High-speed rail isn't high speed enough. Even with way faster than current tech and NO stops you'd still be looking at taking 12+ hours for what a plane can do in 5.
That's ignoring the trillions it would cost. The US does not have the population density to make HSR viable.
You say like it is a bad thing but I'll take 12 hours in a nice stable train over 7 hours spent in going in and out of airports and sitting on economy airliner seats.
I would actually pay a premium. This actually is reality today. Acela on the Northeast corridor is more expensive than comparable air fares and it's not even that good.
Maybe you would. We know from other countries that in general 5 hours is about the max time people will spend on a train before they choose to fly instead.
Because of air resistance planes are more fuel efficient as well for those longer trips (don't forget about energy lost to brakes when the train needs to stop)
I'd like to see it thoroughly planned out, and a real cost estimate. Most of the trip is plainsland...simple. Getting through the Rockies, way more complicated. I've tried to read on the subject but estimates are an order of magnitude off between projects.
All that said, of course, figuring out how to lower costs safely would be a great thing.
The Rockies are the big obstacle of course, but the stretch east of the Mississippi is also problematic... hard to go around all the towns, and you've also got to cross the Appalachians and/or Alleghenies.
> High speed rail is well $100m/mile, just for the track.
That's frankly an insane figure, and depends vastly on what you're building and where. For something that's largely running through rural landscape, you really should expect no more than half that for the total construction cost. Maybe US construction is that expensive, but… wow.
If we're talking east-west in the US, there are two major mountain ranges, many smaller ones, vast deserts, let alone getting contiguous land in the East.
That seems too high.
I'd rather say in the order of c.$100bn.
In France the average cost is €15m/km, and that's for extremely high standards / constraints (350km/h or 220mph nominal speed, incl. barriers & bridges for wildlife)
12 hours is a lot, but for shorter distances most people would prefer a good train to a plane. Living in Europe, I will take 4-5 hour train ride compared to a 1h flight, most of my friends as well.
Many people will also prefer 5-8 hour 100mph train ride to 1h plane ride due to comfort, price and carbon footprint.
Well... price-wise, in lots of Europe, taking a plane is cheaper..
What really made the difference for me is that the 4-5 hour train ride is done after 4 to 5 hours. My 1 hour flight starts 3 to 3.5h before the flight to get to the airport and through security and at the destination, after de-boarding, I'll spend another hour for security and to get from the airport to my actual destination.
Plane only seems cheaper in many cases. Shuttle to and from the airport can be as expensive or even more expensive than that flight. Frequent delays / cancelled flights, check in misery, security theater and so on. If possible and available I'm more than happy to take the Thalys, ICE or TGV.
You can still work two consecutive days taking the sleeper train. Leave central London at 6.30 p.m. or later, have something to eat/drink, hop on the sleeper and get off at the other end in the centre of the city, bright and early.
Traditionally there has been a large jolt at Crewe where carriages and/or the locomotive gets changed on the train. This will wake you up. But if you are properly tired from working hard then sleep is no problem.
They changed the trains recently. They were with stupidly small 'bedrooms' with absolutely nowhere to put your stuff. Plus sharing a 'bedroom' with a random stranger in the other bunk is slightly weird when they snore and take up all of the available space.
The end carriage used to be a gambling den with an all-night bar. It wasn't supposed to be a gambling den but the large round table and movable chairs made it perfect for betting on card games. The crowd was a regular one for this, working on oil rigs in the North Sea. I liked this illicit activity not that I was involved.
I also did the plane option a few times, but this was not optimal if you were trying to get work done.
Rather than just take the tube across town to Euston for the sleeper train there would be a fraught journey out to the airport - Heathrow. So you would have to do this during working hours hoping not to get caught up in rush hour. At the other end you would need to get a taxi from the airport plus you would need to book a hotel room. There would be no working maximum hours at both destinations, any money saved by the plane would be wasted on taxi and hotel bills and it would also be a mad rush rather than sensibly paced. The 'bump in the night' at Crewe and the guy in the lower bunk snoring was a small price to pay.
Most plane flights are for leisure rather than business. What makes sense for work doesn't make sense for leisure, the cheap flight wins every time when it is you that is paying for it.
> Most people are not flying LA to NYC so that is a minority use case anyways.
This is true, but it is however one of the busiest aviation routes in the US. Certainly you can almost certainly go after some of the busiest routes (New York/Chicago, LA/SF), but where you go after that is less clear.
> The US does not have the population density to make HSR viable.
The Democrats, after they take the Senate and Presidency, should launch a $1-$1.5 trillion regional HSR development project, partnering with Japan.
Here are the regional routes, generally speaking, that make tremendous sense and should be built this decade:
Oklahoma City, Dallas Ft Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Houston
San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Bay Area, Sacramento
Milwaukee, Chicago, St Louis, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Louisville, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, New York City, Boston
Arguments can be made for linking up New Orleans initially; then later using that to link into Florida and Atlanta. Later on you'd link Atlanta to Nashville, and then Nashville to Louisville, completing the Texas to NYC connection. You'd later take Dallas or San Antonio out to El Paso, and then to Tucson & Phoenix, and then to Los Angeles, completing Texas to California. You could also debate Atlanta to Charlotte to Richmond to DC, completing Texas to DC & NYC by another path and creating an easy link from NYC to Miami. No idea what to do about Portland, Seattle, Denver and a few others.
If you build the three major regional HSR sections, you get a de facto national trivially with just a few more connections.
Ideally we would work with Canada and they'd simultaneously fund HSR using the same tech from Japan for max compatibility, and we'd link across the border to Toronto (and they'd link Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City.
This can be done. All it requires is the Democrats to have the gumption to steamroll the zoning / regulatory / environmental bullshit out of the way using executive orders and being abusive with federal power as necessary to the loads of idiots that will inevitably try to get in the way. Knock them down, push them out of the way, build the fucking rail. We might get one good shot at doing it before we drown in debt and it's too late (ie we might as well drop another trillion dollars plus in debt into the never-to-be-repaid ocean).
That sounds like a massive waste of money to me. Those first 2 regions are full of cities with massive sprawl and little public transit meaning you will almost certainly want a car at the end of your trip and at that point, just drive, they are all like a 3-5 hour drive anyways which isn't bad (interstate traffic isn't bad outside of cities).
The older east coast cities make some sense at least since they tend to have some trains and density due to historical past but they mostly already have rail lines you can take (albeit not high speed).
Nobody is willing to pay for trains that take 3-4 as long and are 3-4 more expensive. Maybe you are one of those very, very few people who would do that, but for the most part humans are willing to have 2h of less comfort to get somewhere.
Also, as European who has traveled a lot in train, they are not always so super comfortable over night.
Also, lets be honest, 90% of the discomfort of plane, has to do with boarding, and not plane rides themselves. Those things can be expressed relativity easily.
Building incredible expensive high speed trains across a territory as large as the USA is insane in scope and expense, and minimal in benefit. Specially with electronic planes, cars and autonomy happening.
There is also the reality that there are already huge amounts of airport infrastructure that could be activated with electric planes.
Building a high speed train network is a 30 year project, that in 30 years would be mostly pointless and unused.
Electric aircraft like the Eviation Alice could do similar speeds and 1000km miles between stops. Comparable to HSR (early routes in CA were about 500km).
