Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
af773atmsp wrote:Not the first difficulty and won't be the last. Makes me wonder if Texas Central finally breaks ground if that will beat California HSR as the first true HSR operation in the US.
pune wrote:This is a good read on the subject - https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/hi ... s-obsolete
Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
seb146 wrote:Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
It makes more sense than following 101 because more people live in the Central Valley and would make it easier to connect more of the population. The infrastructure is there on either route but the population is not. I think there are better HSR corridors that could be built. Dallas-Houston, St. Louis-Kansas City, Cheyenne-Denver-Colorado Springs, Eugene-Portland-Seattle....
seb146 wrote:It makes more sense than following 101 because more people live in the Central Valley and would make it easier to connect more of the population.
Vintage wrote:seb146 wrote:It makes more sense than following 101 because more people live in the Central Valley and would make it easier to connect more of the population.
That's the stock answer and it's also the reason why it will never be funded to completion.
The people who are paying for it have no reason to travel to places like Bakersfield or Fresno.
NIKV69 wrote:seb146 wrote:Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
It makes more sense than following 101 because more people live in the Central Valley and would make it easier to connect more of the population. The infrastructure is there on either route but the population is not. I think there are better HSR corridors that could be built. Dallas-Houston, St. Louis-Kansas City, Cheyenne-Denver-Colorado Springs, Eugene-Portland-Seattle....
Doesn't Southwest airlines serve all these areas? Seems like a lot of good money being wasted.
Aaron747 wrote:Vintage wrote:seb146 wrote:It makes more sense than following 101 because more people live in the Central Valley and would make it easier to connect more of the population.
That's the stock answer and it's also the reason why it will never be funded to completion.
The people who are paying for it have no reason to travel to places like Bakersfield or Fresno.
Precisely...if it went down 101 and hit SLO, SBA etc everyone in the coastal cities would love it. But it would also be 10x more difficult to complete.
seb146 wrote:Aaron747 wrote:Vintage wrote:That's the stock answer and it's also the reason why it will never be funded to completion.
The people who are paying for it have no reason to travel to places like Bakersfield or Fresno.
Precisely...if it went down 101 and hit SLO, SBA etc everyone in the coastal cities would love it. But it would also be 10x more difficult to complete.
I love SBA but building anything there is an absolute nightmare. 101 needs to be widened but that can not happen. If they can't even add a lane each way to 101, imagine what it would be like to add tracks!
af773atmsp wrote:pune wrote:This is a good read on the subject - https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/hi ... s-obsolete
The Cato Institute is a Libertarian think tank, and the author of that article Randal O'Toole is heavily biased against passenger rail in the US. I'd take anything they say with a giant grain of salt.
seb146 wrote:Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
It makes more sense than following 101 because more people live in the Central Valley and would make it easier to connect more of the population. The infrastructure is there on either route but the population is not. I think there are better HSR corridors that could be built. Dallas-Houston, St. Louis-Kansas City, Cheyenne-Denver-Colorado Springs, Eugene-Portland-Seattle....
NIKV69 wrote:Doesn't Southwest airlines serve all these areas? Seems like a lot of good money being wasted.
c933103 wrote:NIKV69 wrote:Doesn't Southwest airlines serve all these areas? Seems like a lot of good money being wasted.
High speed rail are generally preferrable to air travel whenever they are available, especially when the train trip is about ~1-4 hours long.
FLYFIRSTCLASS wrote:IMHO the USA is far to late to the game for high speed rail, this is something that should have been drafted and set in motion in the 70s. I think it would not have been as extensive in other parts of the world. Americans have always had a love affair with their cars. Even with todays prices most Americans would rather pay $6.00 gallon and full up their Chevy Suburban at 15 mph and go barreling down I5 at 80MPH.
william wrote:Regarding Texas Central, that is another disappointing project I had high hopes for, especially since SWA did not fight it as they did with the previous DAL-HOU HSR attempt in the 90s (or was it the 80s?). SWA even endorsed it...........a little. Yet this project is showing they never had enough funding and it too will go by the wayside after bundling their working with rural residents and turning them against the project.
Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
af773atmsp wrote:pune wrote:This is a good read on the subject - https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/hi ... s-obsolete
The Cato Institute is a Libertarian think tank, and the author of that article Randal O'Toole is heavily biased against passenger rail in the US. I'd take anything they say with a giant grain of salt.
