Rail is never economical. Rail is highly subsidized in Europe and Asia which is how and why it can exist. The riders would never pay for a ticket if it was priced to actually cover costs and to make a profit.

 

High speed rail in the US is very unlikely for the simple matter of physics and economics. The rails in our country our privately owned by the freight companies. Freight is heavy, very freakin heavy. Unfortunately, this means the speeds at which they travel is lower and the rails were built with sharper turns. Additionally, the burm or angle of the turn is too low for high speed rail and you can't raise it because the bottom rail topples over from the massive weight.

The Acela trains tackeled this problem by having the cars physically tilt on the wheel trucks. This allows the trains in some areas to reach (I'm guessing here) about 160 MPH. That is not high speed but they can only move that fast over limited areas.

If they started to build high speed rails here in the US, they would have to start from scratch because you can't mix highspeed and freight. They'd have to buy all of the property easements. Cha-ching. Those pesky environmental laws and requirements. Cha-ching. The noise they would bring into communities and associated lawsuits. Cha-ching. Ain't going to happen (in my redneck tone).

Freight trains in Europe are smaller and lighter and they can use the rails built for passenger trains. Here that is simply not the case.

 

Which was made considerably easier by the participation of the US Air Force and the Luftwaffe by creating a lot of vacant space as passenger train infrastructure was being planned.

 

It is actually costlier on many routes to take the train in the EU than it is to fly (thanks to EasyJet and RyanAir). Not to mention flying takes must less time. Not to mention the infrastructure for rail is just as much a PITA and expensive to build as that for aviation.

The US is far to large for the type of rail used in Europe, it makes sense in places like the northeast corridor, but I'm not taking a train from NYC to CLT, or DTW to BOS. I had a friend take a train from Chicago to NYC jsut to try it, it took 24 hours (thanks to a 4 hours delay on the tracks).

What we really need is some alternative type of fuel for aviation...be it Algae, liquid coal, or what have you.

 

There are some routes that make more sense to be flown by airplanes.

JFK-LAX is a good example.

There are other's that make more sense for a high speed train.

LAX-SFO is a good example.



The most efficient method of mass transit known to man is travel by train.
We can continue to lag behind the rest of the world in public transportation, or we can at least try and keep up.

 

High speed rail has been getting money for one reason only... it's "green." Don't forget that airliners are big bad environment destroying machines. <sarcasm> How do we expect to stop climate change? </sarcasm>

 

Dump trains for heavy lift high speed blimps! And if done right you can make them UAVs from the start!

 

We all have to understand here that there are two schools of thought regarding the High Speed Rail program. There's High Speed Rail, and Higher Speed Rail. There projects in California and Florida are going to be true high speed rail. The other projects, such as Chicago to St. Louis are going to be higher speed rail, speeds up to 110 mph, which can be done for much cheaper. Right now, its about 5 1/2 hours on Amtrak from Chicago to STL and the project will bring it down to just over 4 hours. Nevermind the fact that after the State of Illinois added frequencies ridership on these lines skyrocketed.

No one is trying to build high speed rail from New York to California though. But where it does make sense is in our mega-regions; the Northeast, Florida, the Texas Triangle, California, Pacific Northwest, The Midwest using Chicago as a hub etc. It is interesting to note that many of these regions in the US are just as densely populated as France and Germany in general.

It's interesting to note that Amtrak has had it's highest ridership in recent years at over 28 million riders in FY2010. Don't forget how much money we've spent on our highways. $600 billion since the 1940's on top of the gas tax. $63 billion in the last two years also on top of the gas tax. So roads don't exactly pay for themselves either.

I find it interesting that until the 1960's all the railroads in this country were privately built, run, and operated, and even made a profit. It was when we began subsidizing so much toward highways and a little toward airports that drove that system out of business. So what do you think happens when you subsidize one form or transport and tax another? The taxed one will probably fail, which is exactly what happened. Had we not favored roads so much we'd probably still have a descent passenger rail system in this country.

I totally agree. I don't think HSR is really going to put a huge dent in air travel. It may put a small one in California and it is already putting a small one in the Northeast, but like I said above. Most of these first projects are going to compete, not with air travel, but with automobile travel. 110 mph higher speed rail WILL attract drivers as it is already doing in several corridors around the country. (at conventional speeds I might add) We can't keep building more concrete and expect traffic to improve, it'll only get worse.

 

See post above. You should definitely try the two day train though. Get a sleeping car and it includes your meals for 2. It's a nice land cruise. Oh and Europe is not broke because of its high speed rail. We spend billions on our highways as well.

 

VERY close!!! 150 in two sections between NYC and BOS. Top speed NYC to DC is 135. And that too isn't the whole way. When you get to the tunnels down near Baltimore, you REALLY slow down. Still was a blast though...