Posted on 08/08/2014 5:26:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Obama administration has spent almost $11 billion to build a high-speed rail system that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Since 2009, the president has been pushing for the United States to have a bullet-train-like system similar to those found in Europe and Asia, but a combination of setbacks and dwindling support from states and Congress has slowed the project to a halt, The New York Times first reported.
Just last month, Congress rejected the administration’s request for an additional $10 billion for high-speed rail and last year, three governors canceled their federal funding for the projects—deeming them too expensive and unnecessary.
Critics of the administration blame the project’s derailment on the Obama administration, which, they say, made the mistake of spending money on upgrading existing Amtrak rails, which only go up to 110 miles per hour, instead of investing directly into new projects.
Right now, the closest thing the United States has to a bullet train is the Acela, which serves the Northeastern corridor. Still, Acela only averages 80 miles per hour and can reach up to 150 mph for just 10 minutes compared to the average top speed of high-speed trains in Europe that can reach 220 mph. According to The Times, it would cost upwards of $150 billion and 26 more years for the Acela to ever reach that.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefiscaltimes.com ...
The only hope for now high-speed rail rests with California.
Let’s see how it works there...
A payoff to the unions.
The only reason I would ever spend money on a train ride is to send my stepdaughter on a one way trip to Siberia.
Back when Amtrak was first deciding which train to buy to upgrade its fleet in the early 1990s, they thought about buying a true "bullet train" that would go 200 mph, but the issue was and remains the tracks. The track beds were built 150 years ago. They twist and turn through heavily urban areas and straightening them out and upgrading them would probably cost a trillion dollars. That's why we ended up with Acela. It was the best they could do with the tracks they had. The idea of putting a "bullet train" in any heavily urban area, with tracks that aren't straight enough, is silly. You'd have a bullet train that ran at a top speed of 100 mph just like any other train.
I would never get on anything going 150 MPH that was run by government.
Might as well jump off a cliff.
They’ll build in on the fault line.
How about a bullet train that runs one way south from the US Border to say mexico city. We could build it, make it a mile or so long, have it remote controlled. The passengers can be outbound illegal border crossers. Of course there would be no brakes. The benefits would be we would have continuous employment for those making the engines and cars, a permanent solution to where to house illegal entrants, and a robust economy.
As someone who LOVES traveling by train (I wish I didn’t have to ever get on a plane again), the problem with rail vision in this country is so numerous.
First, this country is so much bigger than any European country. I didn’t really appreciate this until I lived in England for 18 months in the 90’s. A plane from London to Paris or London to Amsterdam was only one hour in the sky. Also, so many of Europe’s train routes were in place BEFORE they starting to grow out their suburbs.
All the supporters of high speed rail here forget one very important thing, the price and ability of the train provider to buy the rights to the path the train needs to take. That pretty much dwarfs the cost of laying track and buying trains.
I really think the only possible solution that could be feasible would be to set up a monorail system that runs along interstate highways, assuming if there is a way to handle engineering over the overpasses. And then you run into the issue of how many really profitable routes could there be here? LA to Las Vegas? Chicago to St. Louis?
Down here in Florida we have a group called All Aboard Florida, who is going to try a mostly private approach linking Miami to WPB and north via the old freight tracks along the east. We’ll see if they get the go-ahead and if it is viable.
I’d love train travel to be successful and profitable. But with the distances involved it just seems so unlikely unless there is some sort of magical solution out there no one else has thought about.
The median household income is roughly $50k, meaning that for ever $1 million that government wastes, it has consumed and destroyed the incomes of all the members of 20 households. $1 billion in waste is the destruction of the total annual income of 20,000 households, $11 billion would be that of 220,000 households.
Under the Keynesian economic theory, when government spends money, it means just as much to the economy as when you or I spend our own money. Taking $11 billion out of the economy in the form of taxes (or in this case, taking about half out in taxes and making up the difference by creating it out of thin air) and paying people to dig holes and fill them up again is, in theory, just as productive as if these same people went to work making autos or home appliances.
Those of us who don’t have academic credentials can clearly see what foolish bunk this theory is.
If Obama would be the one and only passenger, I'd say it would be worth 11 billion of tax payer's money to get him the hell out of here in a hurry.
Aren’t the tracks in part shared with freight, still? If so, your bullet train does as well as a Lamborghini on the Long Island Expressway at 4:30pm on a Friday.
Somewhere, out there, WillieGreen weeps.
Amtrak warm bodies “think about” lots of things. If you’re talking about Japanese bullet trains, they are too wide for US loading gauge, at 11’ 1”. They also don’t tilt. Not to mention that the Shinkansen network in Japan is not the same track gauge as the general railroad network (Shinkansen gauge is 4’ 8½” while the traditional network is 3’ 6”).
Nowhere else in the world does anyone run at “HSR” speeds on the traditional railroads. The top speed on the Berlin-Hamburg railway (probably the closest thing to what the “Northeast Corridor” is trying to be) is 143 mph with tilting trains. If you look at a map of the “Northeast Corridor” though, it has a lot of straight sections even through the urban areas; the “twistiest” part is through eastern Connecticut into Rhode Island.
The Berlin-Hamburg Railway shares tracks with freight and commuter trains, and yet the fastest trains on there get up to an average speed of 118 mph.
If there is a profit motive, someone would build it... like the railroads when they first were chartered.
These days (I know, I am in the RR biz), the robber barrons are scamming every single dollar out there that, at great cost to the taxpayers, is given away in state and federal grant money, and pump it into their infrastructure, often without regard for proper or effective LONG TERM sustainability.
I once went out with a client to count and mark crossties for renewal... grant money was paying for the rehab work and here the guy is marking 80% of the crossties for replacement... when no more than 20% were needed.
You see, railroad ties have a life expectancy... and generally it is 15 to 20 years... though I have seen some ties out there in great shape that are 80 years old...
If you go and put in 80% new ties... guess what happens in 20 years? You have to go and replace 80% of the ties... screw up your surface and line again... and it’s just BAD PRACTICE. But the client didn’t care, it was FREE MONEY!!! and in 20 years, he will be dead and not give a shit if there is a grant to replace all those ties over again.
It’s all corporate cronyism... it really is.
Buffet must need some financial help.
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