

Map Shows Where 220mph Trains Would Go in the U.S. - cajuntrep
http://mashable.com/2013/02/10/high-speed-rail-map/

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kposehn
There is an extremely glaring problem with this map: topography.

The route from LA to Seattle, with the branch additional bay-area line, has to
deal with the following:

1\. The tehachapi mountains, where the current rail line can handle up to 40
freight trains per day. This line is at capacity and cannot handle anything
more. Worse even, it is mostly single track with steep grades and sharp
curves. No regular passenger trains have run over it since the late 70's. In
order to put a high-speed line here, it would cost billions, requiring many
long tunnels through solid rock, along with large bridges and fills.

2: The Sacramento River Canyon, north of Redding. This is the only workable
pass up to the Klamath River drainage, and quite frankly is extremely tough to
pass. It has many tight curves, has had plenty of washouts and is a very steep
grade past Dunsmuir. The I-5 alignment goes up and down and up, while taking
up the only side of the canyon which can handle a right-of-way. There is no
other option to get north, so this is pretty much right out.

3: The Siskiyou mountains, or the cascade mountains, to make it to Eugene.
Both of them have rail lines, again with many sharp curves and steep grades.
The Siskiyou line is absolutely brutal, which caused the Southern Pacific (the
original owner, bought by the Union Pacific in 1996) to sell it off to
RailTex. It handles 1 through train daily and is prone to washouts and
landslides. The Cascade line is also single track, rough and at capacity. No
other passes which can accomodate a line with moderate grades and few curves
exist, requiring another expensive series of tunnels.

So, that one is pretty much a wash, as you can tell.

The route to San Diego from LA is already very good with high speeds (90MPH),
but for whatever reason they want to route it through San Bernadino. This is
absolutely stupid, as the route would follow I-15 and is already extremely
rough with many changes in elevation and no consistent routing. There was a
previous Santa Fe rail line through here that was promptly abandoned once they
built the Surfliner route along the coast.

The route from LA to Denver is a pipe dream, sadly, due to:

1: Cima Hill, which runs through Mojave National Preserve. The only way across
is along the existing Union Pacific alignment, which has several nasty curves.

2: The Wasatch Mountains. There is no good pass here outside Soldier Summit,
which is rather brutal. Look it up to see what I mean.

3\. The Rocky Mountains. You want to put a railroad through that? Go north
through echo canyon and across the continental divide in Wyoming. That is the
only HST viable route there, wide open for the taking.

The route from New Mexico to Denver is mostly owned by the state of New Mexico
and Amtrak, but suffers from the beast that is Raton Pass. 3% grades, very
tight curves and lots of general unpleasantness south of Trinidad. The lead up
to it is nice, flat and high-speed, but the pass itself is nasty.

I could keep going, but I think the point has been made. Maps are all well and
good, but what rules HST design is topography vs. budget. In order to do like
the Japanese and punch a line down rough land, you have to spend gobs of cash
and years of effort. With tight budgets and a booming national debt, it isn't
really an option.

However, the Northeast Corridor is an excellent place, and several other
routes across the midwest are also great candidates, should there be traffic
to support them. Chicago-NYC would be a very good one, as the route has high
demand and can follow water-level routes with gentle grades and few curves.

What makes HST succeed is either great land for it (France) or $$$ (Japan,
China) or both in spades (Germany). I want to see it happen, but we have to
restrict it to where it makes sense. Those routes are:

1: Chicago/Great-Lakes to NYC

2: LA to San Diego (the surfliner would be packed if the trip was on an HST)

3: Boston-NYC-DC-Richmond. Replace the Acela with something faster on a grade-
separated alignment.

4: Texas to Kansas City - this is seriously one of the best places around for
HST. Nice, flat, open and fast.

5: Eugene to Seattle. Only tough thing is crossing the Columbia river as the
existing rail bridge is at capacity and has a 35mph slow order.

6: Florida. They just need to bite the bullet and do it.

~~~
delinka
It seems you assume that existing rail lines would be put to use for a high-
speed train. I doubt that would be the case. Amtrak shares lines with freight
but it's also limited to the speed of freight. I suspect the logistics of
jostling trains to passing lines would eliminate the usefulness of a high-
speed train.

Also, there's not a logistical or technical problem with punching through
hills and mountains when needed. Definitely a financial problem, but if you're
gonna spend trillions building this thing, what's an extra few million to bore
holes in rock? ;-)

~~~
kposehn
It isn't that I assume they'd use existing lines, it is just that most of the
good mountain passes are already taken. Furthermore, the existing alignments
show how difficult it is to cross those mountains in the first place. Hell,
there are many places in the US where even the Interstate network couldn't
find a better route - like along the Colorado River east of Grand Junction.

