Into the Night
Verified User
Remember the success metric in government is not profit. It's to justify itself. If it has to manufacture a 'crisis' for it to appear to 'solve' (without actually solving it!), that what it will do.
High speed trains are racing across the world. But not in America
- Thread starter signalmankenneth
- Start date
Remember the success metric in government is not profit. It's to justify itself. If it has to manufacture a 'crisis' for it to appear to 'solve' (without actually solving it!), that what it will do.
Into the Night
Verified User
High speed passenger trains don't make any sense in the States. There is simply too much area to cover for it to be practical, particularly in a world with airplanes and freeways.
Trains DO make sense for that boring cargo though. Things like coal, oil, wheat, corn, etc. They can pull a profit hauling stuff like that.
There is a fundamental difference between passengers and cargo:
Cargo you have to load and unload yourself.
Passengers load and unload themselves, but they whine.
It is better to reduce the whining to a few hours on a plane than to put up with it for several days on a train.
Trains DO make sense for that boring cargo though. Things like coal, oil, wheat, corn, etc. They can pull a profit hauling stuff like that.
There is a fundamental difference between passengers and cargo:
Cargo you have to load and unload yourself.
Passengers load and unload themselves, but they whine.
It is better to reduce the whining to a few hours on a plane than to put up with it for several days on a train.
Into the Night
Verified User
Right up until the tube collapses like a pop can.
How are you going to maintain the seal, genius? Or are you planning to never let passengers on or off.
I don't think you've thought this through.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
And, that can happen in some science fiction novel, but it isn't happening in real life any time in the next century at a minimum. Try to maintain a vacuum on a tunnel say, 18 feet in diameter, 500 miles long with let's say, just two stations one at each end.
First, the train itself has to be sealed to keep an atmosphere in it for the passengers. And, that atmosphere has to be maintained at some reasonable level of comfort. Every penetration of the cars is a potential leak. Every seam of metal, is a potential leak. Evey seal between two materials is a potential leak.
Then you have to evacuate the tunnel. That's roughly 150 million cubic feet of volume you have to pump all the air out of. Then the tunnel has to be sealed to a degree that keeps it that way, or has sufficient pumping going on to remove all leakage as it occurs.
Then there's the two stations... You have to seal the tunnel in such a way that the train enters say, a lock, has the air pumped out, then enters the atmospheric station to discharge and load passengers. Then you have to do the same to put the train back in the tunnel. All the while, the vacuum has to be maintained.
The whole of this would be ungodly expensive and difficult to maintain. If there were any problem with the train or tunnel while the train was in it, it could result in a serious disaster.
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serendipity
Verified User
Planning to take that train from Vientiane to Luang Prabang next month
Government often runs businesses better for everyone than does private enterprise, mostly because private enterprise ALWAYS has the profitability for a relative very, very few in mind.
Our nation is failing not for the reasons you suspect, TA, but because the American Right will not get out of the way of progress.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Trains work okay in countries that are much smaller than ones like the US, Russia, or even China. In large countries they become expensive and horribly inefficient.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Name one business run by government that is done better than private enterprise. A business run that loses money, be it by government or the private sector, is one that likely should go out of business.
And, yes, the US is failing in good part to the presence of too much government.
Those numbers are from a decade ago. Things have only gotten worse in that respect, not better.
Now, I'm not saying we don't need some regulation of business, we do. But we've reached a point where government regulation is a net drain on business and a serious one. It has made many things nearly impossible to do simply because the cost of meeting the regulations exceeds the value of what is to be done.
Progress is not made by more government either.
Florida's Orlando - Miami HSR just took its innaugural run yesterday...
https://www.gobrightline.com/
It's not 300 mph but it goes over 100 mph.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
sounds like a firm socialist precept....
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
Middle America will not support public transportation
because bubbas think "normal people"
other than those haughty coastal elites
only ride around in pickups.
As a result, compared to the modern world, the US has disgraceful public transportation.
Other than trying with virtually no success to share a national government,
Coastal America and Middle America
are culturally two completely different nations.
To a Bostonian, the UK actually feels less like a foreign nation than the rural south or interior.
because bubbas think "normal people"
other than those haughty coastal elites
only ride around in pickups.
As a result, compared to the modern world, the US has disgraceful public transportation.
Other than trying with virtually no success to share a national government,
Coastal America and Middle America
are culturally two completely different nations.
To a Bostonian, the UK actually feels less like a foreign nation than the rural south or interior.
Name one business run by government that is done better than private enterprise. A business run that loses money, be it by government or the private sector, is one that likely should go out of business.
And, yes, the US is failing in good part to the presence of too much government.
Those numbers are from a decade ago. Things have only gotten worse in that respect, not better.
Now, I'm not saying we don't need some regulation of business, we do. But we've reached a point where government regulation is a net drain on business and a serious one. It has made many things nearly impossible to do simply because the cost of meeting the regulations exceeds the value of what is to be done.
Progress is not made by more government either.
Put Medicare or Social Security in the hands of private enterprise...and several more billionaires will be come into existence...and both services will be much the worse.
You are being kidded, TA...and you are the one doing the kidding.
From a guy who has long self identified as a socialist, more recently as a Progressive (non-Utopian).
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
you're free to identify as anything you want........you aren't bound by antiquated restrictions like self respect......
I am a Free Man....one of the last....of course I am free.
In other news water is wet.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
except for a cousin in prison for embezzlement, everyone I know is......
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Assuming the revenue projection was correct in The Tampa to Orlando High-Speed Rail Project: A Taxpayer Risk Assessment (The Reason Revenue Report Scenario) the annual deficit would be from $113 million to $321 million.
https://reason.org/policy-brief/sti... been the responsibility of Florida taxpayers.
So, a high speed rail line opens that's horribly unprofitable. Typical Leftist stupidity. Bet it would be cheaper to just buy each regular passenger a Tesla...
Tampa is not Miami.
Completely different tourism dynamic at play.
Typical right-wing stupidity.
Also, the system is financed, built, owned and operated by a private company so it's beyond me how it qualifies in your "mind" as "leftist".
Yet more typical right-wing stupidity.
Amtrak generally now moves slower than our trains did back when we had steam engines.