December 6, 2010 Should we look further into high speed rail?
OBOW ON THE TGVLast week, the Chinese took one of their trains past 300 mph. While other trains have gone faster, this is the first time one has done over 300 on unmodified rails—meaning the same tracks the train will actually use.
And that gets me wondering. Should we seriously be looking into improving our high speed rail system and is it a true alternative to air travel?
Depending on who you ask, China and the United States are approximately the same size in square miles. Yet our train system is antiquated and lacking. We prefer to fly. But with the hassles of flying, should we be looking at alternatives.
Right now, in the U.S., the only high speed rail service we have is Amtrak’s Acela between Washington, DC and Boston. Its top speed is around 150 mph. On hops between Washing and New York, the train beats the plane when going downtown to downtown. So much so, that the famed hourly shuttles between LaGuardia and Reagan National have all but disappeared.
But what about a longer distance. Say New York to Chicago. The trip is approximately 800 miles. To go from city center to city center, considering the drive to and from the airport as well as the two hours check in time, it would take about 6 hours by plane.
At 150 MPH….the train would take nearly that. At 200 mph, it would take just over 4 hours. (Actual time would vary depending on the number of stops.
But with proper routing, one train could take the place of up to half a dozen planes, save on fuel, and lessen pollution.
Think about it….New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago. All on one train.
No nude-0-scopes. No groping. No cramped seats. The ability to move around. Have a real meal. And even enjoy the scenery.
Currently, China is upgrading 13,000 miles of track for high speed rail. The Obama administration has mentioned their interest in high speed rail. That automatically turned the Republicans off strictly for political reasons.
But on a practical side, is this where our transportation dollars should be going?
(Frank II)
Frank@OBOW
Going light is helpful, even for train travel. An excerpt from an old post:
The high-speed TGV is cool and comfortable, but boarding one with a lot of luggage is not. A small carryon is also a must if you want to keep your bag nearby since the overhead rack on the TGV is not too spacious. And the TGV is double decked - another reason not to have a large or heavy bag.
Boarding a train in Europe can be as hectic as boarding a jetliner, only the pace is much faster. If the US had a similar network of trains I’m quite sure they be slow and less efficient and that the boarding process would be slower to accommodate us slow Americans.
(Brad)
Reader Comments (9)
II know if it were an option, we would certainly choose this mode of travel, but in the UK, the timetables, time it takes and price of tickets are all prohibitive.
For example, Eurostar takes about 2 hours from London to Paris and cheap off peak tickets are freely available. However, getting from our home in the east midlands to London by train costs almost twice as much as the Eurostar tickets and can take up to twice as long.
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
supplemented by:
http://www.cahsrblog.com/
By the time routes that are really useful emerge, say Fresno to San Francisco, or south to Los Angeles and San Diego, hopefully the further infrastructure will include reasonable and convenient rental of all-electric cars, for those whose further metropolitan travel needs can't be met by public transportation. Needless to say, as such travel partially supplants traveling the entire distance by car, a "one bag" packing philosophy and practice will be essential.
There would likely be security for it if it took off to the point where it was taking away airplane customers. Screening based security is already being looked at for bus, train, and even subway systems right now. To be fair a heavily populated train blowing through a city at high speed would make a tempting attack point for those wanting to cause mass death and carnage. Plenty of movies based on that and today's "slow" trains.
Lastly, don't expect high speed rail to come anytime soon. The California system under way is only a partial build and it won't have any segments running until 2015 IIRC. Like anything that scale it isn't overnight.
Still having trains in the US that can maintain average speeds of 90-150 miles per hour would make high speed rail faster than car or bus and, including airport logistics and whatnot, likely faster than air travel too (at least for distances of 350-500 miles).
Having just spent a bunch of time traveling Japan on their Shinkansen lines, I'm all in favor of the US doing more to develop high speed rail where possible.
That being said I'm not advocating doing high speed rail through Amtrak. It would be so much more embarrasing for 200 MPH trains to still be late :P
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/12/the-kalashnikov-paradox.html
BTW, I have no illusions that the TSA would not grope the rails, too. We have seen that rail transport is a target for terrorists. And on metropolitan connections it would be an even worthier target.
As far as boarding goes, I took the train from Chicago to Lafayette, IN once. It was a complete disaster in every respect. The way they boarded people and hoarded them was totally inefficient and people were totally inefficient, too. In Germany high-speed trains are in an out of a train station in five minutes. The stops are scheduled to take three minutes. That's for getting everyone off and back on including their luggage. The Japanese apparently are even more efficient.
The basic idea is to simply get everybody in the train first. THEN stow the luggage and find your seat while the train moves out of the station.
Unfortunately, taking the ICE train in Germany is quite ridiculously expensive. Even at German gas prices (twice the price you pay in the US) it is much more expensive to go by train than by car already when you travel alone. It only gets worse when you travel with two or more people. The pricing system is ludicrously complicated with all kinds of special offers, off-peak prices, group discounts, senior discounts etc. Seriously screwed up. They adopted the French system. :) No kidding. Punctuality ironically is better in France for trains. But in Germany we don't really have strikes.
A normal train ticket from Berlin to Munich will cost at least 150 Euro. I can fly for the same amount or I can even catch a plane to Gran Canaria for that amount. C'mon! Actually I just checked. Return trip for an adult in 2nd class coach is 232 Euros. Single trip is 116 Euros. So 232 Euros is like $300 and that's a ticket from Austin to NYC.
Obviously, when one looks at all the vagaries and investments as well as at the cultural shift that would be required for it not to be a flop, installing a high-speed train system even for metropolitan areas, let alone to cover the whole country, seems like a risky proposition at best.