N1120A wrote:The only real difficulty is the refusal to follow the will of the electorate and just push through and get it done. Corporate interests are being put over the will of the people, despite having a theoretically friendly legislature. CAHSR would be a massive boon to the state.
seb146 wrote:Let the free market decide, amiright?
c933103 wrote:High speed rail are generally preferrable to air travel whenever they are available, especially when the train trip is about ~1-4 hours long.
NIKV69 wrote:seb146 wrote:Let the free market decide, amiright?
You sure are and we will see it when this boondoggle is over.c933103 wrote:High speed rail are generally preferrable to air travel whenever they are available, especially when the train trip is about ~1-4 hours long.
I seriously doubt this, HSR works in countries like China because of the vastness and distance between cities and lack of airlines willing to do short hops like WN. It's never really going to work here and the prices will just drive people to low cost airlines.
FlapOperator wrote:af773atmsp wrote:pune wrote:This is a good read on the subject - https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/hi ... s-obsolete
The Cato Institute is a Libertarian think tank, and the author of that article Randal O'Toole is heavily biased against passenger rail in the US. I'd take anything they say with a giant grain of salt.
Anyone who can read a map should be heavily biased against passenger rail in North America.
Its big. Its got lots of population centers that shrink and grow in the course of a century. A high speed rail line connecting two major US cities in 1920 would have connected Detroit to Kansas City. LOL.
The billions spent on VIA or AMTRAK could have been used on intercity flights and commuter rail. Instead, the US invested in rail connectivity to Havre, MT and Jasper AB.
Like rail made sense in the 19th century. Now, its like Archer said "Airplanes, this is blimps. You win."
NIKV69 wrote:HSR works in countries like China because of the vastness and distance between cities and lack of airlines willing to do short hops like WN. It's never really going to work here and the prices will just drive people to low cost airlines.
af773atmsp wrote:Rail is a 19th century technology, but it's been updated for the 21st century and is proven to be advantageous over driving and flying in certain conditions. Rail and blimps are completely different modes of transportation, so I don't see the point in bringing up that Archer quote.
c933103 wrote:NIKV69 wrote:seb146 wrote:Let the free market decide, amiright?
You sure are and we will see it when this boondoggle is over.c933103 wrote:High speed rail are generally preferrable to air travel whenever they are available, especially when the train trip is about ~1-4 hours long.
I seriously doubt this, HSR works in countries like China because of the vastness and distance between cities and lack of airlines willing to do short hops like WN. It's never really going to work here and the prices will just drive people to low cost airlines.
"Trips about ~1-4 hours long" already implied the distance the train is useful. At 200mph that would be ~800 miles maximum, then you have to minus some for stops at station, detour through terrains, acceleration and deceleration.
Short hop LCC also exists in other countries that have high speed rail. But passengers are still willing to pay more for a direct train, as long as the train journey travel time is within attractive range.
Also, this number is from countries like Japan and Europe. The attractive range threshold is a little bit longer in countries like China due to their Air Traffic Control but still it come down to the decision of individual travellers.
alfa164 wrote:You obviously aren't familiar with the successful HSR services between DC, New York, and Boston.
cpd wrote:c933103 wrote:NIKV69 wrote:
You sure are and we will see it when this boondoggle is over.
I seriously doubt this, HSR works in countries like China because of the vastness and distance between cities and lack of airlines willing to do short hops like WN. It's never really going to work here and the prices will just drive people to low cost airlines.
"Trips about ~1-4 hours long" already implied the distance the train is useful. At 200mph that would be ~800 miles maximum, then you have to minus some for stops at station, detour through terrains, acceleration and deceleration.
Short hop LCC also exists in other countries that have high speed rail. But passengers are still willing to pay more for a direct train, as long as the train journey travel time is within attractive range.
Also, this number is from countries like Japan and Europe. The attractive range threshold is a little bit longer in countries like China due to their Air Traffic Control but still it come down to the decision of individual travellers.
There are other factors with HSR compared to LCC airlines, luggage won’t get left behind on HSR, unless you forget it yourself. I’ve seen people have bug troubles with Euro LCC airlines.
Terrain isn’t always such a big problem for HSR, it’s unbelievable watching two double deck TGV connected. together blasting up a pretty decent gradient at 290km/h. The thing has so much momentum and that helps it. Acceleration, they do that quite fast - they are very powerful and then you have some trains and that tilt, very quick through curves.
Another phenomenon is low cost HSR, where the ticket prices are very low. You don’t get full service or as nice a seating arrangement but still fast. If you want food on board you might use a vending machine.
