Fast enough trains in the right places would be a tremendous improvement over what we have available in most areas.
I feel like the author of this article is a little too optimistic about how well the efforts to improve exisiting service is going though. The areas where significant improvements are being made are still mostly isolated pockets with little or no connectivity to other corridors.
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
I think Mr. Longman has made a good argument. Any high speed train project, whether a "bullet train" or true high speed train would implore huge spending for dedicated, new track. I think, in this day and age, it is beyond economic reason. Maybe another time.
I agree with his view on the Cascades. I sometimes wonder about having a Talgo train run, round-trip, from Seattle to LA and make the Coast Starlight an all- pullman triain, starting out early in the morning (from LA) with very limited stops along the way.
Richard
Posted by Vincent206 (Member # 15447) on :
I'm dreaming of the day when Talgos are running at 110 mph along the Cascades corridor. I recently had to make an unexpected trip to Portland and Amtrak didn't have any seats available so I had to drive. It's been a couple of years since I've done that road trip and I hope it will be many more years before I have to do it again. The trip down was on a Sunday morning and there was an overturned semi near Tacoma that backed up traffic for 3 miles. I had the radio on and got to hear an advertisement for Amtrak that talked about how relaxing it is to take the train. Amen! Then another accident near Longview. So the trip down took longer than the train trip. The return trip was done in a heavy rainstorm, which made driving difficult and stressful. Again, the trip was longer than the train's schedule. So, I guess there are lots of people who are just fine with the Cascades 79mph service (one of the trains I wanted was sold-out), but I know they'd be even happier with 110 mph service. I'll keep dreamin'.
Posted by TwinStarRocket (Member # 2142) on :
I like the term PDQR used on another forum: Pretty Darn Quick Rail.
Posted by irishchieftain (Member # 1473) on :
Why does the article claim that "Republicans have torpedoed plans for American bullet trains" when no such plans were ever presented?
Of course, with the biased links on the right side of the article, we all know which way this publication leans, and heavily so. They leave out niggling details about the social engineering that the European Union is actually planning, on many different levels (they're now planning to increase taxes on road freight transportation in order to induce a return of freight to the rails, which ironically is not unlike how both major parties in this country socially-engineered things in order to make it less profitable to ship by rail versus road).
The liberals were never going to institute true high speed rail, and they sure won't be of help when it comes to getting any passenger rail service anywhere near 110 mph. They used to brag about the Metroliner MU eventually reaching 160 mph (evidence in the lead article of the March 1969 edition of the Penn Central Post; good read), but as for delivering on such promises, all hot air.
Posted by George Harris (Member # 2077) on :
What is also missing is that for much of the country the existing railroad alignments do not have that much potential for speed increase without major investment in realignments, grade separations, additional tracks, etc., etc. If we are going to have to spend about 2/3 the money you would need to have for high speed rail but only get about 1/10 the benefit you would get from high speed rail, that is not wise investment.
The San Joaquin train service down the Central Valley in California is a good example. About all that can be done at reasonable cost has been done. There have been station improvements, some speeded up crossovers and turnouts, and some sections of second main. To go much faster than now, 79 mph speed limit, approximately 50 mph end to end average speed with stops, would require a massive investment. Raising the speed limit to 90 mph or even 110 mph would gain very little. There is already outstanding cooperation from BNSF. The normal operation is to sail right by freights sitting in sidings.
To gain much more speed and reliability would require full double track, lots of money on grade seperations, curve realignments, etc. In particular, the slow ends at the north would require a near complete rebuild between Richmond CA and Martinez. Likewise, to go through to Los Angeles in reasonable time would require a complete rebuild between Bakersfield and about Burbank. By the time you do that last you are within a few dollars of what the High Speed would cost between the same points.