Slashdot Mirror
High-Speed Trains in the US?
demondawn asks: "Countries around the world are researching and adopting high-speed rail systems, but the U.S. seems to be behind the bandwagon. How do Americans feel about the adoption of a high-speed rail system in the U.S.? How do people in nations that have already adopted high-speed rail feel about their services? And how about tourists who have travelled either to or from the U.S. feel about public transportation around the world?"
Amtrak lost almost half of their federal funding this year thanks to our dear president. Truck subsidies actually went up. I don't think trains will ever catch on in the US as long as we have content soccer moms driving SUV's to get groceries.
I'd say compared to Europe flying in North America is expensive. I mean sure its somewhat comparable for commercial travel but we just don't have the number and selection of discount airlines that Europe has. We don't have the ryanairs, the easyjets and the germanwings that those europeans have.
Sure its a pain in the ass to have to search 20 discount airlines for the one that flies where you want but its well worth your time. I wish we had one way flights for $20 with the taxs here. Sure there are some discount airlines here, but there prices are still expensive relative to what is offered elsewhere and are often linked to bundles.
Of course I'm from Canada so i'm even worse off than you americans as we no longer have discount airlines and only have two national carriers. Now its about the same to fly to Europe as it does to the next province. Well not the same, but pretty close.
Well, maybe not EXACTLY like Japan's? http://news.google.com/news?q=japan+train
I'm an Aussie who has lived some years in Europe, and I've come to the conclusion that the take up or otherwise of public transport is largely culture driven.
Here in Australia the rail system is virtually non-existant - high or low speed. But I can see a lot of commonality with the situation in the US.
Population density in Aus is far lower than the US, let alone Europe or Japan. Our population is mainly centered in one large city in each state, with the closest of these being ~900km apart. This makes air travel the only option these days.
But on top of that we have ended up with a very US-style culture when it comes to many things - and car ownership as an expression of individuality is one of them. Even within the big cities, most people drive everywhere (even when that results in being stuck in a huge traffic jam). Building more tollways seems to be the government response to this. Meanwhile much of the public transport infrastructure has been privatised - and we all know private enterprise does not like to spend money without a guaranteed return.
Every so often, a dreamy eyed train lover will propose a high speed rail link along the most trafficed route in the country (Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne) but it never gets off the ground.
I had the privilege of going to France on my dad's money a few years ago, and I'd have to say, the mass transit there was truly impressive. You could take a train from Paris to the suburbs for pretty cheap (the exact rate escapes me, and either way it was in francs), and we went from paris to Caen (normandy) and again to avignon (southern france). Even the low-speed trains were remarkably efficient and cheap, and the high-speed was nothing short of remarkable. As for the problems with sharing space, scheduling, etc, it really wasn't an issue. Anywhere public transit didn't go, you could hop in a cab and go for much less than gas, parking and car would cost you. And Paris cabbies are actually rather talkative, providing you get one that speaks english.
My other Sig is
TGVs have been running for almost 25 years. Minus the initial 8 years, it's been a solid gravy train for the last 17 years.
Actually, you're almost right but not quite. The automobile wasn't the train killer, General Motors was the train killer. Most people don't know that in the 1950s General Motors corporation actually asked and received the right from the US government to buy and destroy rail corridors, which they paid the US government for the right to do. They intentionally destroyed millions of miles of railroad track in this country.
Ever wonder why it is that in the 1900s railroad barons controlled the US and yet today there isn't any infrastructure for trains? It's because General Motors tore it up to make sure that trains wouldn't be practical and that they would have no competition. This was combined with a massive advertisement campaign to convince Americans that automobiles were the wave of the future, and that to be modern and advanced, one needed a car. Nobody talked about the rail getting ripped up by GM workers.
Now that's a reason to be outraged, and it rather undermines the argument that cars won out in the US because they were simply more adapted for the US problems. Remember that in the 1940s the US had a very extensive rail network but no freeways and very few good highways - have you seen pictures of Route 66? And that was the best highway in the country at the time. Cars were horribly impractical and slow compared to trains in the 1940s; but by the 1960s that problem was solved by General Motors' capitalistic, monopolistic decision.
Purposely and maliciously destroying national infrastructure is what conquering armies do to the vanquished as a way of making sure they never rise up again; and in war it's now considered a war crime to do such an act needlessly. And yet General Motors was rewarded with a 30-year near-monopoly of the US transportation markets...
I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
Including San Francisco to LA. California High-Speed Rail Project is planning a 350kph (217 mph) that will beat a plane flying the same route.
That was not a high-speed train (Shinkansen).
In the history of the Shinkansen, there has been a single derailment (last year, due to an earthquake), but not a single death.
The previous year, there have been a total of about 1000 train accidents and about 400 deaths nationwide.
Care to compare it to deaths in car accidents?
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
The automobile was indeed the train killer, not GM. This GM-dismantling-the-railroads story has no credibility whatsoever.
People always point to the Los Angeles case, where the excellent light rail system was bought by a consortium of GM, Firestone, and Standard Oil. But this was not to dismantle it. It was to make sure they were invested in whatever transportation did eventually dominate in a fast growing city. At the time no one knew. In fact they did operate the railroad for many more years, in spite of dwindling ridership. They would have continued, too. But the citizens of Los Angeles were banging down the doors of City Hall, demanding the trolley cars be removed -- because they were blocking traffic.
Read your history. Talk to some long time Los Angeles residents. This is the truth.
Your distance metric is quite important too: go to any european rail site (bahn,de, sncf.fr, etc) and try to book a long-distance ticket (e.g. Stockholm-Venice, Paris-Prague etc). There are very few and the trip would take a long time. Flying is cheaper and faster overall. Paris/London is the perfect test: right on the cusp of train/flight tradeoff, and in fact you can chose them both; train is more expensive.
London to Paris/Brussels - the train IS more expensive - thats because it goes from the center of the city - and you can turn up 10 minutes before the train leaves. If you fly with a cheaper ticket than eurostar you are probably flying from an airport an hour from the center of london - and you need to turn up 90 minutes before the plane leaves - and its a lot more likely to be delayed than eurostar. I don't know how highly you value your time - but I use eurostar.
Alex
I don't think much of your History teacher!
When do you think the first motorway in Europe was built? More importantly by whom? (1930s Germany)
When you do think the railways were built? 50 or 60 years ago our railways were already 150 years old. Both my grandparents had cars in the fifties.
Goddess knows where you got your ideas of Europe from but they're a bit wrong.
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/france/gb/geo/popu01 .html Explains population density.
France (which has a high speed train network) has low rural population density. High speed trains link high density areas between each other (just like planes do). I live in one of the densely populated areas that does not have very good high speed train service - there is nowhere to put the tracks.
So your logic is slightly flawed.
High speed trains are energy friendly and quite clean but do have issues with noise pollution and tracks tend to modify the landscape in unpleasant ways.
realkiwi