I agree with the economics of transcon rail posted above - I should have been more clear about that.
I was thinking more about rail in metropolitan areas as a form of mass transit, like SFO's BART or Chicago's Metra/L systems. Most large cities have at least some rail infrastructure that could be massaged into a successful local mass transit.
We've built our society around sprawling suburbs that require a huge energy overhead (look around during your next commute and see how many people carpool). Maybe it's too late for some municipalities as they're too spread out to make rail work - but for others, local rail is a good mass transit alternative.
I'm all for rail in metro areas, it often beats driving, especially if you have to find parking or want to have a frosty refreshment or two. Even in the sprawling suburbs, I think it could work...many folks would prefer a five minute local drive to the train station rather than a 50 drive to work.
I'm all for rail in metro areas, it often beats driving, especially if you have to find parking or want to have a frosty refreshment or two. Even in the sprawling suburbs, I think it could work...many folks would prefer a five minute local drive to the train station rather than a 50 drive to work.
If there is parking...
Many Chicagoland Metra station parking lots are filled up within the first hour and several cities have 10-15 year waiting lists for parking spaces (Naperville as an example).
The obvious answer would be to compliment such congested lots with some sort of bus service, but that doesn't play out always in the burbs. Combine that with the fact that many (cough, white) suburbs don't like the fact that public transportation can link undesirables from the city easily into the suburbs.
I think its going to be a long time before we rail happen in a big way in the US. None of the railroad carriers are going to touch passenger rail (hence why Amtrak was created). As far as railroad priority goes, Amtrak has the lowest priority when compared to any other freight on the right of way. I've done Montreal -> NYC and I think we showed up like 3 hours late - which was the norm I was told. I've also done Chicago -> Toronto, arriving hours late. Going to be hard to convince passengers to ignore flying with unpredictable service like that. Seems the only rail line that works is the northeast corridor. Everything else is just bad.
When SW started, they didn't worry about other airlines, they wanted to get people out of their cars. It's 30 minutes for me to DFW, 45 to DAL. Plus 15 to park and you have to get there an hour early. AUS blocks a bit under an hour and IAH right about. I can drive AUS in three and IAH in 3.5. And when I get there, I've got wheels.
A train would take longer but at least you'd be right downtown. One of the biggest opponents of high speed rail in Texas, so I've heard, is SW.
Rail is going to make a big come back here in the US I think. It's a great way to travel and you can get to many smaller towns that the airlines don't serve. Sure we big expanses of land to cross, but if you consider the "mega-regions" of the US, they are dense enough to support more passenger rail. This is places such as Chicago, St Louis, Detroit, MSP. The Texas triangle, the Northeast Corridor, Atl-Clt-Rdu, and so on.
Back in the 1800's all the way up to the '50's and '60's passenger rail was all privately built and run. But even then passenger rail didn't make huge profits. They were just advertising the railroads' freight counterpart. For decades now, we've put lots of money into roads and the interstate highway system. In essence, the gov't was funding the competition while the railroads were expected to still make a profit. And people still expect Amtrak to make a profit, when there is little infrastructure for them to build on.
The Northeast Corridor offers the our only highspeed train. Acela Express reaches speeds of up to 150 mph between Boston and New York...up to 135 mph between New York and Washington. It does Boston to NY in about 3.5 hours and NY to DC in under 3 hours. Also take note that between airlines, and buses, Amtrak takes about a 51%, over half, market share between BOS and NY. It's now somewhere in the 60% area for the DC to NY market.
So if you think rail won't be popular in the US, think again. Amtrak just report it 2nd highest ridership numbers ever last year. Highest was in 2008, but dropped due to the economy. Also note, that the corridor trains, i.e., BOS-NY-DC were the routes the dropped. The long distance routes actually saw slight increases. The Empire Builder which runs from Chicago to Seattle and Portland is always full for its entire length. In they are having to bring cars that were in disrepair out to lengthen the train, because it is often at capacity.
I could go on and on but all in all passenger is going to grow a lot in popularity over the years, especially in the high density corridors.
As far as railroad priority goes, Amtrak has the lowest priority when compared to any other freight on the right of way. I've done Montreal -> NYC and I think we showed up like 3 hours late - which was the norm I was told. I've also done Chicago -> Toronto, arriving hours late. Going to be hard to convince passengers to ignore flying with unpredictable service like that. Seems the only rail line that works is the northeast corridor. Everything else is just bad.
On time performance has always been a problem due to freight congestion. In the last year though, it has improved significantly. A new law passed a year ago, gives the railroads hefty penalty's if they don't run Amtrak on time. Amtrak has always gotten "priority" on the lines. RR's like Union Pacific didn't really care about it, and would sit them on the siding for hours just because they could. The time I've ridden in the past year, this has stopped.
If anyone has ever been to Japan then you'll know just how amazingly convenient travel by rail can be.
While the points about the distances/economics etc for long distance rail in the US are all true and valid, our largest cities would all benefit from far more extensive city wide rail networks.
I live in the Phoenix area and would absolutely LOVE to have something as extensive as the Rail/Subway network here as can be found in Osaka or Tokyo. I would probably never drive my car again. Phoenix is such an automobile dependent city; we only just recently got our first passenger light-rail system up and running, and it is a far cry from anything like the Japanese.
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