some LD approximation rocketing you to six-hour layovers just in time to check into a hotel when you get wherever.
I would further argue that one of the really-cheap-sleeper options for a high-speed 'overnight' train would be a better option than 'coach' seating for what's likely not to be less than a 15-hour trip time (net of all stops and energy-consumption optimization). Much wiser to build the train explicitly with the assumption of overnight rest -- and I mean real overnight rest, not tossing and turning with train motion -- than to pretend that a 15-hour HSR trip is any real difference from a 15-hour flight. (And then have coordinated connections from "Metropark" like intermediate stops and associated development into a good regional feeder system, not just 'downtown-to-downtown' that was already obsolescent in the Fifties ... but we've already discussed many of the details of that.)
The goalposts keep moving...
One other thing to remember is that unlike 70 years ago, NY, Chicago and LA aren't the big hubs for business that they used to be. Nowadays, we have Seattle, Silicon Valley, Charlotte, Houston, etc., etc. Much more business is international. I have a friend that flies to China on a monthly basis. Others that go to Ireland. Once again, to build an entirely new coast to coast roadbed for just a few trains a day is fiscal foolishness. It would probably have to be electrified, which opens up another whole can of worms.
"Really High-Speed North American Passenger Trains?"
I'm sorry to say this David, I truly am, but it'll never get done.
I suggest to everyone they read Fred Frailey's column in the August "Trains," which I wish "Trains" would publish on-line, and I'm surprised they haven't.
Mr. Fred tells us why, exactly why, and pulls no punches.
He offers a glimmer of hope in the last paragraph of certain conditions that might make some of it happen, and they don't involve government, either Federal or state.
A sobering bit of writing from a very disappointed, but realistic man.
Overmod Backshop The whole LA-NYC HSR thing would miss the things that the OP keeps pontificating about in LD trains. You'd lose the sleepers and the whole "see the country" thing. ... You won't need the sleepers because it would be a day train. The whole point about the "22nd Century Limited" is that it would reproduce the 'experience' of the Century -- something proven in a number of contexts to be useful and desirable. While it was nice to watch the scenery up and down the Hudson, that wasn't the primary 'draw' of the Century: the point was to have the use of what was a good private club, after the close of business in one city, that would have you at a convenient point in the other city rested, refreshed, and ready to go do business right from the train door. The New York-to-SF or LA train wouldn't be about 'scenery' or even the cruise-train experience so much as being equipped and timed for 'overnight' service eliminating all the rigmarole of flying "quickly" and then securing a rental, going to a hotel, etc. to be fit and ready for the reason you traveled. A "day train" defeats the point at either end, and while one might be put on to serve intermediate points 'not in the middle of the night' this could even more easily be served by across-the-platform coordinated corridor services than by some LD approximation rocketing you to six-hour layovers just in time to check into a hotel when you get wherever. I would further argue that one of the really-cheap-sleeper options for a high-speed 'overnight' train would be a better option than 'coach' seating for what's likely not to be less than a 15-hour trip time (net of all stops and energy-consumption optimization). Much wiser to build the train explicitly with the assumption of overnight rest -- and I mean real overnight rest, not tossing and turning with train motion -- than to pretend that a 15-hour HSR trip is any real difference from a 15-hour flight. (And then have coordinated connections from "Metropark" like intermediate stops and associated development into a good regional feeder system, not just 'downtown-to-downtown' that was already obsolescent in the Fifties ... but we've already discussed many of the details of that.)
Backshop The whole LA-NYC HSR thing would miss the things that the OP keeps pontificating about in LD trains. You'd lose the sleepers and the whole "see the country" thing. ... You won't need the sleepers because it would be a day train.
Even a slower than slow Capital Limited is a rough noisy ride that makes sleep fitful at best today . It's the ROW that is the largest negative factor, not speed. Roadbeds aren't what they were on the 20th in the 50s.
Never say never in this case. If a time comes when it needs to be done then it will get done.
To think that not all that long ago a maze of passenger trains all connecting to one another, combined with Interurbans and Street Car lines could get you anywhere. With sleeping and dining services. How that just vanished is beyond comprehension. Culture and societal directions or manipulations? It could have progressed steadily from there to a system without question today.
Flintlock76"Really High-Speed North American Passenger Trains?" I'm sorry to say this David, I truly am, but it'll never get done.
