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Yes.
other countries are the size of a state. Do you realize how expensive interstate high speed railways would be?
The us has to fix aging infrastructure as it is before we can pour resources into new ones.
Until I see a foot of track laid, THEY ARE NOT building high speed rail in Texas. Yes, it's being discussed ad nauseam but it won't happen. I'm positive special interest will ensure it doesn't get built.
If a decent affordable cross country rail system existed in the US I would use it as I hate flying. Several years ago I wanted to take a trip to Michigan but did not want to drive. I live in East Tennessee so I looked up routes. I found I would have to go to Memphis, yes Memphis hundreds of miles to the west just to get on the train. It would then take me to Chicago, where I would take another train to Michigan. The total trip took triple what it would take to drive. Needless to say I drove up there. Shocking that there is no train routes following the very busy I-75 corridor between Florida and Michigan. Our national rail system is useless. If we could just make our current normal speed trains work better for people it would be a huge step forward. Then maybe we could look at high speed rail.
American (also Canadian and Russian) rail networks are totally different from those in the rest of the world; these systems were built primarily for freight, because the nations cited have large expanses of land without navigable waterways. The European nations, on the other hand, tend to have most of their population either near the seacoast, or on a navigable river like the Rhine or Danube. And in Great Britain and the low countries, the cradle of industrialization and commerce, canals were built before the development of railroads in many places.
In addition, Europe never attained the auto-centric culture common to the industrialized portions of the New World; private automobiles were considered luxuries, and both the vehicles and their fuel were heavily taxed. The shorter distances between cities and greater density of population made relatively frequent passenger-train departures more economical to operate (but "profit" was seldom a factor since most European systems were state-owned and -operated).
And after a great deal of controversy, California is breaking ground this spring on a much-touted "High Speed Rail" system. It's building upon the slow revival of conventional rail passenger systems in much of the state after many years of decline, but like its counterpart in the East (which was first conceived of in the Sixties, and has made slow-but-sure progress ever since) I don't expect it to live up to the hype generated for the benefit of those impressed with the French TGV and Japanese shinkansen, which were built more-or-less "from scratch".
There is a place for an improved passenger rail network in the more densely-settled parts of the country, but both physical and political constraints make it likely that the development, while permanent, will be slow and costly.
Why doesn't US invest aggressively in passenger rail infrastructure?Do people like getting their civil rights violated by the TSA? Do they like getting up 2 hours earlier and waiting at gates? I hate going to the airport personally. I find train so much more convenient. may be if gas prices went went really high and traffic was backed up to hell, people would change their minds. i only like taking the bus on weekends. There's less traffic.
The US could but it hasn't for multiple reasons. The first being if it wanted to introduce large scale passenger rail it could electrify large sections of the existing rail infrastructure and accomplish that feat rather easily. The reason why it doesn't do so is that freight rail is privately owned by Norkfolk Southern and CSX on the east coast and different companies on the west coast. For the US to electrify the lines like in Europe it would essentially kill freight rail which is very profitable and cuts down on the amount of commercial trucks on the roads. Which is actually the better deal since Tractor Trailers are a lot less fuel efficient then cars are and have to travel hundreds up to thousands of miles to move product across the nation.
A train is literally over 4x more fuel efficient then a tractor trailer. It also cuts down on the wear and tear of highways and trucking companies fleets making them extremely profitable if they are intermodal (domestic/nafta 53 ft rail containers). In fact double stack well cars which are used by the nafta countries has completely changed transportation of goods in the United States and is going to continue to grow in use each year for the next few decades with new rail terminals being built yearly. Double stacked intermodal transport being as successful as it is in North America it's what Chinese officials are racing to try and do in there own country. It's there plan to use this in there "silk road rail project" whether they actually accomplish that feat or not remains to be seen but it would cut down transportation times...Chinese estimates are bs fantasy but it would be quicker then using ships and cheaper to.
Last but not least the reason why passenger rail isn't common in the United States is due to sheer costs of setting up such a system. You could try commuter rail which would use freight lines to keep costs lower the problem with that is freight trains take priority since they produce an actually profit unlike Amtrak. I don't care if you like Amtrak or not but it makes no where near the amount of money Norfolk Southern does. So essentially what you have with commuter rail is half assed system that is full of delays. Well what about "electrified freight trains" you ask? Problem with that system is the fact Intermodal transportation is all the rage right now and due to the power lines of such system crane loaders and packers (ie front loaders) would not be able to load the trains without damaging the wires for it. Making any attempt to convert to that system beyond useless in the United States.
