Don't watch many trains go by, do you? Around here, that is already dirt-common. There are sea-train boxes delivered to factories and industrial parks around here that haven't been opened since they left China or wherever. Don't know the handling steps on that end, but here in CONUS they are offloaded in a port, many times directly to purpose-built rail cars, and go cross-country by train to nearest rail yard set up to pull them off and drop them on a matching semitrailer. I understand some big factories with their own rail spurs can even offload the containers directly from the trains.
What is the real average speed? 100? 150? What path will the train have to take? 3500-4000 miles? so it only takes 24 hours. Still not much of an option
Who will buy the land? How much do you figure that ticket is going to cost?
Trains make sense in urban environments but when you start getting out in the boonies they don't attract many passengers. You can't confuse things that work in Europe where countries are the size of congressional districts here with what works in the US.
The alternative is that in 5 years, you'll still be paying huge amounts for gas, but you WON'T have mass transit. That's even worse. We screwed up mass transit a long time ago, and correcting that will be costly, but not impossible. Furthermore, you don't have to have rails for MT. You CAN use busses, which don't take anywhere near 5 years to implement, and the routes can be changed immediately at no cost as situations warrant. Not the best answer, but it is and answer.
uld loosen smog regulations on gasoline and additives, to help
The gas tax revenue is fairly small, but is supposed to be used to fund roadways and improvements. Kill the tax, and in a few years the roadways are in bad shape, at which time you pay more for repairs, detours, etc. Dropping the tax is a short-term answer that creates a long-term problem. Anyway, if you kill the tax, and stop funding needed roadwork, you now have roadworkers out of work, which adds to the unemployment. The gas tax hasn't kept up with inflation and increased road needs for many years now.
Go back about 150 years. Fed Gov and the railroads were in bed together for decades to settle the west, to the point where the line between the railroads and the government got real fuzzy in spots. Railroads had land grants, exclusive hauling rights, all sorts of sweetheart deals. Not saying that was always a bad thing (unless you were a Native American or a Buffalo, of course), just that it is what happened.
But in modern world, for human cargo, railroads only make economic sense in certain locations, where the traffic flow will pay the costs. In US, BOWASH corridor, SF-SD corridor, and the Chicago-Detroit corridor, would qualify. Perhaps a few more where they could share existing freight ROWs. The interstates just have too much of a head start.
The environmental people closing wells, that hasn't helped. Think Alaska, and offshore. I do believe we have oil in the USA that isn't being used.
I can't disagree with most of what you said. The efficiency with which tax money is spent is a major issue, somewhat separate from the encouragement of fuel efficiency by raising its cost. Two problems, two solutions that might be related.
The enviros have helped a lot. If the oil isn't pumped now, and energy costs therefore rise, we will have that finite oil a bit longer, while alternatives and efficiency are encouraged. If we pump it all quickly and cheaply, we will run out that much sooner and with fewer alternatives on line.
You don't actually need a maglev train. The TGV travels at 320 km/h (200 mph), using traditional train tracks. See
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And they've been running since 1974, the maximum speed they have reached was 515 km/hr.
I'm not denying it would be a major engineering and legislative feat, but it wouldn't be any bigger than the U.S. interstate system. Such projects have been very beneficient in the past.
I live in Europe, where traveling by train is an option. I have to travel to scientific conferences and such, which is paid by the university. So I don't worry about whether the train or the plane is more expensive (It can go either way, but only because air travel is so heavily subsidized). Train travel uses less energy and less labor to deliver people, so on an even playing field, train travel is cheaper.
Now, here is my algorithm for deciding which to take:
Can I take a train? Obviously I can't take the train everywhere. So if I'm going to the US or sardegnia, I fly.
Less than 6 hours by train? -take the train. It's less hassle with the security, and for works out to be time and energy saving, since I have to add arriving 2 hours early at the airport, plus the time to travel to the airport, etc. Also the trains are WAY more comfortable than planes.
More than 8 hours: Is there an overnight train? Then take the train. For travels of 8+ hours on the train, I can get a sleeper car, and wake up refreshed at my destination. Usually for the price of a plane ticket.
Otherwise I take the plane.
So even in a world where energy isn't YET massively expensive, the train is a valuable alternative to have. Now, if you incorporate the rising costs of energy production the train becomes a more and more viable alternative.
Don't forget that interstates are completely subsidized. Taxes pay for the wars to guarantee the oil flow. Taxes pay for the interstate system. Why shouldn't taxes pay to maintain railway lines? Especially if the railway lines can save the nation some wars and pollution?
Interstates are largely (especially in the beginning before earmarks) paid for by fed gas taxes, various excise taxes, in other words user taxes. Hardly "completely subsidized".
yeah but not near 90% of the metric that is important.. number of trips. Most interstates are mostly populated by area residents not by people going large distances. You could (at least in theory) take many people off the road with a good system. Also some interstate. I'd love to be able to get to Louisville or Cincy or Chicago from Indy by other than car or plane.
I know the Metroliner DC-NYC always talked about fantastic speeds, it ran about 70 most of the time.
You couldn't build the interstate system today. It would never get out of the environmental impact phase.
Trains make sense here where the right of way already exists, the track is in reasonable condition and the population centers are very close together. That eliminates about 90% of the US geography. The reality is the US has a lot more airline infrastructure in place than railroad infrasructure. I doubt we have really laid any new track on new right of way since WWII. Except for some passenger rail in the NE corridor, most of the track in place is the old bolted rail, not the precision welded rail you need for fast trains. Whenever we have really tried fast trains they end up crashing and the US citizens have little tolerance for crashes. I doubt security would be much different than the airport as soon as the first guy blows up or derails a train.
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