President Obama announced Thursday that the federal government will spend $8 billion developing a nationwide high-speed train system.
Yeah. California is going to get money to start design and site work on its high-speed railroad project between Sacremento and San Diego, the only truly high-speed project, as trains would go 220mph.
As for the rest? Not so much. Vermont will get money to upgrade the trackage for the Vermonter, so it can travel up to 79mph. That's nothing to sneeze at; the Vermonter takes nearly four hours to travel from White River Junction, VT to Springfield, MA. A decent driver on the paralleling interstate can make the trip in two hours or less. But still, 79mph last qualified as "high-speed rail" in the 19th Century.
The project in Illinois for high-speed rail between Chicago and St. Louis calls for train speeds of 110mph, which was impressive before the Second World War. 46 years ago, the Japanese bullet trains began running at 125mph and now run at 180+mph. The French TGV runs as fast. Even the Acela, which can hit 150mph, has an average speed that is akin to the old CB&Q Zephyrs in the 1960s.
We are so far behind in train technology that we might as well be still using steam. $8 billion is a welcome start, but it is still a drop in the bucket.
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
7 comments:
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I'd love it if high speed rail could semi-replace airline travel.
ReplyDeleteBut my vision includes driving your car onto a rail car so you can make giant leaps across a state at a time at 200-ish miles an hour. Park the car, get out, hit the dinner car, drive off, mount up for the next state, etc.
Anybody that's driven across South Dakota will probably get what I'm talking about.
Justin, have you ever taken the Auto-Train?
ReplyDeleteDear Miss Fit:
ReplyDeleteI defer, of course, to your vastly more extensive knowledge of all things railroad-ish, but my impression is that it is not so much that we're "behind" in rail technology but that our roadbeds are, like all of our infrastructure, sadly deteriorated and our rights of way are outdated, unacceptably sinuous, and thus incompatible with TGV-like speeds.
Am I squared away on that or are there other issues on which I am so far uninformed?
Warm regards,
Frank
Frank, as far as I know, we also do not currently have the capability to build the trainsets in this country. The Acela was built by Bombardier.
ReplyDeleteAnd Washington State's governor is unduly impressed with the cash to get our Amtrack trains running a whole NINETY miles per hour...hold onto your hats, boys and girls! Whooooeeee, it will take a whole 10 minutes off the trip from Seattle to Portland.
ReplyDelete::::turns off sarcasm font:::
Think you're right, E.B. Both EMD and the other guys [still GE?] build the locomotives in Canada.
ReplyDeleteGood thing we moved all those messy plants and things out of the country, huh?
I seem to recall that GE assembles its locomotives in Erie, PA.
ReplyDelete