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I'm posting this here because of the fact that if we closed the border and deported illegals now, the money wasted on them would get Brandon's Amtrack rail repairs that the senile old man wants
Regardless, it's too little too late.
But, the money wasted on illegals will never be recouped
The different between high speed train in the US vs other countries like Japan and parts of Europe is where the population are located. In Japan the main population centers are located around the train stations. In Europe not as much but most EU countries are rather small and the high speed trains only connect country to country and are not necessarily for local commune. For example the high speed train from Paris connects to the local train system in England via the Tunnel. Most of Europe and the UK have very efficient Underground/Metro systems but both are located with the city proper.
In the US the population is not located in any narrow corridor except in a very few places. Take for example the commuter trains in both San Francisco and LA are not heavy used as compared to places like New York or Chicago. But if a high speed train was built in the latter two where would it go? What would it connect to that would be used by the local work force? Would high speed trains compete with local commuter trains along the belt way? The local trains stop at a lot of different stations but a high speed train can not stop and go because of their speed. If they did it would be making them just another train service.
If you have ever rode on the high speed train in Japan you can see that because Tokyo is very dense housing wise and a lot of the population that works in Tokyo lives in the outline suburbs/cities and have tenancy to live close to the train stations, it works there and the trains are always full of commuters be it city to city high speed or just the local commuter trains.
there will never be high speed rail on the east coast because of the terrain..
Former mainline of New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad is where it is for various reasons. It remained so when Penn-Central was basically forced to take them on and now is Amtrak's worry.
Connecticut is a state with many hills and mountains along with bodies of water. Finding another straight path between NYC and Boston that also had doable grades and didn't require many bridges or tunnels to cross or go under water would be challenge enough. Forget about getting the land even using eminent domain, it just won't work...
Far as Amtrak's NEC and CT is concerned best that can be hoped for is faster speeds through more of ROW, but you aren't going to ever see speeds approaching true HSR.
Your article is behind a pay-wall, but the profit from the rail is expected to come in when they open the leg to Orlando, which is by far the biggest piece of the project. I do hope the clean up the area around the Miami station, because the homeless are all over the place now.
I know this much: Brightline reported a 129% increase in revenue for the first six months of 2023
The company anticipates that 4.3 million long-distance passengers will travel between South Florida and Orlando every year once service starts here. https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/...evenue-up.html
I didn't say there was a problem with Brightline. They'll get it done quickly and at a fraction of the cost of CAHSR.
The problem is with CAHSR. Last estimate was about $110 billion, and that's with them lopping off entire segments from the original plan, and that's with a final route into the LA basin still up for debate, and that's with ticket prices expected to explode (by law, the ticket prices must cover a certain amount).
What's funny is, a lot of today's public transit lines are on corridors and ROWs acquired and built by the private sector. Today, these transit organizations are quasi government, relying heavily on taxpayer funds and are incredibly inefficient that lose Billions and Billions of dollars per year, yet when it was privately run, they ran at profit. LA once had the greatest rail network in the world, run by private companies.
I didn't say there was a problem with Brightline. They'll get it done quickly and at a fraction of the cost of CAHSR.
The problem is with CAHSR. Last estimate was about $110 billion, and that's with them lopping off entire segments from the original plan, and that's with a final route into the LA basin still up for debate, and that's with ticket prices expected to explode (by law, the ticket prices must cover a certain amount).
What's funny is, a lot of today's public transit lines are on corridors and ROWs acquired and built by the private sector. Today, these transit organizations are quasi government, relying heavily on taxpayer funds and are incredibly inefficient that lose Billions and Billions of dollars per year, yet when it was privately run, they ran at profit. LA once had the greatest rail network in the world, run by private companies.
The majority of rail, privately run, went bankrupt. Penn Station was sold largely to subsidize rail losses. The publicly owned Metro North NYC corridor, nations busiest, was built from the ashes of private systems. As was Amtrak, btw. We went from a "go to work" by public transit to "go by car" nation. Private corps could not stay in the black losing the majority of their business.
The majority of rail, privately run, went bankrupt. Penn Station was sold largely to subsidize rail losses. The publicly owned Metro North NYC corridor, nations busiest, was built from the ashes of private systems. As was Amtrak, btw. We went from a "go to work" by public transit to "go by car" nation. Private corps could not stay in the black losing the majority of their business.
It went bankrupt because it lost a competition with a better/more convenient/more desired product...
The Automobile.
Today's transit systems are propped up with billions and billions to service less than 5% of the population.
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