signalmankenneth
Verified User
I don't think I will live to see high speed rail in this country?!! All of does tax cuts for the rich over the years, might have paid for a high speed rail system too?!! My favorite high speed train is France’s TGV, at over 300mph, you drink a glass of champagne on a table and there is no spillage, it's that smooth?!!
CNN —
High speed trains have proved their worth across the world over the past 50 years.
It’s not just in reducing journey times, but more importantly, it’s in driving economic growth, creating jobs and bringing communities closer together. China, Japan and Europe lead the way.
So why doesn’t the United States have a high-speed rail network like those?
For the richest and most economically successful nation on the planet, with an increasingly urbanized population of more than 300 million, it’s a position that is becoming more difficult to justify.
Although Japan started the trend with its Shinkansen “Bullet Trains” in 1964, it was the advent of France’s TGV in the early 1980s that really kick-started a global high-speed train revolution that continues to gather pace.
But it’s a revolution that has so far bypassed the United States. Americans are still almost entirely reliant on congested highways or the headache-inducing stress of an airport and airline network prone to meltdowns.
China has built around 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers) of dedicated high-speed railways since 2008 and plans to top 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) by 2035.
Meanwhile, the United States has just 375 route-miles of track cleared for operation at more than 100 mph.
“Many Americans have no concept of high-speed rail and fail to see its value. They are hopelessly stuck with a highway and airline mindset,” says William C. Vantuono, editor-in-chief of Railway Age, North America’s oldest railroad industry publication.
Cars and airliners have dominated long-distance travel in the United States since the 1950s, rapidly usurping a network of luxurious passenger trains with evocative names such as “The Empire Builder,” “Super Chief” and “Silver Comet.”
Deserted by Hollywood movie stars and business travelers, famous railroads such as the New York Central were largely bankrupt by the early 1970s, handing over their loss-making trains to Amtrak, the national passenger train operator founded in 1971.
In the decades since that traumatic retrenchment, US freight railroads have largely flourished. Passenger rail seems to have been a very low priority for US lawmakers.
Powerful airline, oil and auto industry lobbies in Washington have spent millions maintaining that superiority, but their position is weakening in the face of environmental concerns and worsening congestion.
US President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill includes an unprecedented $170 billion for improving railroads.
Some of this will be invested in repairing Amtrak’s crumbling Northeast Corridor (NEC) linking Boston, New York and Washington.
There are also big plans to bring passenger trains back to many more cities across the nation – providing fast, sustainable travel to cities and regions that have not seen a passenger train for decades.
Add to this the success of the privately funded Brightline operation in Florida, which has been given the green light to build a $10 billion high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by 2027, plus schemes in California, Texas and the proposed Cascadia route linking Portland, Oregon, with Seattle and Vancouver, and the United States at last appears to be on the cusp of a passenger rail revolution.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/high-speed-rail-us/index.html
CNN —
High speed trains have proved their worth across the world over the past 50 years.
It’s not just in reducing journey times, but more importantly, it’s in driving economic growth, creating jobs and bringing communities closer together. China, Japan and Europe lead the way.
So why doesn’t the United States have a high-speed rail network like those?
For the richest and most economically successful nation on the planet, with an increasingly urbanized population of more than 300 million, it’s a position that is becoming more difficult to justify.
Although Japan started the trend with its Shinkansen “Bullet Trains” in 1964, it was the advent of France’s TGV in the early 1980s that really kick-started a global high-speed train revolution that continues to gather pace.
But it’s a revolution that has so far bypassed the United States. Americans are still almost entirely reliant on congested highways or the headache-inducing stress of an airport and airline network prone to meltdowns.
China has built around 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers) of dedicated high-speed railways since 2008 and plans to top 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) by 2035.
Meanwhile, the United States has just 375 route-miles of track cleared for operation at more than 100 mph.
“Many Americans have no concept of high-speed rail and fail to see its value. They are hopelessly stuck with a highway and airline mindset,” says William C. Vantuono, editor-in-chief of Railway Age, North America’s oldest railroad industry publication.
Cars and airliners have dominated long-distance travel in the United States since the 1950s, rapidly usurping a network of luxurious passenger trains with evocative names such as “The Empire Builder,” “Super Chief” and “Silver Comet.”
Deserted by Hollywood movie stars and business travelers, famous railroads such as the New York Central were largely bankrupt by the early 1970s, handing over their loss-making trains to Amtrak, the national passenger train operator founded in 1971.
In the decades since that traumatic retrenchment, US freight railroads have largely flourished. Passenger rail seems to have been a very low priority for US lawmakers.
Powerful airline, oil and auto industry lobbies in Washington have spent millions maintaining that superiority, but their position is weakening in the face of environmental concerns and worsening congestion.
US President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill includes an unprecedented $170 billion for improving railroads.
Some of this will be invested in repairing Amtrak’s crumbling Northeast Corridor (NEC) linking Boston, New York and Washington.
There are also big plans to bring passenger trains back to many more cities across the nation – providing fast, sustainable travel to cities and regions that have not seen a passenger train for decades.
Add to this the success of the privately funded Brightline operation in Florida, which has been given the green light to build a $10 billion high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by 2027, plus schemes in California, Texas and the proposed Cascadia route linking Portland, Oregon, with Seattle and Vancouver, and the United States at last appears to be on the cusp of a passenger rail revolution.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/high-speed-rail-us/index.html