A lot of politicians and advocacy groups like to point to existing lines as a
solution to crossing mountains and getting through cities. This is rather
short-sighted as rail lines in the US are designed for slower moving heavy-
tonnage and don't take advantage of the differences HSR alignments have.

When you want to run an HSR line, your requirements are quite different.
Regular (read: freight) lines require easier grades and can take sharper
curves due to their slower speeds and heavier tonnage. The busiest mountain
passes typically have no more than 2-2.5% ruling grades, using curves to
lessen the steepness. HSR can use much steeper grades (5%) but requires
extremely gentle curves, which then demands a lot of expensive tunnel and
bridge work.

When you want to take an HSR rail line across a series of mountains like the
Tehachapi range, you run into a major problem. The change in elevation is
extremely sudden and drainages are short, curvy and have steep walls. The end
result is that you have to do many cuts, fills, bridges and tunnels to get up
the grade. The expense is astronomical compared to a regular highway, yet most
proposals don't actually take that into account.

However, the man who designed the map is at least a bit more realistic about
the cost (several trillion). I do firmly believe that HSR is actually quite
viable in the US in many places, it just isn't something we can draw on a map
and say "here we go!"

We have to solve the problem of topography vs. budget. If we want a truly
national network like shown in the map, we have to accept that the cost will
be enormous - likely many times that of the interstate system (in today's
dollars). If the people are willing to take that cost, then it should be
built, but we should be careful what we propose to make sure it is truly
viable.

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rayiner
I think a lot of the HST skeptics would do well to spend some time in the
northeast. In just 10 years, Amtrak has captured 75% of the traffic between
NYC and DC, and over 50% of the traffic between NYC and Boston. It's
phenomenal. At my office, nobody takes flights between NYC/PHL/DC anymore. Why
go out to LaGuardia when you can walk over to Penn Station, enjoy WiFi and a
ton of leg room, not to mention a snack car, and get there in about the same
amount of time as flying? Oh, and you're dropped off right in downtown DC,
instead of Reagan or in the god forsaken suburbs if you're unlucky enough to
land in Dulles.

And Amtrak isn't even very good! Years of neglect and bad regulation have left
the service with old cars (except Acela), crumbling infrastructure, etc. But
it beats the hell out of air travel, and the differential will only get more
dramatic as fuel prices continue to increase.

~~~
notJim
I can't help but be skeptical when it costs from 3-7 times more than the bus
and is only 20-30 minutes shorter of a trip. Of course, it's far more
comfortable, but for a 3-5 hr trip, the trade-off is well worth it.

~~~
rayiner
If you book in advance, the Northeast Regional is $50 each way from NYC to DC,
versus about $30 for the Washington Deluxe bus. And a _far_ more comfortable
trip that's less likely to get stuck in traffic.

~~~
notJim
Oh, I honestly didn't know the train was that cheap when you book in advance.
I've only ever booked the week of.

Still, it's like an hour longer of a trip than the bus. (I guess I haven't had
bad experiences with traffic--on my last trip to Boston, we arrived _early._ )

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simonsarris
I think that the high-speed rail map that the Obama Administration put up on
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) website is a little more
close to a tenable future.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/High_Spee...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/High_Speed_Rail_07-09-2009.JPG)

It highlights the boston-washington route (NEC on the map or BosWash some like
to say[1]), which seems to be easily the most do-able route in the near
future, in terms of people served.

I like it. The idea, I mean. But its _hard_ to get people to come around to
spending money on anything remotely like this seems. I think all societies
should have very lofty goals published and promoted often[2], but I think at
the same time we need to always provide concrete reality-scale plans when
trying to make the argument to non-believers, which is why I prefer the ARRA
map, or something even smaller.

I think there are some larger societal issues that affect the value of things
like this too. I wish Americans would (could) travel more, and see what other
developed countries are like.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boswash>

[2] "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect
wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for
the endless immensity of the sea" -Antoine de Saint Exupéry

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I wish Americans would (could) travel more, and see what other developed
countries are like._

If they did this, they would realize why high speed rail makes sense in other
developed countries but not in the US. Most other developed countries are
tiny.

Aomori-Kagoshima (top of Japan to bottom) - 1928 km.

London-Moscow - 2885km.

Paris, France to Mosul, Iraq - 4522km.

NY-LA - 4469km.

And unlike the NY-LA route, all of the routes I mentioned have a lot of
destinations in between the endpoints. For example, on the Paris-Mosul route
you find Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia,
Bulgaria, Turkey and Syria. Between NY and LA there are Omaha, Chicago,
Pittsburg, Cleveland, Denver and Vegas.

Even the short London-Moscow route passes through Antwerp, Dusseldorf, Berlin,
Warsaw and Minsk.

