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Incredible. I would love to have a good high-speed intercity train network in the United States connecting the major cities in each State. I just looked up an

Incredible. I would love to have a good high-speed intercity train network in the United States connecting the major cities in each State. I just looked up an Amtrak from Atlanta to Dallas: 3 legs around 64 hours. Cries in American. (there's no connection in New Orleans, so the trip planner routes to Chicago)

Mordisquitos 5y ago
A triangle linking Dallas -> Houston -> San Antonio -> Austin -> Dallas would be economically revolutionary for Texas, even with non-maglev high-speed rail.
- KoftaBob 5y ago
  That’s currently being built! https://www.texascentral.com/ https://www.texascentral.com/
- mimixco 5y ago
  It's coming! We will have the first true high speed rail in the US. It's Shinkansen hardware because the Japanese investors in the project insisted... and good for them and us that they did! It's also all new rail as Amtraks own the passenger rights to all existing rail in the US. It's also 100% grade separated (like TGV) so it doesn't cross traffic or people. (This is the #1 factor in making trains safer and faster than cars.) While I'm "not bullish on trains" in the US, as another poster put it, I do think it will work here. Houston is already America's 3rd largest city with 8M people and the route to Dallas (Hwy 45) is horrible, unsafe, and extremely busy, all the time.
- majormajor 5y ago
  How would it be a revolution? I used to fly between some of those cities easily when necessary, and the drive is pretty doable too. A train would be an interesting alternative to flying, depending on route and total times and stop locations, but I just don't see it enabling much truly "new."
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    Consider that the air route between Madrid and Barcelona, two cities that are about 620 km (~385 miles) apart, used to be the busiest air traffic route in the World by frequency of flights until 2007. And that was the case even though these cities were already well connected by motorways as well as by conventional train services. Now, since the high-speed rail link opened in 2008, the Madrid-Barcelona air route doesn't even make the top 20 of busiest routes worldwide. That is the case even though the flight is less than 1h 30m, both cities' airports are well connected to and close to the city centres, and high-speed train tickets have always been more expensive than flying on average. The killer feature of the high-speed train, particularly for business users, is to be able to get from one city centre to the other in at most 3h 20m —if it is a stopping train— or 2h 30m —if it is direct. No need to travel to and from each airport, or deal with airport security, queues, delays, etc. No need to disconnect your phone during the trip. No need to switch off laptops on departure or arrival. And this example is for only two cities which are farther apart than each of Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio are from each other. Imagine if it were possible to get between each of their downtowns in 1h 30m or 2h at most, or from downtown Austin to downtown San Antonio in 30m. The synergistic effects on the economy are hard to predict, but they would be huge.
Miner49er 5y ago
Same. I think China's investment in infrastructure is going to give them a large economic advantage over the US in the years to come.
- bluGill 5y ago
  It could, but their investment in government of insiders is in my opinion more than enough to overcome their economic advantages. They could do well, but their government of the elites is more likely to crack down on development.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  I'm not as bullish on rail. I love taking trains -- it's by far my favorite way of getting around -- but it's so expensive to set up and maintain. every inch of track for hundreds of miles needs to be completely spotless to keep trains running at 200 mph+. Prior to the pandemic, the trend was on cheaper, lighter, quieter aircraft, with more point-to-point routes connecting smaller metro areas, like Hartford airport or Providence airport growing with more and more routes, cheaper parking, etc. As airplanes continue to develop (electric is probably the future) flying will get cheaper and cheaper. Rail may be the luxurious way to get around, but might not be worth the trillions of upfront investment, when you consider that even small metros can afford to build an airport.
  - jbay808 5y ago
    As a counterpoint, I think Japan's investment in rail networks has paid off considerably. I suspect that country would be far worse off today if they didn't have the transportation networks they do (both HSR and normal rail). Not only does it result in fast, convenient, walk-on travel between cities, it also results in a lot less gridlock meaning less commute time wasted, and more affordable, walkable real estate.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      It’s a sample size of 1. Japan is doing great with HSR but also the economy has stagnated for years. Perhaps HSR creates wealth but the lack of flexibility is a long term liabaility?
api 5y ago
Any investment in US infrastructure is government excess and waste. Now spending a trillion dollars to invade and try to remake a country in the Middle East... that's not waste. Neither is bailing out financial institutions so they can go back to the casino. If we don't get our priorities realigned, China will absolutely dominate the 21st century and we have no right to complain. We did this to ourselves.