TGV Ouigo is one of those.
https://www.ouigo.com/
Example: https://youtu.be/oQy1uC8dmY0
9€ Barcelona-Madrid.
NIKV69 wrote:alfa164 wrote:You obviously aren't familiar with the successful HSR services between DC, New York, and Boston.
That is because the Acela isn't real HSR what is their average speed? 80? China much faster.
af773atmsp wrote:
Even now Detroit to Kansas City makes sense for high speed rail, just not with one direct route; Detroit to Chicago with one route and connect it with another route operating Chicago-Kansas City.
I don't see what Havre, MT and Jasper, AB have to do with HSR. No one is suggesting HSR to those places or places of that size, but if you cut their existing Amtrak/VIA service then good luck getting enough pilots to serve all of those towns. We already have enough difficulty serving existing EAS routes.
Rail is a 19th century technology, but it's been updated for the 21st century and is proven to be advantageous over driving and flying in certain conditions. Rail and blimps are completely different modes of transportation, so I don't see the point in bringing up that Archer quote.
FlapOperator wrote:af773atmsp wrote:
Even now Detroit to Kansas City makes sense for high speed rail, just not with one direct route; Detroit to Chicago with one route and connect it with another route operating Chicago-Kansas City.
I don't see what Havre, MT and Jasper, AB have to do with HSR. No one is suggesting HSR to those places or places of that size, but if you cut their existing Amtrak/VIA service then good luck getting enough pilots to serve all of those towns. We already have enough difficulty serving existing EAS routes.
Rail is a 19th century technology, but it's been updated for the 21st century and is proven to be advantageous over driving and flying in certain conditions. Rail and blimps are completely different modes of transportation, so I don't see the point in bringing up that Archer quote.
Again, why? You say it "makes sense." How? If there was a strong business case for it, wouldn't billions of market capital be clamoring for the solution? Its not. Why? Because we would be talking trillions of dollars and ROIs measured in centuries. How many times daily does a HST need to run between the city pairs posited to make sense for the majority of users? Meanwhile, aircraft are privately owned, scalable, flexible, available and relatively cheap. The costs of the ATC system and airports now are pretty broadly distributed among the actual users in the form taxes, fees and other funding (bonds, for example.) Funding HST privately isn't going to happen in North America.
We could easily provide air services all sorts of towns in the US just as we did before Deregulation. Everyone knows we have EAS. What seems lost is WHY.
The point is we could have a national blimp network, but we chose not to. Certainly rail has its advantages; commuter rail is a fantastic application, as are boutique applications for tourism (like Banff, for example.) But the idea that North America lends itself to HSTs is fantasy.
seb146 wrote:
Americans, and to some extent Canadians, have been so indoctrinated with this fantasy that cares and airplanes are the only travel options. We have been told for decades that trains are slow and unreliable all while watching EU, Japan, and China build high speed networks in addition to air and roads. We are told we don't want trains, this is a reason why there is little to no interest in HSR.
FlapOperator wrote:Again, why? You say it "makes sense." How? If there was a strong business case for it, wouldn't billions of market capital be clamoring for the solution? Its not. Why? Because we would be talking trillions of dollars and ROIs measured in centuries.
How many times daily does a HST need to run between the city pairs posited to make sense for the majority of users?
Meanwhile, aircraft are privately owned, scalable, flexible, available and relatively cheap. The costs of the ATC system and airports now are pretty broadly distributed among the actual users in the form taxes, fees and other funding (bonds, for example.)
Funding HST privately isn't going to happen in North America.
We could easily provide air services all sorts of towns in the US just as we did before Deregulation. Everyone knows we have EAS. What seems lost is WHY.
The point is we could have a national blimp network, but we chose not to. Certainly rail has its advantages; commuter rail is a fantastic application, as are boutique applications for tourism (like Banff, for example.) But the idea that North America lends itself to HSTs is fantasy.
Vintage wrote:IMO, the current plan to wander through the Central valley while connecting the Bay area with LA is quite similar to the reason Micky Mouse left Minnie Mouse. They lost a lot of support with that.
pune wrote:Before I start, I wanna make a point clear, I'm a proponent of rail and more rail but HSR has issues.
Just went through some of the arguments above. FWIW, the problem with HSR is that it's costly and has to be subsidized one way or the other. The Japanese for e.g. have been living with stagflation for almost 4 decades now, and that's the reason they have had a backseat in HSR.
