High Speed Rail (Boston to... Texas?)

vanshnookenraggen said:
The other thing Europe has is different levels of rail for different budgets and different speeds. That's what America really needs.
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No, America needs true high-speed rail to cover the large distances on the continent, which will requires a lot of money, investment, foresight, and true vision. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen (except maybe in California), so all we can do is dream.
 
Doubt California can do it seeing how the whole state is going down the shit hole.
 
At least they have a detailed plan and a presumable funding source, nowhere else in the US has even gotten that far.
 
BarbaricManchurian said:
No, America needs true high-speed rail to cover the large distances on the continent, which will requires a lot of money, investment, foresight, and true vision. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen (except maybe in California), so all we can do is dream.
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Considering how much empty space there in in America I still stand by my comment. HSR doesn't make sense, compared to air travel, when talking about long distances like from Chicago to Denver. HSR is only economically feasible where it competes with commuter air travel.

HSR is needed but we also need local rail systems that can serve the people HSR will bypass, better commuter rail systems, and better standard Intercity Rail.
 
That was just one example of the heavily lacking HSR that I found when traveling Europe, in most places not better than Amtrak. In Dusseldorf, I wanted to take a day trip to Paris, but imagine my disappointment when I found the fastest train took 6 hours to reach there, when the distance was only 256 miles (412 km). From Prague to Vienna, the train was not high-speed but was about the same speed as Germany?s ?high speed? system in most places, and consequently took forever (6 hours). In almost all cases rail connections between cities in Europe are far below 200kph.
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All your examples are cross-border routes and illustrate the true weakness of the European system - which is not shitty HSR, but the fact that almost every major high speed line (with exceptions like Thalys and Eurostar in the London-Paris-Amsterdam triangle) is a national network, and HSR is hard to come by in Europe when desiring to cross borders. That goes double for any line crossing into a former Eastern Bloc country.

There's EU new legislation designed to push cross-border HSR that should alleviate these issues soon enough - at least sooner than you'll ever see a tunnel between China and Taiwan, or "North Korea going capitalist".

In the meantime, you should check out the TGV, some of the better ICE lines in Germany, and the aforementioned Thalys and Eurostar before writing off the Continent entirely. And don't forget - just because it's advertised as high speed doesn't make it so. After all, the Mattapan Line on the T is, too.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Considering how much empty space there in in America I still stand by my comment. HSR doesn't make sense, compared to air travel, when talking about long distances like from Chicago to Denver. HSR is only economically feasible where it competes with commuter air travel.

HSR is needed but we also need local rail systems that can serve the people HSR will bypass, better commuter rail systems, and better standard Intercity Rail.
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I'm not meaning super-long distance like transcontinental (though I’d like that to be an eventual goal in my dream world), I’m meaning long distance enough to be feasible to compete with air and be faster than car, like Chicago-NY (or Philly), NY-Miami, San Diego – San Francisco (plans already complete), which are longer than comparable lines in Europe and will therefore cost more money. Of course HSR to a minor city may not be economically feasible, but there is history of HSR making a city more of a destination than before (e.g. Seville, after the Madrid-Seville HSR was opened, many more tourists visited). Of course local rail will not be removed, that has not happened anywhere where HSR is built and in fact there are usually different levels of HSR trains that stop at either all stops, some stops, or just the beginning and terminus.
 
czsz said:
All your examples are cross-border routes and illustrate the true weakness of the European system - which is not shitty HSR, but the fact that almost every major high speed line (with exceptions like Thalys and Eurostar in the London-Paris-Amsterdam triangle) is a national network, and HSR is hard to come by in Europe when desiring to cross borders. That goes double for any line crossing into a former Eastern Bloc country.
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True, I know European HSR is good in small sections, but it's not really this mythical standard which we should aspire to. If you want the best, you have to copy from the best and make it better (which Japan and China have done at the beginning of the development of their HSR systems).

czsz said:
There's EU new legislation designed to push cross-border HSR that should alleviate these issues soon enough - at least sooner than you'll ever see a tunnel between China and Taiwan, or "North Korea going capitalist".
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Not really, it just makes European rail more free-market, and doesn't actually cause construction of international HSR links to happen, though they will probably happen within time. China-Taiwan tunnel of course won't happen before next year, when this legislation is supposed to be passed, but I consider it likely, of course it's not economically feasible but when there's politics involved the complaints about costs go way down (in this case). And North Korea see-saws between engagement and threats, but they have been slowly moving toward capitalism with some foreign industrial parks and special economic zones.