jjice 5y ago
It is a shame, but it's expected, right? How many edges would a well connected graph of the US have (or rather need if we use nodes as passthrough), how much would this cost to build and operate, and how much would these be used compared to planes? I want to say that I would love better train infrastructure as well, and spending some time in New England has shown me what a fraction of a good one could be and I love it. That said, I don't see how it can be done financially possible, with extremely rough overviews in my head. I'm very ignorant on the topic, so please enlighten me if I'm missing some stuff, which is very possible. I'd honestly love to know.
- opinion-is-bad 5y ago
  The US has world-class train service for freight. The lower population density of the US than Europe and East Asia makes planes a better investment in the US. Less rail to lay per person server makes a big difference.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    The midwest of the US has similar population density to France. The western half of the US with few people (not to mention Alaska) really skew the population density.
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      By way of Alon Levy's blog (although original credit goes to a Twitter user), here's the TGV overlaid on the Midwest: https://twitter.com/Artifact_Scott/status/1377702867944009737 https://twitter.com/Artifact_Scott/status/137770286794400973... The major Midwestern cities are remarkably close in distance from Chicago as major French cities are from Paris, and in terms of population counts, the US has consistently larger cities.
      - multiplegeorges 5y ago
        Sure, but the problem is what do you do once you get there? In France, the cities are dense with decent to great transit. In the US, you have low, flat, sprawling cities with no real transit to speak of. You have to drive.
leaveyou 5y ago
incredible yeah.. but Bezos went to space.. take that China. PS. Do I sense some missalocation of resources in the western world ?
- wiz21c 5y ago
  I go to work with a train, not to space.
- barbarbar 5y ago
  Yes - and it only took 10 minutes and some billions? But it is great - or maybe not. Actually useless.
- Proven 5y ago
  > PS. Do I sense some missalocation of resources in the western world ? Yes, because your redistributionist sensors are malfunctioning. Bezos goes to space on his own dime (essentially; maybe he got some subsidies - I wouldn't be surprised - but those should be eliminated even if they're comparatively small). Public transportation is funded by plunder and debt (delayed plunder). And it's also incredibly wasteful and expensive (ever hear of "cost overruns"?). Recalibrate your sensors at mises.org, buddy!
bluGill 5y ago
Even at 600 km/h Atlanta to Dallas is too far for a train when you could fly instead. There is a lot of potential for rail in the US, but Atlanta to Dallas isn't it.
- dmos62 5y ago
  That's 2 hours at 600 km/h. A flight would take longer, because of security check, getting to-from airport, waiting for luggage, etc. Also, being on a plane sucks, in my personal opinion. If a train ride was 6 hours, and a plane ride 4, I'd take the train. If it were ~8 and 4, that's where I'd start considering taking a plane. I'd love overnight trains to come back to Europe.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    > A flight would take longer, because of security check, getting to-from airport, waiting for luggage, etc. Which is a plain idiocity. A train derailment, even of a non-high speed train, will make for a many times bigger bodycount than an even A380 crash.
    - FireBeyond 5y ago
      No it won't. A few years ago, we had an Amtrak passenger train come off a bridge over I-5 between Olympia and Seattle at 78mph, ending up on the freeway. Three fatalities. Seventy-two people transported to hospital. Fun fact: I was on the first fire engine that arrived on that accident. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailme...
      - reducesuffering 5y ago
        Wow. I've heard firefighters are typically excited to get a call as opposed to being bored at the station, but how did you feel going into that? At the time, you can't imagine what you're about to see or what you're going to have to do...
BurningFrog 5y ago
Everyone would love a high speed train going where they travel. They will never, for good reason, be built for most routes. Because they're very expensive, both to build and operate, so they're only sustainable between large cities at a mediums distances apart. China, with maybe 10x the population density of the US, has a huge number of such routes. The US does not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_pop...
- r00fus 5y ago
  If we had a rail system instead of an interstate road system, the same thing would be said about highways. In fact, the cost of building & maintaining the highway system is quite astronomic.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Highways are far more useful than HSR. They can connect much more than hub-to-hub, they can be used 24/7, they can be used by a wide variety of vehicles supporting a wide variety of industries. HSR is just for passengers. If we were designing the interstate system today, that's actually a fun thought experiment. What would we change? I would probably focus more on throughput -- cars can be half as wide and still seat tons of people, 5 lane highways today could easy be 8 lanes of narrower cars.