~~~
rtpg
>Most other developed countries are tiny and have less people, less potential
funds, etc. That isn't a valid arguemnt. Transportation infrastructure is
almost by definition scalable.

Your point about destinations is pretty valid though. Getting to california
from other parts of the US is an effort. The east coast has a lot of different
possibilities though, and even things like Dallas-houston are frequented
enough, and the time to get to DFW, go through security, etc. would be
compensated easily by just taking a train.

The map the WH offered for the ARRA takes advantage of that fact. When big
hubs are built, having single links between them becomes reasonable.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Rail scales up, not down. You can put two trains on a track and it costs
marginally more than one train. If you put one empty train on the track, the
cost is the same as a full train.

Having less money can actually _help_ the economics of a rail line - if people
are poorer (e.g. Europe), they can't afford a car and are stuck taking the
train. The limiting case of this is India where low speed rail is extremely
popular.

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calinet6
This is a little ridiculous. High-speed rail in the United States will never
be feasible on a country-wide scale. It's just not necessary or logical.

14 hours across the country—or even 8 hours at nearly twice the viable
speed—will never match the speed or efficiency of air travel.

High speed rail can compete in the regional corridors where it makes sense.
And it should. But the United States is _huge._ It's not Europe. We shouldn't
expect this or desire it.

~~~
rayiner
There's two physical factors working against air travel here:

1) it's much less cost-effective to make a flight comfortable, in terms of leg
room, food, space to walk around, than a train trip; this difference only gets
bigger as liquid fuel prices go up;

2) as a practical matter you can't build airports in the heart of urban
centers.

If there was a 14 hour train between NYC and LA, with the leg room and
amenities of existing Amtrak trains, I think it would give air travel a run
for its money. Taking a cab to LaGuardia takes about half an hour from
Manhattan, and it's like a $40 cab ride. Another half an hour in LA, probably
$50+ cab ride. Add at least an hour at the airport for each scenario, plus the
4-5 hours of actual travel time, and you're looking at an 8 hour trip.

Would you rather have 8 hours of cab -> airport -> airplane -> airport -> cab,
or 14 hours just walking from a downtown train station, onto a train, and out
of another downtown train station? Would you rather spend 5 hours crammed into
an economy class seat, or 14 hours in an Amtrak train with a ton of leg room,
where you can get up, go to the snack car, etc?

~~~
notJim
I'd take the 5 hours of moderate discomfort, because I only get 2-3 weeks of
vacation, and I'd rather not burn basically 2-4 days of my vacation on
transit. Not only that, but the plane is likely also much cheaper, and I'm not
going to spend hundreds of dollars on greater comfort for a few hours.

~~~
rayiner
Your day isn't any less shot with 8 hours in the airport and on a plane than
with 14 hours on a train.

~~~
calinet6
It absolutely is. It's 6 hours _less shot_ to be exact.

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jstalin
Outside the NE corridor, any significant amount of rail is a pipe dream. Why
spent trillions to provide service that planes are already providing more than
enough service to? At least I can take a plane from here to _wherever I want_
in the United States. Rail? Oh, I'd have to travel to the nearest station
(potentially hours away) and then hope it goes anywhere near where I want to
go. And judging based on that map, it will go near maybe 5% of the locations
I'd like to go.

And the linked article doesn't seem to take into account the massive
_operating_ subsidies that rail requires. It's a money loser nearly everywhere
(except, sometimes, in the NE corridor).

