-------------------- "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the Earth all one's life." Posts: 506 | From: Wisconsin | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not much meat in that article......just restates what most of us here know already and then has a partial list of some potential high-speed corridors.
What's sad is that many people reading just what the USA Today provides will now consider themselves 'well-informed' on the high-speed rail issue.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Unfortunately, David, most people who are not interested in riding trains just do not seek to become well informed on the high-speed issue. Perhaps the USA Today article will spark a bit of interest in some of them to explore the issue in more depth.
The vast majority of newspaper and magazine articles on trains tell us on the forum little we do not already know. But the growing number of thse articles does indicate that the media has become interested, therefore the reading public knows a little more than it used to, and that's all to the good for us.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Of the seven projects listed, only one is anything but a study, and it is more an example of failure than of success. That one is Illinois:
quote:Chicago-St. Louis. Illinois has completed less than 50% of track improvements that will eventually cut 90 minutes off the 5½-hour train ride, says Mike Claffey of the Illinois Department of Transportation.
I do not recall when this started, but it has been something like 3 to 5 years ago, maybe longer, and consisted of the most minimal of upgrades to track and signals.
Of the others, the first three are maglev proposals that as boondoggles exceed the famous "bridge to no where" The remaining three consist of a study in Georgia, which has steadfastly refused to fund an almost giveaway cheap commuter section, one in Colorado, and Mica's private funding of the northeast corridor hallucination.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
So they want to raise the average speed of CHI-STL from 51.6 mph to 71 mph. And some people still claim that duplicating the NEC won't work; 71 mph is an average speed common to Regionals, and is achievable with Superliner IIs hauled by P42DCs. (Meanwhile, Deutsche Bahn is running at average speeds faster than the Acela Express in some corridors, using InterCity trailer cars hauled by their version of the ALP-46.)
Posts: 566 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