    - justaguy88 5y ago
      I'm now imagining higher power Renault Twizys everywhere
    - wobblykiwi 5y ago
      There have been several studies that more lanes tend to lead to more traffic, not less. Here's a wiki article about the phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
      - 5y ago
codegeek 5y ago
I have made my peace with the fact that Car and Airline Lobby will not let this happen. I mean we are the richest frikin country in the world and we cannot build a decent high speed train network. Only reason is that some strong forces do not want this to happen. I hope I am wrong. I also hear funny arguments (in my opinion) about why high speed Rails are a bad idea. Oh it's too expensive. Oh it is ok for countries like China because they have lot of people etc etc. Excuses. I thought we like choices as Americans. Right now, if I don't want to drive, my only option is to fly mostly in a shitty plane cramped up with strangers on a 4 hour flight. I would gladly trade that with a train even if that takes say an additional hour or so. Are Amtraks the best we can do America ?
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  No, your country is bankrupt
  - justaguy88 5y ago
    That would imply that the US can't pay it's debts, but it can by printing more money
- 5tefan 5y ago
  You spend it on warfare and throw the rest after some billionaires.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Why do you make a comment like this when the US federal budget breakdown is clearly available online. Most goes to social services benefits, welfare, and socialized healthcare. https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/mandatory_spending_pie%2C__2015_enacted.png https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/mandatory_spend...
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      I'd like to see that overlaid with military spending at the same scale. Probably wouldn't mean that much anymore, then. Ah, well, not overlaid, not to scale, but nonetheless: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/guides/tipsheet-pentagon-spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/guides/tipsheet-pentagon-... tl;dr Military & Security Spending In fiscal year 2015, Pentagon and related spending will total $598 billion, accounting for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending. That's roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined. Peanuts!
thehappypm 5y ago
Trains aren't that great of an idea for long-haul intercity transit in the US. The distances in the US are pretty big outside of a few pockets of European or Japanese style population density. Airplanes are just better at a certain distance.
- gsnedders 5y ago
  This is why you don't build HSR across all of the continental US, just where the population density justifies it.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    I mean, you could have had this for a long time already if there were political will. This newly unveiled Chinese train is based on decades old German tech. They tricked Siemens into building them a "test track" in Shanghai ages ago, with the promise of giving them a contract for longer routes. Now they have the tech and plan to build it themselves. Btw, other countries determined the maglev tech to be uneconomical. I think India and Saudi Arabia and some other places were interested but ultimately nothing became of it.
    - gsnedders 5y ago
      I was talking generally about HSR, rather than specifically about maglev. Maglev is complex because: * it guarantees you can't run services beyond the limit of the new-built track, * the extra speed comes with higher operational costs (because drag, so you need the time saving to increase modal shift), and * higher construction costs (to get the higher speeds, you need to build it with very large radii corners, which limits your ability to choose one's route to minimise significant structures; and if you want city-centre stations, you have no choice but to build a new line all the way in, and it turns out that acquiring land in cities is expensive). I wouldn't _totally_ write off maglev, but there are relatively few corridors which align to make all of this worthwhile.
      - thehappypm 5y ago
Proven 5y ago
> I would love to have a good high-speed intercity train network in the United States connecting the major cities in each State. Of course. But you wouldn't want to pay for it.
fullshark 5y ago
I’d rather fly
grishka 5y ago
Here in Russia trains are rather popular. There are "high-speed" trains between Moscow and St Petersburg, they go around 200 km/h but they still take around 4 hours. Oh and they're made by Siemens, and they're capable of going faster, except their speed is limited by shitty tracks. Like you can't even walk in a straight line inside this thing while it's doing 200, so I imagine it'd shake itself apart if it tried accelerating any further. That's probably better than Amtrak, but Russian railways could still use a lot of improvement.
wil421 5y ago
Spirit has Atlanta to Dallas round trip for $61 on an 8am flight according to Google. That’s not much more than I paid on a last minute booking in Germany. To drive it would be an 800+ (~1300km) mile trip my my house North of Atlanta to Dallas and take 12 hours no stops. What trips in Europe are 1300km and how long is that train ride? I would love an Atlanta to Raleigh or Atlanta to Savannah train but I think your comparison is kinda extreme. A better comparison would be Atlanta to Athens/Columbus/Chattanooga.

