Transportation Bill Sets Aside $45 Million For MagLev Train

tbischel tips us to news that the MagLev train project which would run from Las Vegas to Disneyland has received approval for $45 million in funding. The project has been in the planning stages for quite some time, and it was delayed further by a drafting error in a 2005 highway bill. "Derided by critics as pie in the sky, the train would use magnetic levitation technology to carry passengers from Disneyland to Las Vegas in well under two hours, traveling at speeds of up to 300 mph. It would be the first MagLev system in the U.S. The money is the largest cash infusion in the project's nearly 20-year history. It will pay for environmental studies for the first leg of the project."

Comments

Bizarre

[jdub_dub]

So a route which was cancelled because of low ridership... is getting the most expensive trainset in the country?

Re:Critics

[Gregory Arenius]

Disney land is in the LA Metro area which has a population of about 13,000,000 people while LV has a metro area of about 1,700,000 people. Most of the land between the two is desert while most of the land between DC and NYC is populated making a right of way much more difficult to obtain there. The way the summary states that it connects to Disneyland, while possibly true, is really designed to be deceptive. It would have been much more honest if it said connects to LA and LV. There exists a huge amount of both car and air traffic between the two cities. Even with the high price of gas and a recent expansion of the highway between the two cities the roads are still clogged. While I don't know if maglev is the right technology a solid case for high speed rail between LA and NV can certainly be made.

Cheers,
Greg

Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag

[Mike1024]

45 Mil for the environmental study for a already failed train route? I don't know if I should laugh or cry. You ain't seen nothing yet. This is a 250 mile train track - That's 400km - while the Japanese Linimo maglev cost $100 million per km (for 9km) while the Shanghai Maglev Train cost $1.33 billion for 30.5 km - $43 million per km.

The French LGV Est is 300 km and cost 4 billion euros - $6 billion. $21 million a mile.

Or if you look at the British London-to-channel-tunnel rail link, it cost £5.2 billion ($10 billion) for 108 km - $100 million a mile.

Even if economies of scale get the price down to $10 million per km the cost will be $4 billion.

Re:Infrastructure problems in the East prohibit

[Skater]

Of note, there are multiple at-grade crossings on this trains route - these are rarely found on other high speed train lines for obvious reasons. No there aren't. During the Great Depression, the Pennsylvania Railroad spent a ton of money to improve the DC-NYC Northeast Corridor to eliminate all at-grade crossings. There are a few at-grade crossings north of New York (closer to Boston, actually), but that's not the section of the line you were talking about.

Re:Huge construction project.. recession..

[Skater]

Won't happen. It'd be nice but it won't happen.

I read Trains magazine religiously each month. This month there was an article about a train (Amtrak) that Missouri pays for to run between St. Louis and Kansas City (IIRC). Ridership on the train was very good, but unfortunately the track it uses has a lot of freight trains as well, so the Amtrak trains are frequently late, and ridership is declining. Missouri did a study and found that it'd cost $45 million to improve the line, and they allocated $10 million to double track a few sections.

Meanwhile, as the article points out, if Missouri instead decided to build a 6-lane highway, the federal gov't would kick in 80% of the funding.

Sanity. It just won't happen.

Re:Trains, US?

[SuperQ]

How about this:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/freight_in_america/html/table_01.html

The US moves (by weight):
Truck: 60%
Train: 10%
Boat: 8%
Pipeline: 18%
Mixed-mode: 1%
Other 2%

The interesting thing is the ton-miles table where Trains are much closer to Trucks.

I used to work at a mid-sized auto parts company. We had a fleet of about 20 trucks that would move things from Minnesota to about half of the country, mostly on the east side. I always thought it was fairly in-efficient that we had trucks that would go all the way to Texas instead of driving it into Minneapolis (55 miles), then shipping it via train to Dallas where a local truck would take it to a warehouse for store distribution.