The only way to do passenger rail service in the United States correctly is to build it up from scratch at this point. That means such a system would vary in cost from a few million dollars to over 2 billion dollars per mile. Depending on the area it could cost as little commuter rail currently does to as much as building new subway lines in NYC. This is of course not even getting into the extremely large amount of eminent domain the federal, state and local government would need to do get passenger rail throughout the United States in a way similar to what Europe has. Good luck with that.
At the end of the day Europe's system works for them and the US system works America. Being honest and I know this will anger the urban planners on here but the US system is far better then Europe's in this regard if we look at costs and environmental impact. Europe's system would be a step backwards compared to the freight rail system the US uses. So far it seems like you can have one or the other since countries setup or there rail for either passenger or freight but not both. Regardless of people being angry at the lack of public transportation in the United States the freight rail system is the better deal. In the Harrisburg PA the two intermodal rail yards in the city easily take 1,200 tractor trailers off the high way every single day (more like 1,500 but it does vary). With multiple trains coming and going and each train hauling between 150 to 220 53 ft containers and on some trains piggy backed trailers and a few others being roadrailers . That does far more good then moving a few thousand people by train around in the area in terms of economics, infrastructure, and environmental impact.
The US could but it hasn't for multiple reasons. The first being if it wanted to introduce large scale passenger rail it could electrify large sections of the existing rail infrastructure and accomplish that feat rather easily. The reason why it doesn't do so is that freight rail is privately owned by Norkfolk Southern and CSX on the east coast and different companies on the west coast. For the US to electrify the lines like in Europe it would essentially kill freight rail which is very profitable and cuts down on the amount of commercial trucks on the roads. Which is actually the better deal since Tractor Trailers are a lot less fuel efficient then cars are and have to travel hundreds up to thousands of miles to move product across the nation.
A train is literally over 4x more fuel efficient then a tractor trailer. It also cuts down on the wear and tear of highways and trucking companies fleets making them extremely profitable if they are intermodal (domestic/nafta 53 ft rail containers). In fact double stack well cars which are used by the nafta countries has completely changed transportation of goods in the United States and is going to continue to grow in use each year for the next few decades with new rail terminals being built yearly. Double stacked intermodal transport being as successful as it is in North America it's what Chinese officials are racing to try and do in there own country. It's there plan to use this in there "silk road rail project" whether they actually accomplish that feat or not remains to be seen but it would cut down transportation times...Chinese estimates are bs fantasy but it would be quicker then using ships and cheaper to.
Last but not least the reason why passenger rail isn't common in the United States is due to sheer costs of setting up such a system. You could try commuter rail which would use freight lines to keep costs lower the problem with that is freight trains take priority since they produce an actually profit unlike Amtrak. I don't care if you like Amtrak or not but it makes no where near the amount of money Norfolk Southern does. So essentially what you have with commuter rail is half assed system that is full of delays. Well what about "electrified freight trains" you ask? Problem with that system is the fact Intermodal transportation is all the rage right now and due to the power lines of such system crane loaders and packers (ie front loaders) would not be able to load the trains without damaging the wires for it. Making any attempt to convert to that system beyond useless in the United States.
The only way to do passenger rail service in the United States correctly is to build it up from scratch at this point. That means such a system would vary in cost from a few million dollars to over 2 billion dollars per mile. Depending on the area it could cost as little commuter rail currently does to as much as building new subway lines in NYC. This is of course not even getting into the extremely large amount of eminent domain the federal, state and local government would need to do get passenger rail throughout the United States in a way similar to what Europe has. Good luck with that.
At the end of the day Europe's system works for them and the US system works America. Being honest and I know this will anger the urban planners on here but the US system is far better then Europe's in this regard if we look at costs and environmental impact. Europe's system would be a step backwards compared to the freight rail system the US uses. So far it seems like you can have one or the other and regardless of people being angry at the lack of public transportation in the United States the freight rail system is the better deal. In the Harrisburg PA metro area the two intermodal rail yards in the city easily take 1,200 tractor trailers off the high way every single day (more like 1,500 but it does vary). With multiple trains coming and going and each train hauling between 150 to 220 53 ft containers and piggy backed trailers. That does far more good then moving a few thousand people by train around in the area in terms of economics, infrastructure, and environmental impact.