Mordisquitos 5y ago

A triangle linking Dallas -> Houston -> San Antonio -> Austin -> Dallas would be economically revolutionary for Texas, even with non-maglev high-speed rail.

KoftaBob 5y ago
That’s currently being built! https://www.texascentral.com/ https://www.texascentral.com/
mimixco 5y ago
It's coming! We will have the first true high speed rail in the US. It's Shinkansen hardware because the Japanese investors in the project insisted... and good for them and us that they did! It's also all new rail as Amtraks own the passenger rights to all existing rail in the US. It's also 100% grade separated (like TGV) so it doesn't cross traffic or people. (This is the #1 factor in making trains safer and faster than cars.) While I'm "not bullish on trains" in the US, as another poster put it, I do think it will work here. Houston is already America's 3rd largest city with 8M people and the route to Dallas (Hwy 45) is horrible, unsafe, and extremely busy, all the time.
majormajor 5y ago
How would it be a revolution? I used to fly between some of those cities easily when necessary, and the drive is pretty doable too. A train would be an interesting alternative to flying, depending on route and total times and stop locations, but I just don't see it enabling much truly "new."
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  Consider that the air route between Madrid and Barcelona, two cities that are about 620 km (~385 miles) apart, used to be the busiest air traffic route in the World by frequency of flights until 2007. And that was the case even though these cities were already well connected by motorways as well as by conventional train services. Now, since the high-speed rail link opened in 2008, the Madrid-Barcelona air route doesn't even make the top 20 of busiest routes worldwide. That is the case even though the flight is less than 1h 30m, both cities' airports are well connected to and close to the city centres, and high-speed train tickets have always been more expensive than flying on average. The killer feature of the high-speed train, particularly for business users, is to be able to get from one city centre to the other in at most 3h 20m —if it is a stopping train— or 2h 30m —if it is direct. No need to travel to and from each airport, or deal with airport security, queues, delays, etc. No need to disconnect your phone during the trip. No need to switch off laptops on departure or arrival. And this example is for only two cities which are farther apart than each of Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio are from each other. Imagine if it were possible to get between each of their downtowns in 1h 30m or 2h at most, or from downtown Austin to downtown San Antonio in 30m. The synergistic effects on the economy are hard to predict, but they would be huge.

Miner49er 5y ago

Same. I think China's investment in infrastructure is going to give them a large economic advantage over the US in the years to come.