"In 1970, the year before Amtrak took over the nation's passenger trains,
average rail fares were about one-third less than average airfares—about 18
cents (in today's pennies) versus 27 cents per passenger mile. Four decades of
Amtrak management have reversed this ratio and more: by 2011, average rail
fares were 110 percent greater than airfares—about 28.5 cents versus 13.8
cents per passenger mile (see Figure 1)." [1]

[1]: www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA712.pdf

~~~
fleitz
Airfare also relies heavily on subsidies, but fortunately investors keep
investing in airlines, so it doesn't cost the public much.

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nemothekid
I recently read a comment on Reddit that went into some of the pitfalls a HSR
would have.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/17nvfk/i_really_hope_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/17nvfk/i_really_hope_this_idea_doesnt_fall_through_like/c87fv0c)

Theres quite a bit of back and forth, but the main conclusion is that the
market for HSR won't support one. It seems in most cases people would rather
fly, or the distance is short enough that a HSR doesn't make any sense.

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secabeen
It's a nice map, but it elides over the difficult parts of high-speed rail in
the US. Running track through rural areas is easy, modulo getting across the
Rockies and the Sierras. The hard part is routing through urban areas. Look at
the Los Angeles and New York "stations". They cover the entire metro areas.
Same with San Francisco. No one wants to be forced to sell their house to the
government for high-speed rail, but without new dedicated track carved deep
into the hearts of our urban areas, it will never compete with air travel.

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p1mrx
Doesn't 220MPH seem insufficiently ambitious? That's at least 12 hours to get
from New York to Los Angeles.

~~~
lutusp
> Doesn't 220MPH seem insufficiently ambitious?

It accommodates the state of the track (in most cases). To go faster would
require wholesale replacement of most existing track, which is thought to be
too expensive (but is the approach that was used in Japan and France).

> That's at least 12 hours to get from New York to Los Angeles.

I think many people would accept that, if the price was reasonable and the
cars had suitable accommodations.

~~~
kposehn
> It accommodates the state of the track (in most cases). To go faster would
> require wholesale replacement of most existing track, which is thought to be
> too expensive (but is the approach that was used in Japan and France).

It does not accomodate current tracks. No rail lines in the US are designed
for speeds over 150 mph.

~~~
lutusp
I should have said that a comparatively modest roadbed upgrade would allow
this speed -- but only compared to the effort required for the higher speeds
possible elsewhere.

~~~
kposehn
Ah, ok. I would caveat that it is the alignment you can use for high speeds,
not necessarily the roadbed, but your point remains the same then.

~~~
lutusp
> I would caveat that it is the alignment you can use for high speeds ...

Yes, and welded tracks, apparently a universal way to support high speed
operations.

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asthasr
It would be excellent to have high-speed rail in the southeast, in the
Atlanta-Raleigh ("I-85") crescent. This region will eventually be a major
urban agglomeration, and improved transit would help its future immensely, as
well as the development of the secondary cities along the route. Raleigh,
Charlotte, and Atlanta are doing fine; but the Upstate (South Carolina) and
Piedmont Triad (North Carolina) could use some help, and being more integrated
with the overall region would make a lot of sense.

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fleitz
Here is why high speed rail in the US and Canada is stupid.

    
    
      NY to SF: 2500 miles.
      London to Moscow: 1500.
    
      People who live between NY and SF: 313 million. 
      People who live between London and Moscow: 731 million.
    

The economics of it are completely backward, and you can't take high speed
rail from London all the way to Moscow.

We'd be much better off to start by improving I80 and just wait for driverless
cars (busses) to go 250 mph.

Also, yes, high speed rail in the sprawl (Boswash) makes sense, but it doesn't
really make much sense anywhere else except for _maybe_ Seattle to LA. Linking
the coasts with high speed rail is probably pretty silly unless you can start
getting close to 350-450 mph.

~~~
rayiner
You don't have to link NY to SF. High-speed rail in the U.S. makes the most
sense for linking the mega-regions. Chicago to Montreal is less than twice the
distance from Bordeaux to Strasbourg and hits much bigger cities along the
way. Birmingham, AL to Raleigh, NC is about the same distance hits similar
sized metro areas.

Also: the fact that cars are driverless doesn't change the physics of 250 mph
cars...

~~~
fleitz
Actually driverless cars experience much different physics... Driverless cars
can squeeze together much tighter drastically reducing wind resistance. Even
the lead car will experience less drag because of vacuum effect. 250 MPH cars
also need much straighter roads and allow for greater traffic flow which
changes the economic modelling for highways leading to shorter journeys.
Driverless cars also allow for greater degrees of sharing meaning that you'd
only need a few 250 MPH cars shared amongst many individuals.

Of course you don't have to link NY and SF but that's what the map shows, well
to be fair the map shows, NY to LA.

~~~
rayiner
The rolling resistance of a rubber tire at 250 miles an hour is comically
ridiculous. The Bugatti Veyron gets about 3 miles per gallon at 250 miles per
hour.

And the map shows a lot more than just NYC to LA.

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ashika
This can't be serious. Quincy, Illinois?