I agree with your entire post, cwa, but just a question:
In the intermodal yard, couldn't the consist be unhooked, and a traditional yard engine handle the movements?
Kind of the way when passenger trains passed through the Windsor/Detroit train tunnel in the steam age, the passenger cars were unhooked from the locomotive, and an electric box cab engine would pull the passenger cars through the tunnel, and then a new steam locomotive would hook up once out of the tunnel, and finish the journey.
I agree with your entire post, cwa, but just a question:
In the intermodal yard, couldn't the consist be unhooked, and a traditional yard engine handle the movements?
The problem with that is trains can head north, south, east and west along the tracks and the fact of the matter is you would need to seriously tear up the areas around the rail yards to increase the space to allow for what you are suggesting. In Harrisburg and Rutherford intermodal yards (both in Harrisburg), as well as CSX intermodal yard in Chambersburg PA, as well as the new Norfolk Southern rail yard in Greencastle PA all of the tracks that they park the well cars on to load the containers on are used by the actual locomotives as well. So we are talking about needing to increase the size of all intermodal terminals across the United States to implement your suggestion. In the Harrisburg PA yard that would mean a full out legal war between Norfolk Southern, Harrisburg Area Community College, the Farm Show Complex, and the Industrial park...I can't see that working out.
But lets say that the rails do that and it works out. Okay the next problem is congestion. Freight rail lines can get very very busy and in truth are nearly at capacity now. Which goes back to the problem of commuter rail in the United States. Truth be known in the future the US is going to have build new and repair unused freight rail lines to accommodate the growth of freight rail traffic in the United States. This is of course without adding passenger rail into the mix either. Which puts us back to "if you want to do passenger rail right" you need to make it it's own system which is going to cost trillions if you want to have an expansive passenger rail system in the United States similar to Europe.
Quote:
Kind of the way when passenger trains passed through the Windsor/Detroit train tunnel in the steam age, the passenger cars were unhooked from the locomotive, and an electric box cab engine would pull the passenger cars through the tunnel, and then a new steam locomotive would hook up once out of the tunnel, and finish the journey.
We've tried this more recently in the United States but again delays due to congestion and losing money and not making a profit is what has done commuter rail in. Harrisburg PA which is unique in this country when it comes to rail since Harrisburg PA is one of the big three hubs for Norfolk Southern along with Chicago and Atlanta has the Pittsburg line heading west and the electrified Amtrak Keystone Corridor heading east into Philly. So it actually has both freight and passenger rail. Harrisburg has tried for years now to get rail service around south central PA to connect Harrisburg with Lancaster and eventually York, Carlisle and Lebannon as well. The problem is to do so they would have to use Norfolk Southern's rail lines which are increasing with traffic yearly due to Norfolk Southern having three rail terminals in Harrisburg PA. Then there was the lack of funding for the project. So being honest if we can't do commuter rail here in Harrisburg which is very much of set up for it I have no faith in it working across the country.
Please note that I'm not actually against passenger rail. I've used it before and it works fine along the keystone corridor which is set up for it. It's just that to do it in a realistic manner you have to build all new rails lines and/or convert unused needing repair freight rail lines to do passenger rail in the United States effectively. That means spending a few trillion dollars at the end of the day. Now will people support that or not? So far the answer seems to be no since it doesn't seem to be a priority and those advocating passenger rail seem to not understand freight rail in the US since they keep wanting to try and use commuter rail which has not been working in the United States. Basically at the end of the day I view this as if you want to do it right then spend the money and create a separate system otherwise you are wasting everyone's time.
Cwa - explain how electrification of lines would kill freight. I'm not disagreeing with you BTW.
For example, they have been talking about restoring - not expanding, just restoring - passenger service west of Norristown toward Pottstown and Reading. I know funding is an issue but the two-track system is considered "busy" but freight trains pass less than one per hour. Even if freight service triples in 20-30 years which is NS's claim how would 1-2 freight trains an hour and 1-2 passenger trains an hour be problematic, especially on a two-track line? I know logistics are involved and things aren't that simple in real life but it certainly doesn't seem impossible - or even that difficult - with modern dispatching (except for electrifying the tunnel).
That line is a huge and underutilized asset. Also note that it was built by the Reading Railroad and used by both freight and passenger service for decades, at a time when trains ran more frequently than they do now, though at that time some sections had four tracks.
Last edited by BPP1999; 01-31-2015 at 05:48 AM..
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