Miningman To think that not all that long ago a maze of passenger trains all connecting to one another, combined with Interurbans and Street Car lines could get you anywhere. With sleeping and dining services. How that just vanished is beyond comprehension.
To think that not all that long ago a maze of passenger trains all connecting to one another, combined with Interurbans and Street Car lines could get you anywhere. With sleeping and dining services. How that just vanished is beyond comprehension.
Really?
With a car, on a road, you have "self-directed transit". Leave when you want. No transfers. Any route you want. Stop when and where you want. Quite likely get there sooner.
With a plane, you get there faster. If you have a week off, you can go visit family across the country; and, presuming you like their company, you get 5 days of fun. Take the train, and you're lucky to get ONE day.
That's how it vanished.
zardoz Flintlock76 "Really High-Speed North American Passenger Trains?" I'm sorry to say this David, I truly am, but it'll never get done. Most likely not in any of our lifetimes. But however much the idea is pie-in-the-sky, no future project will ever happen if there aren't those that dream big; and God knows this world is cetainly suffering from a lack of dreamers.
Flintlock76 "Really High-Speed North American Passenger Trains?" I'm sorry to say this David, I truly am, but it'll never get done.
Most likely not in any of our lifetimes. But however much the idea is pie-in-the-sky, no future project will ever happen if there aren't those that dream big; and God knows this world is cetainly suffering from a lack of dreamers.
Hence the last paragraph in Mr. Fred's column. Again, if you (meaning all) haven't read it please do so.
7j43k Miningman To think that not all that long ago a maze of passenger trains all connecting to one another, combined with Interurbans and Street Car lines could get you anywhere. With sleeping and dining services. How that just vanished is beyond comprehension. Really? With a car, on a road, you have "self-directed transit". Leave when you want. No transfers. Any route you want. Stop when and where you want. Quite likely get there sooner. With a plane, you get there faster. If you have a week off, you can go visit family across the country; and, presuming you like their company, you get 5 days of fun. Take the train, and you're lucky to get ONE day. That's how it vanished.
To read some posts dreaming for a return to that never was golden era, you'd think jet aviation had never happened.
There was no reason we could not have the best of all worlds. The last two posts totally ignore significant chunks of the population, including teens, elderly, folks who cannot drive, handicapped, not middle class and so on.
The situations described for the demise of widespread, frequent and reliable passenger service is very middle class centric and rapidly approaching unsustainable. Japan and Europe never gave it up.
North America should have been at the forefront of rail passenger service and we would have had a far better and I might add cleaner society today.
We were sold a bill of goods and that's fine, market forces and all, but it did not mean we had to include the destruction and ridicule of passenger services.
On a personal note: I have been back to Ontario twice in ten years since living in Northern Saskatchewan and took the Canadian both times. I still converse with folks I met on the train and limiting my time with family was just fine as an extra 4 or 5 days with them would have been ... uncomfortable.
Did a circle tour of North America 3 summers ago by car but had little to no choice. You just cannot put together that trip any longer by rail where as at one time you could.
European and Japanese distances are much less and in China they have 4x our population. Hence they have the critical factor lacking for LD services - population density. We have it in some parts of North America, hence the need for high speed corridors. I don't think is a difficult concept to grasp.
charlie hebdoEuropean and Japanese distances are much less and in China they have 4x our population. Hence they have the critical factor lacking for LD services - population density. We have it in some parts of North America, hence the need for high speed corridors. I don't think is a difficult concept to grasp.
A good chunk of the Chinese Long Distance High Speed Rail trains were done for purely political reasons and not out of necessity. The Communist government built them to pull the country closer together politically. Some of the far apart provinces were not seeing the same development efforts of the Eastern provinces and resentment was starting to build. The long distance HSR was China's pressure relief valve in a way. I seriously doubt those rail routes are Economically viable and also have my doubts they have decent patronage. One will never know unless one visits China and some of the linked provinces are on the "off limits" list for Western foriegn tourists. So we may not ever know.
Miningman There was no reason we could not have the best of all worlds. The last two posts totally ignore significant chunks of the population, including teens, elderly, folks who cannot drive, handicapped, not middle class and so on.
I don't think anyone here wants to keep your list of people off of passenger trains. Or YOU.
I, for one, think you and all the people you cite should ride passenger trains as often as you/they wish.
