Posted on 02/06/2013 8:05:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
High speed rail is moving forward in California, but progress is pretty stagnant around the rest of the country. Still, there are a lot of proposals out there, and when placed on one map, they form an impressive rail network.
This map was put together by California Rail Map, led by Alfred Twu, which combined existing proposals from high speed rail advocacy groups around the US.
The US High Speed Rail Association, a nonprofit trade association, predicts a network similar to this one could be in place by 2030.
Transporation Secretary Ray LaHood has called for a large HSR network, saying it could link 80 percent of Americans within 25 years, for $500 billion.
Based on this map, starting in Los Anglees, a high speed train could get to New York, with stops in Denver and Chicago, in well under 18 hours.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
SeekAndFind ~ Takes me only 5 hours to fly from NY to LA.
Including getting to the airport, parking, cavity searches, waiting for luggage and renting a car at the destination?
Uh, nevermind, you'd have to do those things at the rail terminal...
Gosh! Why that's faster than...um...it used to be.
And in one third of the time you could fly it for a Hell of a lot less money than any HSR would have to charge even with a hefty subsidy from the taxpayers.
Welcome to the liberal mind thought of "moving forward." Choo Choo trains, windmills and electric cars.
stupidest thing anyone ever thought of!
Chicago has been a transportation hub since, well, transportation.
I don’t want any form of transportation that makes it easier for anything to come out of Chicago.
WADR, you misread that. The maglev was, is and always will be experimental. Conventional rail with high-speed operation (186 mph, usually) does get average speeds of 145 mph from end to end.
The only thing driving up the cost for infrastructure is government. A lot of existing railroads are quite straight (curveless) and could support high-speed running with minimal improvements. On top of that, government has gotten in the way of development of technologies that would permit high-speed operation without the additional expense of overhead wire infrastructure. Also funny that our “benevolent” government never thought of combining high-speed rail infrastructure and highway infrastructure, thus driving down the cost for both, yes?
Passenger rail has been a losing proposition ever since the automobile gained popularity, and even more so when air travel came about. Class I railroads in this country were probably only too happy to let the government take their passenger traffic (and pay them for use of their rails to boot!).
I’ll hold out for the personal transporters (ala Star Trek). About as likely to happen as this and the research money would likely be less.
No, like Michelle’s overstuffed ass.
You are indeed correct, it has been for a long time now.
WADR, I don’t like the Luddism argument against trains. Paved roads have been around since long before the Akkadian Empire, but nobody cites a “fourth-millennium BC solution for twenty-first century transportation needs” et cetera. Same applies to water transport; many canals were replaced by railroads, but still many canals remain vital for freight transportation today, never mind river transportation (see the Mississippi’s current plight).
Hoffman Estates? with its country clubs? Hmm. Guess people are a little too good there to drive a short distance to one of the stations on Metra’s Milwaukee District West line to ride the train to Union Station. (They voted Democrat last time, AFAICS.)
Exactly. And now that their unionized, expect many more proposals that will benefit their membership. They claim it’s for security or saving energy, but it’s all about more members and money. I worked for a union years before healthcare but that was one of the issues they kept pushing. The manager finally admitted to me that they would have more members if healthcare was run by gov’t. Sure enough, the unions got exemptions for themselves as soon as they got it forced on everybody else.
“And the last time I checked, AMTRAK was already more expensive than flying.”
Wow, it’s slower, more expensive, and more often than not hopelessly behind schedule*. What’s not to like?
*In Amtrak’s defense this is because it uses the trackage of private railroads, who have no compunctions about holding up an Amtrak train to let one of their freighters through.
railroads are one of the goals of socialists????
On scuddy little passenger car added and subtracted to a freight train when it stops at a town. Drop off car to add or let off passengers. Next train scheduled to stop, add the car and down the road you go. I would suspect this could be accomplished with not more than a few million to study and implement the plan. Then let the railroads run it and I would bet that within a year it would be profitable.
Naa it would never work because Washington would not be in control and not be able to waste billions.
>>>Japan Railways Group monopolizes all of the nominal “private” companies and the freight business is completely monopolized. I wouldn’t follow that lead.
I agree with the freight part. I also agree that JR monopolizes rural areas. The majority of train service in Japan, however, is pretty diversified and people will usually ride private than JR because people still have bed memories of bad service when they were nationalized.
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