czsz said:
In the meantime, you should check out the TGV, some of the better ICE lines in Germany, and the aforementioned Thalys and Eurostar before writing off the Continent entirely. And don't forget - just because it's advertised as high speed doesn't make it so. After all, the Mattapan Line on the T is, too.
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Yes, I did. In fact, on my trip from Vienna to Dusseldorf it involved a section on the 300km/h ICE between Frankfurt and Cologne, it was fast (though it didn’t seem as thrilling as my 350km/h ride between Beijing and Tianjin because I have already been traveling for 9 hours, vs. the BJ-TJ only being a 30 minute “shuttle”), but not very long. I just thought that since Europe is small geographically, and it had “high-speed” rail, it would be a breeze to travel between different cities. The European rail system doesn’t suck entirely, it may not be fast in most places, but it is frequent and reliable, something that we can learn a lot from.
 
What I've been told is that the Tampa to Orlando line (with a stop at Disney) is a favorite among members of the DOT. Not that it doesn't leave room for other proposals but $8 billion for rail, considering the vast proposals, is rather small. My hunch is the Northeast corridor will get a substantial amount to improve Acela but that is about it.
 
The spending bill in the Senate is an additional $1.2 billion in High speed rail funding. The House measure passed a $4 billion measure earlier. Those allocations are in addition to the 8 billion in the stimulus funding... so we're now at $13.2b. Or over 25% of the way to granting all requested funds (in this round of allocations). That is astounding progress for an industry that has had a hard time grabbing a foot hold in the American psyche.

The goal should be to get one line up and running. Once that starts printing cash for it's owners, the rest of the corridors will follow suit and try to get theirs. If that first line is in FLA, then more power to it. We just need one section to get functional to demonstrate it's benefits and the rest will take care of itself.
 
Do Tampa and Orlando have any lightrail? Is it a highly traveled corridor?

Basically i am asking is this actually the most deserving corridor to receive money first?
 
palindrome said:
Do Tampa and Orlando have any lightrail? Is it a highly traveled corridor?

Basically i am asking is this actually the most deserving corridor to receive money first?
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As far as I know, the corridor has very bad amtrak service in which costumers are usually put on ambuses because of extensive delays.

Theyre too far apart of light rail. Tampa does have light rail downtown though (with expansion plans)....and orlando has the monorail.
 
The Feds told Florida they would commit the funds only if it links up to the proposed commuter rail system in Orlando. The high speed rail study for Tampa-Orlando has already been done (due to a similar proposal a year ago) which makes it even more appealing to DOT. The major problem I see with their plan is that it travels from downtown Tampa, with a stop in Lakeland, Disney, the Orlando Convention Center area (attractions/hotel district) and the Orlando International Airport (and then on to Miami, future connection). It bypasses downtown Orlando--big long-term mistake.
 
bdurden said:
The Feds told Florida they would commit the funds only if it links up to the proposed commuter rail system in Orlando. The high speed rail study for Tampa-Orlando has already been done (due to a similar proposal a year ago) which makes it even more appealing to DOT. The major problem I see with their plan is that it travels from downtown Tampa, with a stop in Lakeland, Disney, the Orlando Convention Center area (attractions/hotel district) and the Orlando International Airport (and then on to Miami, future connection). It bypasses downtown Orlando--big long-term mistake.
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Orlando has a downtown?
 
I wonder how they plan on weeding out who gets the funding and who doesn't. I know that Southcoast Rail applied for 1.9 billion (also strange that the price jumped overnight from $1.4 to $1.9 billion) of the funds, but there's no way in hell that they get any of it because A) it's not shovel ready (they haven't OFFICIALLY selected a route although they know it's Stoughton), and B) it doesn't come close to meeting the high speed criteria that is required.
 
What is Southcoast Rail?

Florida high speed rail may be a waste. The culture of driving there might torpedo it - are people really going to drive to downtown Tampa and then take the train to Disney World that often?

Either improve Acela or build something in California; these are by far the most deserving.
 
czsz said:
What is Southcoast Rail?

Florida high speed rail may be a waste. The culture of driving there might torpedo it - are people really going to drive to downtown Tampa and then take the train to Disney World that often?

Either improve Acela or build something in California; these are by far the most deserving.
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Id assume the people taking the train to disney would be flying into tampa airport
 
Why would anyone do that? How many would?

This just seems like a waste of money for the sake of redistributing an insignificant number of people around Florida.

And if it doesn't take off, it'll set a bad precedent for the rest of high-speed rail.
 
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