As long as you/they pay the cost of operation. That would mean that Amtrak STILL wouldn't be profit-making, but at least it wouldn't operate at a loss.
How much more would YOUR ticket cost? Would you pay it? That's good to hear. And those other people--would they pay it? Great.
Then passenger trains stay, because they are well patronized and pay for themselves.
"...the best of all worlds."
Right?
Ed
Can't have "true HSR" as long as the majority of people equate Amtrak with TRULY awful rail.
How can you expect the majority of people in the US to support a government agency like Amtrak which has failed for 50 years now.
Miningman To think that not all that long ago a maze of passenger trains all connecting to one another, combined with Interurbans and Street Car lines could get you anywhere. Culture and societal directions or manipulations? It could have progressed steadily from there to a system without question today.
To think that not all that long ago a maze of passenger trains all connecting to one another, combined with Interurbans and Street Car lines could get you anywhere. Culture and societal directions or manipulations? It could have progressed steadily from there to a system without question today.
Re: I don't think is a difficult concept to grasp.
Last time I checked 2 or 3 hours at 180 mph in Europe AND Japan was the EXACT same distance as in US. How many large cities in the US are 360 miles apart?
The issue isn't JUST density, it's congestion of highways and airports. It's more density TIMES congestion that matters.
And, I don't see much of a difference between France or Spain and the US east of the Mississippi, anyway.
http://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#3/30.22/-14.77
Re: Coast to coast HSR.
As ridiculous as "LD trains for sick people".
The REST of the world isn't doing long-distance HSR. What the rest of the world IS doing is connecting all the various transportation modes together.
No-one (except train-foamers) want to spend a minute longer on a train than they absolutely need to.
What EVERYBODY wants (except train-foamers) is the absolute shortest possible trip.
When things get congested you've got (basically) 3 options:
1) Expand the freeways
2) Expand the airports
3) Do something else: which COULD be HSR.
That's all they are doing in Europe and Japan. Nobody in Europe and Japan LOVES trains (except the train-foamers). But, they do like the connection options they've got; which we don't have.
There's no reason you shouldn't be able to get a HST out of an airport or city-center in the US, for 1 or 2 hour trip, that you'd otherwise (now) have to get a connecting flight for or drive.
HSR can't replace airplanes, buses or cars; but it sure can keep the freeways and airports from being expanded, and destroying more peasant hovels in the process (which has been the preferred method for 70+ years now).
JOHN PRIVARA Re: I don't think is a difficult concept to grasp. Last time I checked 2 or 3 hours at 180 mph in Europe AND Japan was the EXACT same distance as in US. How many large cities in the US are 360 miles apart? The issue isn't JUST density, it's congestion of highways and airports. It's more density TIMES congestion that matters. And, I don't see much of a difference between France or Spain and the US east of the Mississippi, anyway. http://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#3/30.22/-14.77
I was referring to areas mostly west of the Mississippi except the west coast and some of the south. Old LD routes that are throwbacks to 70 + years ago.
People (beyond foamers) in Europe like trains because they are often fast and convenient and mostly comfortable, even for 4 hours. They are part of daily life.
I think I have to return to the main point. The highways in the corridorw are congested. Higher-speed rail, hopefully leading to really high-speed rail same day, is the most economical solution today, even if it must be subsidized. But if that subsidy is a national matter, than rural America demands its useful share. And then the most economical way ofd giving them their share in a diredtion that they want is well-run LDTS. They don't want buses or desguised ambulances just for the impaired, they want the trains and the trains are used, despite all the negative comments here.
Sure, much has changed since I left USA residence 23 years ago. But then the old days of the Broadway leaving New York with the crew outnumbering the passengers are also gone. What service there is is used.
and Anderson may just decide to give my food cost-reductioni plan a trial. Perhaps when one of the top Washington Union food-court restaurants lease comes up for renewal. Or a new Chicago Union Station restaurant.
Ov ermod, I agree with you. The primary purpose of the high-speed, but multi-stop day train would to serve intermediate poinsts, and each way it would be one of the regular hourly corridor trains in the two or three corridiors it transverses. But it woiuld also offerr a lower-cost end-point service than the 22nd Century Limited.
Although HSR has erroded the market for sleeper service across the pond, it is still provided on numerous routes, including two Scottis and possilby one Welsh.
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