Posted on 08/08/2010 5:59:18 AM PDT by Willie Green
My experience on the Acela between Philadelphia and NYC has been great, much better than air travel these days for short (<300 mile) trips. I dread having to travel the fifteen-hundred miles I face to visit my son, at least by plane - so looked into train - but at this time, proved to be too expensive (needing sleeper compartment for one leg) and too long to be practical. So, I don’t do it at all. A 250-300 mph train would get me on the track.
I like the idea of creating parabolic static evacuated maglev tunnels between cities that employed maglev shuttles to transport people and cargo between them for very little energy input. Drop a shuttle from one terminus, which would gravitationally pick up speed through the perigee, and then slow as it rose to the terminal apogee. Add sufficient energy to account for friction losses, or provide initial boost acceleration, and terminal breaking (perhaps energy scavenging) for better time performance, and you have a very energy efficient, rapid transport system between earth nodes.
Now, while tunneling the earth is probably expensive and difficult, providing engineered parabolic maglev tubes and shuttles through the oceans is likely not exorbitant, and could give ocean going freight a run for the money right now. Would be a good start to challenging the earth moving system.
I don’t believe I asked you to pay for anything. Perhaps you should read posts before replying to them.
I said that in principle, high-speed trains are a great idea: comfortable and pleasant to travel on and in many ways a preferable alternative to a plane. The original article states that these lines can operate at a profit: naturally serious cost-analysis needs to be done from a business perspective, and loans (as with many big infrastructure projects) would presumably be needed initially. Nothing wrong with tbis if they’re furnished on a business level and paid back to the lending institution.
It may be that in many parts of the US, such a project wouldn’t be financially viable in an open, competitive market, for a number of different reasons: if so, so be it. Doesn’t stop me appreciating the USE of such a system in another country: which I - unlike the taxpayers there - pay for if I choose to use it, and not if I don’t (as is right and proper).
Do some of you people just trawl through threads trying to find something you can disagree with for the sake of it?
Can’t be bothered to write another similar reply. See my above post. Final comment applies to you too.
PS: you pay/owe ‘debts’ with a ‘b’. ‘depts’ = ‘departments’.
No, I’m sick of so called conservatives who think that 19th century method of transportation is so wonderful that WE THE TAXPAYERS have to pay for your travel needs..
LOL! Can you IMAGINE how huge the liability lawsuits would be for a train crash at those speeds?
Presumably, the same size as an airline crash at 300 mph...
Gratuitous assertion.
Anyway, there are a lot of great, nifty, futuristic, classy ideas. They are just not supported in the free market. Neither are pumpkin coaches, zeppelins, nor free power sail cargo ships.
How far do you want to take that argument? Who pays for the roads? If I don’t have a car and choose to walk to work each day, why should my taxes pay for the roads so you can drive? The question is not ‘should the taxpayer pay for anything?’ it’s ‘where is it reasonable to draw the line?’
FTR I don’t believe I stated that the taxpayer should be paying for High-Speed Rail, in any case. I’m interested in the possibility (stated in the opening article) that it can operate at a profit. I don’t entirely agree with you that this is a 19th century transport system. I’d like to see more info and figures. It might well be, of course, that in many parts of the US, this isn’t feasible, as man here clearly believe.
We pay for the roads via gas and tolls... Plain and simple..
It’s not, unfortunately. Check the figures. For 2009:
Altogether in the U.S., 69.6% of roadway funding ($79.6 billion) came from fuel taxes and 30.1% ($33.4 billion) from other funding sources. The other funding sources are most typically general tax revenue.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States#Federal_taxes
That’s $33.4 billion federal taxpayer dollars. No problems with that from my personal perspective (I have a car and drive), but the original point of principle stands.
This was the idea behind Dr. Robert H. Goddard’s PhD Dissertation. In later years he was the American pioneer of rocketry for war and space travel.
What are we waiting for?
“Spain spent $1 Trillion for their fancy train system”
They are also bankrupt!
The stage coach made the horse obsolete, the train made the stage coach obsolete, and the car made the train obsolete!!
Don’t go backwards and especially don’t spend one cent of taxpayers money on your historic folly!
| date | age | event |
|---|---|---|
| 1909-1911 | 27-29 | Fellow in Physics, Clark University, Master's thesis "Theory of Diffraction", 1910; Ph.D. thesis "On the Conduction of Electricity at Contacts of Dissimilar Solids", 1911. |
I guess it wasn’t his dissertation, thanks for the correction. I do know that he carried out theoretical studies on the subject.
Let me know, I would be very interested. I did not see any entry in Wikipedia on this. We have technology now to do pretty long tunnels (31 miles, chunnel; 33 miles, Seikan; 35 miles, Swiss Gotthard Base Tunnel). The Seikan goes down to 790 feet below sea level, at deepest, so is a 1% grade perhaps. That would start a ball rolling.
free lunch is a ‘great idea’ also.
it’s easy to attack me - but perhaps you should do a little more research before YOU comment on a post.
For instance, check on the negative impact on freight rail operations.
as taxpayers we should know we always end up with the bill for failed gov’t projects.
This is not a gov’t. project you say....then why hasn’t the market moved forward on its own?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.