At least with younger folk yeah. Only people that hate trains are boomers and weirdos who think gasoline is the second manliest thing other than trump. It’s a huge project though, don’t know if I’ll ever live to see New York connected to Texas by high speed rail
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Considering railroads have done over $200 billion in stock buybacks (about the cost for coast to coast high speed rail) I think it’s very possible, we just have to nationalize.
It’s very profitable to run a railroad into the ground and push as much shipping to trucks as you can.
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Only people that hate trains are boomers and weirdos who think gasoline is the second manliest thing other than trump.
Mass transit has also burned quite a few people with reliability. The train not showing up on time was regular enough I had to stop using it to go to work. There is only so many times you can be late to work before it becomes your fault for not fixing the issue; in my case, by no longer taking the train and driving instead.
That's not an argument against trains, it's an argument for running them well.
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For long distance trains, check out the fact that the rules give mega-long cargo trains priority over passenger trains on Amtrak. This results in negative impacts to present rail.
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I mean, NY is already connected to Texas https://www.amtrak.com/plan-your-trip.html
Assuming all of those tracks (or comparable ones) are upgraded: It would still likely not be something someone wants to take as opposed to a direct flight. Because the train would likely need to stop in New Jersy, DC, Virgina, Charlotte, and Atlanta before you change trains to get to Houston or Dallas.
Which... is normal. That is how trains work. I always reference it, but Makoto Shinkai's works LOVE the imagery of someone frantically trying to navigate an imperfect public transportation system to get to the one they love. And... that is reality. Even in Japan (basically the gold standard for public transportation) you are changing trains pretty regularly, have a LOT of stops along the way, and may need to do the last leg on a bus route that only runs twice a day.
The problem is that Amtrak doesn't own most or even any of those rails, instead having to pay for the right to use them. The reason why this is a problem is that it's hard to upgrade rails to high speed when you don't own them. Amtrak trains also often have to stop and give passage to freight trains, which is unlike what you'd see in Japan where passenger trains are on their own, dedicated rails.
Flying is such a miserable experience from start to finish that I would opt for rail every time if it was viable, even if it took 3-4 times as long.
I mean, the good news is that you basically already can
Quick check says amtrak from NYP to LAX is 67.5 hours long. Or about 2.79 days
Which is a lot more than a six hour flight. But... that is six hours plus an hour or so on each side (at least) AND is a direct flight, so "one day" is how I would classify that. You aren't doing much in a day when you fly from NY to LA.
Which... is the 3-4x as long that you were asking for.
But hey. Maybe you are cool with spending the vast majority of a week long holiday in a train. I doubt your employers are fine with you spending three days to go to a conference on the west coast and another three days to come back.
The problem today is that it's an order of magnitude longer. Chicago to LA by airplane is 4 hours. Chicago to LA via Amtrak is about 56 hours. I don't know that high speed rail is going to fix that problem, sure it might get it down some, but even a 24 hour train is six times longer than flying.
I say this as someone that takes Amtrak at every opportunity because I enjoy trains and want to see them become viable for more people.
You’re looking at it from a coast to coast perspective when it should really be an intra-state one.
People aren’t regularly traveling from Chicago to La on a daily basis, even by plane. They are traveling within the same state or to nearby states instead.
Dallas-Houston, SF-LA, Miami-Orlando are all distances that people have to drive/fly to on a daily basis that could easily be replaced by hsr.
I don't disagree, regional high speed is where it's gotta start.
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It still blows my mind that there's only about 50 miles of "high speed" (greater than 125mph) transit in the US, and that's only in a small pocket in tbe Northeast. For reference, the EU has over 2,200 mi of high speed rail in half the physical size running at up to 186mph.
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They better fucking not be running on steam...
Steam engines are eco-friendly. Coal in, water vapor out. Voila 😅
We could run steam engines off overhead electric lines using a good old heating element.
Would it be efficient or practical (or safe)? No.
But it'd be SIICKKKKK
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If the article title asks a question, the answer is always NO.
Betteridge's law of headlines
Except this one's answer is yes?
They gave examples of new high-speed rail coming online within the next few years. This year, 2028, and 2030...
If you have to ask, the answer is no
I’ve been hearing these stories for decades. I won’t hold my breath.
America well adopt high speed trains en masse the year Linux becomes mainstream
So we need Valve to make gaming on trains better?
Well, Factorio is doing pretty well on Steam. That may help.
2026?
Love to see it but can't help but be disappointed bigger projects aren't planned from Chicago. I don't understand why it will take me twice as long to take the train to New Orleans than drive or why there is only a single running east per day.
I'd love to see the US fully mapped out with true highspeed rail, but part of the problem is the amount of time off work Americans have. We're guaranteed nothing, and a pretty good portion of us have to use vacation time for sick days. A travel option that takes longer isn't going to take off here because of that. People won't spend an extra day travelling, changing trains, et cetera, when their entire vacation is a 3 day weekend so that they only have to use one vacation day in case they have to take their kid to the doctor 4 months later.
Not even close to arguing against the trains, just saying that we need to change some other shit, too. We need better labor laws that couple with things like forced caps on flights, less subsidiaries for airlines, the tracks being nationalized, priority given to Amtrak on certain lines, and better accessibility on the trains themselves.
Amtrak already has the legal right of way on pretty much all lines it operates on, that's not the issue. The issue is that the cargo companies abuse the shit outta loopholes letting them go ahead anyways by having cargo trains so long that they cannot go onto bypass tracks, forcing Amtrak trains to wait for the cargo train to fully pass before it can continue despite Amtrak having the legal right of way.
It's basically the same thing that happens with 16 wheelers vs pedestrians. A pedestrian might have the legal right of way when the crosswalk signal is going, but that doesn't matter because that 16 wheeler isn't gonna stop in time to avoid hitting them when it's going at 40MPH. Physics beats laws every time.
I'd argue that it could be used as a more cost effective transport for businesses as well as government employees that need to travel on a regular basis. If time isnt an issue, it could be pretty viable.
Aside from that, retired folks would also be a good market for this. Thats all i got tho. I absolutely agree we need some change to labor laws. We work to live, not live to work.
We can only hope.
What happened to hyperloop? 🤣 🤣
Turns out making a low-pressure vacuum tube that spans 100+ miles, but lets small pods full of people be inserted on demand, was way harder and more expensive than predicted, making it poorly price competitive with existing technology like high-speed rail. For some reason.
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I won't hold my breathe until there is major progress, but all these plans will get thrown in the trash if Republicans regain the White House and if Democrats don't either take control of Congress or at least make gains. Republicans have been trying to kill of Amtrak and any US rail improvements for decades now.
Like with seemingly everything else, if Republicans are involved, they will stubbornly try to hold us back come hell or high water.
Damn the ending makes it sound like Dr. Frankenstein is zapping his monster with a little bit of electricity from his AA battery.
Brightline is cool, but not cool. It's shiny, new, has all the things you want to see on high speed rail but didn't feel like high speed rail.
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