In fact, more patents for HSR have been now done by the Chinese. The Chinese did put some overtures to the Japanese when they bought the technology from Mitsubishi a few decades back. There were JV research projects that China wanted Japan to work with but they were rebuffed. And now China is 'apparently' the leader of the same technology.
Even Europe and companies like TGV have also subsidized their operations one way or the other. In short, this only works if there is more than a significant subsidy to fare to make it work.
Another issue is that the whole idea of HSR only works if there are minimal stops between the host and target destination. I am not familiar with the U.S. geographical landscape (hence will use an e.g. from India) but let's say that there was an HSR proposal between Kanyakumari (the most southernmost part of India) to Kashmir (the most northernmost part of India, the tip) The distance between the two points would be roughly around 3k km or around 1800 miles or thereabouts. The only problem I see with such a project would be (mind-boggling budget) execution, even laying down a normal line is often months to years behind schedule. Just to take an aside, the current metro in my city which was supposed to be ready in 2020 is not even 20% completed in my city where there are no property issues that they have got to resolve.
As far as heights or turns or whatnot are concerned, even conventional Railway engineering has gone through many revolutions. I have seen and experienced some in India and have seen videos of some amazing Railway stuff done in South America (courtesy of YouTube) so that should be the least of the concerns. As quite a few people pointed out, it only works if you have dense populations who are going from one place to other.
Now if HSR can be built cheaply and then is available to people at cheaper rates I'm all for it but even the Chinese have been questioning the number of the lines they have built. I could go on and on but will stop here for now.
seb146 wrote:
Americans, and to some extent Canadians, have been so indoctrinated with this fantasy that cares and airplanes are the only travel options. We have been told for decades that trains are slow and unreliable all while watching EU, Japan, and China build high speed networks in addition to air and roads. We are told we don't want trains, this is a reason why there is little to no interest in HSR.
NIKV69 wrote:seb146 wrote:
Americans, and to some extent Canadians, have been so indoctrinated with this fantasy that cares and airplanes are the only travel options. We have been told for decades that trains are slow and unreliable all while watching EU, Japan, and China build high speed networks in addition to air and roads. We are told we don't want trains, this is a reason why there is little to no interest in HSR.
There is little interest because we don't benefit from it. We have low cost airlines that serve the routes better and cheaper or the same price.
pune wrote:What you have missed in the enthusiasm are the loans taken by the Japanese and the Chinese for the development of their HSR networks and both are in debt traps. Obviously, one day or the other the respective Governments will bail them out.
The Japanese put sweeteners and actually gave a proposal to India but even at the 1% interest rate, it was never gonna be repaid back by India if India had gone ahead with the project. It just wasn't feasible financially speaking.
Light Rail and sub-high speed Railway infrastructure (up to 160 km.) would be good enough for India where it is financially viable and can be taken reasonably through cess and whatnot to the Indian taxpayer.
Of course, what Canada or America does is its business. And the U.S. can sure afford to waste money. As I shared before and even others have, it seems that the development of such projects by default is over budget and over time and doesn't really serve the communities as say light rail or others would have done.
I haven't studied the finances of TGV but English Rail, even most of their franchisees were subsidized and if memory serves me right, many parts of UK rail have been nationalized as apparently, UK passengers pay some of the highest fares in Europe while having the least amount and number of services.
The U.S. has its own issues but that probably is another discussion altogether. -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
FlapOperator wrote:seb146 wrote:
Americans, and to some extent Canadians, have been so indoctrinated with this fantasy that cares and airplanes are the only travel options. We have been told for decades that trains are slow and unreliable all while watching EU, Japan, and China build high speed networks in addition to air and roads. We are told we don't want trains, this is a reason why there is little to no interest in HSR.
Because, surprisingly enough, the geography of North America is different than the EU, Japan and China. The regulatory, environmental impact and labor circumstances aren't the same.
What's the point of a once or twice a day HST between select city pairs in the absence of public transportation or small cities when you get there? What could 100 billion dollars bought in that regard?
Even where great train infrastructure exists, we've seen the rise of LCCs in the EU, Japan and China. Why? Because people there value their time as well.
In the meantime, the money spent so far on the California HST could have bought Spirit Airlines outright and operated it for free for decade. Right now, we are talking 100 billion USD. For a "HST" going 110mph/180kph over a major part of it that connects two major cities in California.
NIKV69 wrote:That is because the Acela isn't real HSR what is their average speed? 80? China much faster.