High speed rail in the US

WildCat said:
No shovel even hit the ground yet, and the cost estimate has already ballooned to $98 billion.
$114 million per mile of track. That's $2,580 for every California man, woman, and child just to cover the cost of building the trains, never mind operating expenses and maintenance.
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I think it'd be cheaper to take it off shore. :boggled:
 
Ziggurat said:
It would be insane to go with trains rather than cars if trains were anywhere NEAR the cost of cars, for the simple reason that trains have intrinsically and vastly inferior capabilities to cars in terms of transporting people.
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It is an "open secret" that the auto manufacturers are the ones who convinced LA and other major cities to abandon their highly successful rail driven mass transit systems first in favor of buses, then buses in favor of individually owned cars during the early 20th century.
 
Ziggurat said:
It would be insane to go with trains rather than cars if trains were anywhere NEAR the cost of cars, for the simple reason that trains have intrinsically and vastly inferior capabilities to cars in terms of transporting people.
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lets see...one train to carry 100s of people from a to b, vs 100s of cars/trucks to carry them the same distance...

I wouldn't call that "inferior capabilities".
 
applecorped said:
They can't?
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Not really, and for the most part not at all if you're not on the coasts. Trains once stopped at every town and city of reasonable size (and often small towns as well). Now they pretty much stop only at "major" stops (very big cities like NYC, Chicago, etc)
 
Why can we not just have a few high speed lines where it makes the most sense? I.E. between major or important cities. And have the rest of the rails moving at a moderate pace. It seems reasonable to me.
 
Muldur said:
It is an "open secret" that the auto manufacturers are the ones who convinced LA and other major cities to abandon their highly successful rail driven mass transit systems first in favor of buses, then buses in favor of individually owned cars during the early 20th century.
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Evidence?

You think people today would tolerate a city crisscrossed by overhead power lines over every major street? Where passengers have to wait in the middle of the street to catch a trolley? Trolleys were dangerous, ugly, and limited to where they could go. Buses are far superior.
 
Muldur said:
lets see...one train to carry 100s of people from a to b, vs 100s of cars/trucks to carry them the same distance...

I wouldn't call that "inferior capabilities".
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That's great unless you're going to or live in the 99% of the country that doesn't have a railroad. And the more you expand the system the greater the inefficiency.

All white elephants could, in theory, have been successful ventures. Trouble is realioty keeps getting in the way. At the end of the day, you can't force people to take the train over the other options they have.
 
L.Y.S. said:
Why can we not just have a few high speed lines where it makes the most sense?
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You think Representative Blowhard is going to vote for a train that goes through his district but doesn't stop there?
 
WildCat said:
You think Representative Blowhard is going to vote for a train that goes through his district but doesn't stop there?
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Who says that there wouldn't be rails connecting his town to the highspeed line?
 
Muldur said:
It is an "open secret" that the auto manufacturers are the ones who convinced LA and other major cities to abandon their highly successful rail driven mass transit systems first in favor of buses, then buses in favor of individually owned cars during the early 20th century.
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Is "argument by Who Framed Roger Rabbit" a recognized fallacy?
 
Random thoughts on all this:

Rail transit has many advantages over automobiles, however the advantages are all hidden benefits and one offs (reduced pollution, reduced traffic congestion, reduced dependence on foreign oil, increased tax revenue from lower land use, etc), while the disadvantages are all obvious and up front (not as convenient as cars, can’t sustain themselves through user fees alone, unsuitable for lower population density areas). It’s a Prisoner’s Dilemma situation, with cars and planes being cheaper and more convenient for individual travelers, and trains and rail being better for society as a whole. Do you think that European governments would keep pumping billions of dollars a year into their rail systems decade after decade unless they though it was worth it?

Population density issues with regards to trains can be a chicken and egg issue. Urban sprawl has led to large areas around cities being unsuitable for rail travel, when it really should be. If there are no train lines going to a geographic area, then the “One house, two car” residential model makes sense. Once the houses are built, then there is no reason to build a rail line there as the population density is not high enough. And of course, tearing down existing housing to build apartment buildings so you can build a train there is a non-starter. When a suburban community passes a zoning ordinance that “No residential building can be more then three stories tall”, they are also saying “No train stations shall be built in our town for the next quarter century”, even if they don’t realize that.

Looks like some of the cost problems with California’s HSR are going to be in setting up the right-of-way. Elevated HSR track across Silicon Valley? Seriously? You could buy every house in the way at market rates and bulldoze them cheaper, but that would mean depriving wealthy people of their land. Creating the routes for rail lines has always been awkward, with optimum train lines frequently going through property owned by wealthy groups and hardcore NIMBY territory. This leads to people trying to reroute train lines around wealthy neighborhoods or creating expensive elevated or submerged rail lines, leading to something that should be a straightforward engineering problem into a political battle.
 
Random said:
(reduced pollution, reduced traffic congestion, reduced dependence on foreign oil,
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I don't buy this argument, because you're comparing HSR from 50 years in the future (the minimum amount of time it would take to construct even given an ambitious and well-funded schedule) to today's automobiles. The automobiles 50 years from now will likely be electric, possibly hydrogen powered. So oil and pollution has little to do with anything. As for congestion most of it is commuters going to and from work or other local trips, not from people traveling hundreds of miles, so I doubt traffic congestion would be much affected.
 
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WildCat said:
I don't buy this argument, because you're comparing HSR from 50 years in the future (the minimum amount of time it would take to construct even given an ambitious and well-funded schedule) to today's automobiles. The automobiles 50 years from now will likely be electric, possibly hydrogen powered. So oil and pollution has little to do with anything. As for congestion most of it is commuters going to and from work or other local trips, not from people traveling hundreds of miles, so I doubt traffic congestion would be much affected.
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Well, it that particular paragraph I was looking at rail systems in general, but I can see where the confusion comes from. But if you are looking at the pollution issues of HSR then you also have to compare it to the pollution issues of airplanes, the nearest competition in terms of travel distance issues. I don’t see airlines going electric or hydrogen anytime soon, barring some sort of major technological breakthrough that would change all the equations in ways that are pointless to speculate on.
 
Random said:
Well, it that particular paragraph I was looking at rail systems in general, but I can see where the confusion comes from. But if you are looking at the pollution issues of HSR then you also have to compare it to the pollution issues of airplanes, the nearest competition in terms of travel distance issues. I don’t see airlines going electric or hydrogen anytime soon, barring some sort of major technological breakthrough that would change all the equations in ways that are pointless to speculate on.
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HSR only competes with short-hop airline service, it can't do NY-LA in 5 hours or cross oceans. And in short hops it also competes with automobiles, often unfavorably. While HSR could theoretically get you 250 miles in an hour, realistically you have to drive 45 minutes to the train station, allow half an hour to get through security (and it will have airport-style security), then when you get to your destination you might have to rent a car anyway. May as well spend 4 hours driving that 250 miles, especially if you have companions to split the gas bill.
 
Muldur said:
lets see...one train to carry 100s of people from a to b, vs 100s of cars/trucks to carry them the same distance...

I wouldn't call that "inferior capabilities".
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I would, when the train can't take me where OR when I want to go. But I guess when you don't care about individual freedom, only the objectives of some central planners, then stuff like that doesn't matter.

The fact that you wouldn't call it inferior says much more about your priorities than it does about rail's capabilities.
 
WildCat said:
HSR, which is what we're discussing.
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Thank you for clarifying that. However, my original claim was to only use high-speed rails to connect populated areas and normal rail lines to connect to the high-speed rail lines: cheaper, more efficient, and easier. Again I see no reason why a pragmatic approach like this could not work.
 
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