Posted on 09/05/2010 12:29:40 PM PDT by Willie Green
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Spanish trains whisk passengers from Madrid to Barcelona in little more than two and one-half hours. Japan has bullet trains. China is building a vast network of high-speed rail routes, including the recently opened line between Guangzhou and Wuhan, which covers 1,070 kilometers at the world’s fastest average speed.
Soon, perhaps, the United States, with the world’s largest economy will also clamber on board. So far, the United States — in spite of or perhaps because of its vast size — has virtually no fast trains capable of moving swiftly enough over a long distance to compete with airplanes.
That could change over the next decade. President Barack Obama has declared high-speed rail to be a priority. He is interested, he has said, in “innovations that change the way we travel in America” through the creation of cleaner, energy-saving options. The economic stimulus package provided $8 billion toward the development of high-speed rail. Another $2.3 billion in government awards should be announced this autumn, using money from the budget.
Soon, the U.S. government will publish its first-ever national rail plan, laying out a vision for the future of freight and passenger rail. It is supposed to be released by Sept. 15, but a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, Warren Flatau, said in an e-mail that Congress had recently requested an “additional level of specificity in the document,” and the agency is studying how to proceed to provide a thorough and timely report.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Putting people to work on projects that consumers don't want is not only a waste of money, it is also a diversion of raw materials and capital from products that consumers do want.
Spending billions on rail will cause prices on those items to rise just as surely as building too many houses caused building materials to rocket in price. It will cause profitable businesses to have to compete with the unneeded rail for the capital goods that keep them in business.
There are a lot of knock-on consequences to the economy that the administration and the train-bugs don't realize, don't understand and probably don't care about.
Yep, exactly. Who is going to transport the people from their home to the rail station? Another train?
Beat me to the point that it seemed like a good idea in 1869. http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/rail.html
Not really. Watch this. Pretty damn impressive . . . those Germans.
Hopefully, Scott will win the Governor race in Florida and immediately deep 6 the stupid train between the Tampa area to Orlando. Time/motion studies have already determined at best, the time savings would be only 5 minutes but the cost would be far more considering having to rent a car or find other transportation to where exactly it was you were leaving from and where it was you were going.
we could use high speed freight trains to move goods around the US faster but high speed passenger rail doesn’t have bang for the buck.
How much private property will need to be seized by obamy in order for this to be built? How much private money will need to be seized by obamy in order for this to be built?
We'll all be better off if the Feds converts the money that would be spent into $100 bills and start a big bonfire on the Capital Mall.
It would be a spectacle. Bread and circus style. But the landscape would not be disrupted, and we would not be importing rolling stock from outside the US and when the fire burns out it's over. There's no maintenance costs, with USPO like service and costs to operate.
Sure trains whisk people around Europe at high speed. Take for example the Paris to Strasburg run. It's 120e per person each way, or 480e for two per round trip. We rented a car for the same trip for 100e, including fuel and way more versatile.
Now in Italy, with large population centers within 150 miles of each other the trains work well, but they are cheap.
Same logic applies here, large population centers within close proximity, cheap fares. Come up a proposal that includes all this, then we'll listen.
Pure porn for machine design engineers like me. It really displays the difference in rail maintenance there than here as I have seen on lots of CSX lines.
You say that like you think you're going to convince him its a bad thing. If there's one thing I know about people it's this: If it's their pet project, they don't care how much others have to be forced to pay for it.
Boondoggle
How much will it cost, Willie? How many trillions of dollars do we have to spend? Give a number - something you have NEVER done.
My husband works for our local human cattle car authority here.
We don’t use it.
Same logic applies here, large population centers within close proximity, cheap fares. Come up a proposal that includes all this, then we'll listen.
Dallas/Fort Worth - Oklahoma City - Wichita
Portland - Seattle - Vancouver
Atlanta - Chattanooga - Nashville - Chicago
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus
There's some others in Florida and California.
We are not “behind” in the development of high-speed rail; to be “behind” infers that you are in the race, but if you don’t care to be in the race, you can’t be “behind”.
We also have offices in Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton.
I guarantee you that our lawyers would not use high-speed rail to go from office to office because of their tight schedules.
Waste of money.
As far as public transit in Cleveland, people have been riding for too cheap for too long.
I don’t enjoy public transportation for multiple reasons.
I want to be on my schedule.
I also don’t want to sit next or near anyone else for hours. I like my private space/time in my car where I can do want I want without having to worry about disturbing others.
I guarantee you that our lawyers would not use high-speed rail to go from office to office because of their tight schedules.
While riding the train, the lawyers could do whatever it is they do on their laptops.
It would be a more productive use of their time than driving a car and having to focus all of their attention on traffic.
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