High speed rail system would you ride?

Hello all just came across an interesting article about Obama trying to build a high speed train inbetween a few major cities. Comments? Ideas? Would you use it? I have thought for a while now we have needed better train service.

[JollyRoger]

The problem is what you do when you get to the other end. It will work up north, where subways and taxis abound to get you around a tight urban area, but if I took one from Dallas to Houston, Houston is 85 miles wide and has little in the way of public transportation. It would cost more in taxi or rental car fare than it would in gas to drive, so the rail doesn't make sense. The only high speed rail that makes sense in this state is one where we give Republicans a free one-way ticket to the Louisiana border.

[Mike D]

Originally Posted by JollyRoger

The only high speed rail that makes sense in this state is one where we give Republicans a free one-way ticket to the Louisiana border.

Wouldn't a trebuchet or steam catapult be more efficient?

I was actually looking for a discussion about the pros and cons and thoughts of others about a high speed mass transit system. I was not looking for remarks on what we should do to party X or how much we hate party Y. There is no need for attacking one party or another when no one has launched such an attack in this thread.

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by Mike D

Wouldn't a trebuchet or steam catapult be more efficient?

Well, it has to be free and voluntary, we don't want Glenn Beck here weeping about "FEMA Camps". If they sign a waiver, sure.

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by helpplease

I was actually looking for a discussion about the pros and cons and thoughts of others about a high speed mass transit system. I was not looking for remarks on what we should do to party X or how much we hate party Y. There is no need for attacking one party or another when no one has launched such an attack in this thread.

But, but, that takes all the fun out of it.

[diametricalbenz]

I enjoyed riding the Maglev train. It's relatively quiet and nice. Nearly impossible to take a photo of anything though.

If they could maintain the 414kmph speeds then we'd be getting somewhere.

[LUVMBDiesels]

Originally Posted by JollyRoger

... The only high speed rail that makes sense in this state is one where we give Republicans a free one-way ticket to the Louisiana border.

Tell us how you really feel...


I was going to take the Accela from DC to NY but it is very expensive. Much more than either driving or taking the shuttle flight and a car service to/from the airport The Accela is about $400 round trip and shuttle flights are $137!

The other thing is that if you want to go faster than the Accela (around 100mph) you would need to put down new tracks and keep the slower trains from interfering. The train I would ride would get behind a coal train moving from WV and move at walking speed for miles. I could imagine the price per ticket if all new tracks and infrastucture had to be put down.

[WVOtoGO]

I think there was a time when such a system was on the table for RT between Dallas and Austin. Not sure what happened to the idea. I think it just went away. I know SWA wasn’t too happy about it.

Like stated. Our cities are pretty spread out, and with little inner-RT systems for the final connection. Not like NY and a few others, anyway. So once ya get there…then what?

We fly ourselves, so maybe we aren’t the ones to ask. But, I can see a need up north for sure. I think it may be a railway of illegal immigrants heading north in this state though.

Most business travelers within TX have SWA to get them between Dallas/Houston/Austin/SanAntonio, with colleagues on the other end.

[Mistress]

yes

[R Leo]

Originally Posted by WVOtoGO

I think there was a time when such a system was on the table for RT between Dallas and Austin. Not sure what happened to the idea. I think it just went away. I know SWA wasn’t too happy about it.

Right out of school, I worked on the Executive Summary for the Texas High Speed Rail Joint Venture (the German consortium using ICE technology).

In the deal there were two factions: the Texas High Speed Rail Joint Venture (later Texas FasTrac) using Inter City Express hardware (the Germans' ICE) and the Texas TGV consortium using French TGV hardware (Train a Gran Vitesse - French TGV) vying for the contract. In the end, the Texas TGV consortium was awarded the franchise but a lack of federal backing and persistent lobbying against the project by Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher were among the reasons that the system was never built.

The project was doomed because: 1) Nobody in rural Texas really wants a 200+ mph train screeching through their backyards and pastures every 20 minutes. 2) The less expensive TGV plan only ran service to the city outskirts (as opposed to the ICE group who wanted to provide service to the CBDs of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas-Ft Worth). 3) It would have cut deeply into SWA's short-haul business and Kelleher called in every mark to fight the construction (ironically, in Germany at the time, Lufthansa was the single largest owner of ICE trainsets).

The details of the whole sordid affair can be found here:

Texas High Speed Rail Authority

[JollyRoger]

Originally Posted by LUVMBDiesels

Tell us how you really feel...


I was going to take the Accela from DC to NY but it is very expensive. Much more than either driving or taking the shuttle flight and a car service to/from the airport The Accela is about $400 round trip and shuttle flights are $137!

The other thing is that if you want to go faster than the Accela (around 100mph) you would need to put down new tracks and keep the slower trains from interfering. The train I would ride would get behind a coal train moving from WV and move at walking speed for miles. I could imagine the price per ticket if all new tracks and infrastucture had to be put down.

If they could figure out the local transportion, it would be perfect for Texans, most Texans spend hour after hour bypassing Walmart-road-kill-towns in order to get to the huge cities which are all about 250 or so miles apart. Worse, just getting out of one of these cities by car can take hours. If I could change an eight hour commute into a two hour train ride, I'd do it. I could see big rail with some sort of three-wheeler commuter vehicle you could rent from a rack at the other end, especially up North, but in Texas, the pickups would run you down just to get close enough to spit tobacco juice on you. I also doubt I could carry on my 12 guage, and I never go to Dallas without it.

[raymr]

It makes more sense to get light rail running between airports and the cities they serve, rather than a brand new infrastructure.

I'm sure long-distance rail is more fuel-efficient than jets, but is that enough to make it work?

[SwampYankee]

Originally Posted by helpplease

Hello all just came across an interesting article about Obama trying to build a high speed train inbetween a few major cities. Comments? Ideas? Would you use it? I have thought for a while now we have needed better train service.

I took the Acela from New Haven to Philly for a morning meeting and it was very nice. (Plus I could catch the subway downtown right the next block over). It was only about 15-20 minutes shorter than the standard train, relatively short distance is part of it but mostly due to speed limits, track capacities and waiting for slower trains in some areas. It was kind of surreal, like being in a plane but without any noise. Plus clean, more legroom and no body cavity search by TSA.

Sadly the east coast is probably out of the question because of congestion and tracks too close to residential area. But I'd ride it if it went where I wanted to go.

[R Leo]

I've traveled on the TGV (and will again this fall). It is reliable, timely and fast. It is a damned fine way to get around if, you're traveling no more than ~400 miles. So, theoretically, a HSR system could work in certain regions of the US. Dallas-Houston-San Antonio is one, Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis, almost anywhere on the east coast between D.C. and Boston and possibly southern California. Unfortunately, the cost of constructing a viable HSR system in this country has become prohibitive so, we're stuck with only one choice: full body cavity searches at the hands of the TSA while waiting in line to squeeze into an aluminum tube at 24,000 ft with 185 of your closest, new friends.

FWIW, I've ridden the maglev in Shanghai too. It strikes me as little more than an expensive trinket, showing what government can and will do when it has absolutely no accountability to it's taxpayers.