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Riding the World's Fastest Train @ 500 kph
angkor writes "Riding the world's fastest train @ 500 kph - some lucky people got a chance to ride on this experimental train. The Japan Times has the story." I like the part where the wheels retract as it starts picking up speed, with the train floating 10cm over the tracks. If only the California high-speed rail system was up and running.
I hate flying. The cramped seats. The claustrophobia. The ridiculous rules about standing and walking around...
I'd much rather travel by train, but it's always been much too slow. Even though these new trains are still slower than flying, they make up the difference quite a bit.
A smooth, relaxing train ride where all seats are Business class or better? Sign me up.
I have been pwned because my
I am just wondering the cultural obsession that the Japanese have with rail systms, if any one has an answer.
Perhaps your question should be "What is the reason for the lack of a good rail system in the USA?" Lots of places in the world have good rail transport, not just Japan, virtually all of Europe too.
but can it be made safe against terrorists?
No. We should never do anything ever again, just in case someone decides to break it.
Mass transit it not economical for most of the US given the population density, or lack therof.
Have you factored in the costs of roads, highway patrols, wrecks, ambulances, and the whole taxpayer-funded infrastructure that props up the federal highway system? Mass transit isn't economical, period (if you mean profitable as a stand-alone enterprise.) The Interstates are even less "economical" because (excepting toll roads,) you don't pay to get on. You can't make the comparison until you've factored in costs such as these. Pollution should be counted in as well. If hundreds of thousands took public transport, would auto insurance premiums change? You still have to insure the sucker to put it on the street, but if you don't use it as often, odds of an accident should go down. Whether rates would go down is a differnt story.
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Freeper Logic
TGV :
:
Commercial : 360kph
Record : 515kph
Maglev
Commercial : none
Record : 550kph (as stated in the article)
High speed rail is great in dense Japan, but for California it's a waste. Rail's big cost is all that land and that fancy rail on it that, for any given piece of land, is only actively put to work a tiny fraction of the time.
They always talk about how the train would be competitive in downtown to downtown. That's because they ignore the fact you could put the high speed train from the downtown to the airport for a fraction of the price, and check you in on the train to drop you off in the secured area.
So run the high speed rail within the bay area and the L.A. basin where it makes sense, but seriously, are we going to see the desired traffic from Fresno to Modesto to justify the cost?
And it's an even worse terrorist target than the planes, since you can't guard the whole track, and a slight problem can cause a catastrophe at that speed.
Catering to those in the cities? That's funny, I happen to live in a large city with a terrible mass transit system (Los Angeles).
Japan needed something to spend money on after World War II in order to get people re-employed. And they weren't allowed to spend it on building up a huge military, so they spent it on public works projects like the shinkansen (high-speed electric rail).
No one has ever told America that she's not allowed to spend money on military growth. Maybe if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars on the cold war, we would have a great national train system right now. Instead, all we have had to show for it is a collection of weapons that are only useful against a giant enemy that doesn't exist anymore and hundreds of thousands of out of work government defense contractors (most of those lost their jobs in the early to mid-90's). Oh yeah there's that huge national debt.
My other first post is car post.
Huh, in what way is an aeroplane not mass transit?
Such high speed trains are meant to replace aeroplanes up to middle distance (say up to 1000km).
Much more economic (both moneywise and fuel consumption), faster because shorter check-in times, safer.
Maybe if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars on the cold war, we would have a great national train system right now. Instead, all we have had to show for it is a collection of weapons that are only useful against a giant enemy that doesn't exist anymore
Did you ever think that the gigantic enemy isn't there anymore because se built all the big weapons? It's well documented that the Reagan SDI was the world's biggest head-fake for the kremlin-- it was meant to accelerate Soviet spending to the point that it would break theregime, and it worked!
davejenkins.com |
It's true that those high-speed tracks are tremendously expensive. Only a nationalized company like the SNCF can do it on such a large scale (eg, Paris-Marseille, over 800 km, 3 hours, track completed last year). I think the SNCF is a good example of why public services like railways are better not privatized...
I took the Amtrak Southwest Chief from Kansas to LA over Christmas. Being able to stretch out (I'm 6'4") and having a sleeper to nap in, plus a 110V plug for my laptop was great.
Damn well better be great, at $1100 round-trip.
However, keep this in mind: When a plane lands at an airport, that is a minimum of 45 minutes from touchdown to takeoff, and usually more like an hour. The train stops are 5 minutes.
Now, it takes 3 days to get from New York to LA via rail (and a day and a quarter from KS to LA). The fastest the train goes is about 75 MPH (about 125 kph). Most of the trip's legs are pretty long - a TGV would be able to run at top speed for more than 90% of the run. That would pull the time down to less than a day from NY to LA.
Trains are FAR more efficent than planes at moving people, so the cost per seat can be far less. Also, making the train bigger or smaller depending upon load is easy - add cars. You really can't bolt a few extra seats on a plane. You also can make the seats larger on a train for comparitively less cost than a plane.
So, why don't we have this in the US? First, there's the Teamsters - they would much rather see freight move by truck than train, as that employs more Teamsters. Second, when the government cherry-picked the passenger rail from Sante Fe et. al., they really screwed up. SF owns the rail beds, and SF sees no reason to improve the railbeds to allow for fast trains. Amtrak would like faster trains, but with the railbeds in the condition they are, 70MPH is the limit. Also, since Amtrak is forbidden to carry significant freight, they cannot use freight to subsidise passenger service.
It's a shame, since if we had a decent rail service in this country, we would need fewer airports and aircraft (though, living in the Air Capitol of the World, that might be a bad thing) and we could reduce the numbers of trucks and cars on the highways (especially if Amtrak offered more AutoTrain service - I'd love to pull my car on a train in Newton, and pull off in Williams, then drive to the Grand Canyon).
But as long as SF sees no reason for faster freight service, and Amtrak cannot upgrade the lines, we will be stuck with the CF we have now.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Buses, travelling an equivalent amount of passenger miles, pollute more than cars, as do diesel powered trains.
Electric powered trains don't directly pollute more, but the electricity they consume can increase power plant pollution.
Maybe if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars on the cold war, we would have a great national train system right now.
Maybe we could ride it to Washington on MayDay to listen to the Premier speak, and watch the Migs fly over.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
While I agree with you that the US undersupports rail travel, you also have to look at the distances we are talking about:
London to Paris: 213 miles.
Paris to Berlin: 545
London to Instanbul: 1557 miles.
New York to LA: 2400 miles.
Intercity European distances are much more representative of single regions of the US, such as the East Coast:
Boston to Jacksonville, FL: 1000 miles.
Not coincidentally, there is much more ridership on East Coast routes, and talk of setting up a regional rail system for California alone:
Redding,CA-> San Diego, CA: 600 miles).
It's not that Europeans are pinkos or Americans are knuckle scraping neanderthals; the geography of the two contients are different, and rail will always be relatively more practical and important in a united Europe than in the United States.
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