bluGill 5y ago
It could, but their investment in government of insiders is in my opinion more than enough to overcome their economic advantages. They could do well, but their government of the elites is more likely to crack down on development.
thehappypm 5y ago
I'm not as bullish on rail. I love taking trains -- it's by far my favorite way of getting around -- but it's so expensive to set up and maintain. every inch of track for hundreds of miles needs to be completely spotless to keep trains running at 200 mph+. Prior to the pandemic, the trend was on cheaper, lighter, quieter aircraft, with more point-to-point routes connecting smaller metro areas, like Hartford airport or Providence airport growing with more and more routes, cheaper parking, etc. As airplanes continue to develop (electric is probably the future) flying will get cheaper and cheaper. Rail may be the luxurious way to get around, but might not be worth the trillions of upfront investment, when you consider that even small metros can afford to build an airport.
- jbay808 5y ago
  As a counterpoint, I think Japan's investment in rail networks has paid off considerably. I suspect that country would be far worse off today if they didn't have the transportation networks they do (both HSR and normal rail). Not only does it result in fast, convenient, walk-on travel between cities, it also results in a lot less gridlock meaning less commute time wasted, and more affordable, walkable real estate.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    It’s a sample size of 1. Japan is doing great with HSR but also the economy has stagnated for years. Perhaps HSR creates wealth but the lack of flexibility is a long term liabaility?

api 5y ago

Any investment in US infrastructure is government excess and waste. Now spending a trillion dollars to invade and try to remake a country in the Middle East... that's not waste. Neither is bailing out financial institutions so they can go back to the casino. If we don't get our priorities realigned, China will absolutely dominate the 21st century and we have no right to complain. We did this to ourselves.

jjice 5y ago

It is a shame, but it's expected, right? How many edges would a well connected graph of the US have (or rather need if we use nodes as passthrough), how much would this cost to build and operate, and how much would these be used compared to planes? I want to say that I would love better train infrastructure as well, and spending some time in New England has shown me what a fraction of a good one could be and I love it. That said, I don't see how it can be done financially possible, with extremely rough overviews in my head. I'm very ignorant on the topic, so please enlighten me if I'm missing some stuff, which is very possible. I'd honestly love to know.

opinion-is-bad 5y ago
The US has world-class train service for freight. The lower population density of the US than Europe and East Asia makes planes a better investment in the US. Less rail to lay per person server makes a big difference.
- bluGill 5y ago
  The midwest of the US has similar population density to France. The western half of the US with few people (not to mention Alaska) really skew the population density.
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    By way of Alon Levy's blog (although original credit goes to a Twitter user), here's the TGV overlaid on the Midwest: https://twitter.com/Artifact_Scott/status/1377702867944009737 https://twitter.com/Artifact_Scott/status/137770286794400973... The major Midwestern cities are remarkably close in distance from Chicago as major French cities are from Paris, and in terms of population counts, the US has consistently larger cities.
    - multiplegeorges 5y ago
      Sure, but the problem is what do you do once you get there? In France, the cities are dense with decent to great transit. In the US, you have low, flat, sprawling cities with no real transit to speak of. You have to drive.

leaveyou 5y ago

incredible yeah.. but Bezos went to space.. take that China. PS. Do I sense some missalocation of resources in the western world ?

wiz21c 5y ago
I go to work with a train, not to space.
barbarbar 5y ago
Yes - and it only took 10 minutes and some billions? But it is great - or maybe not. Actually useless.
Proven 5y ago
> PS. Do I sense some missalocation of resources in the western world ? Yes, because your redistributionist sensors are malfunctioning. Bezos goes to space on his own dime (essentially; maybe he got some subsidies - I wouldn't be surprised - but those should be eliminated even if they're comparatively small). Public transportation is funded by plunder and debt (delayed plunder). And it's also incredibly wasteful and expensive (ever hear of "cost overruns"?). Recalibrate your sensors at mises.org, buddy!

bluGill 5y ago

Even at 600 km/h Atlanta to Dallas is too far for a train when you could fly instead. There is a lot of potential for rail in the US, but Atlanta to Dallas isn't it.

dmos62 5y ago
That's 2 hours at 600 km/h. A flight would take longer, because of security check, getting to-from airport, waiting for luggage, etc. Also, being on a plane sucks, in my personal opinion. If a train ride was 6 hours, and a plane ride 4, I'd take the train. If it were ~8 and 4, that's where I'd start considering taking a plane. I'd love overnight trains to come back to Europe.
- baybal2 5y ago
  > A flight would take longer, because of security check, getting to-from airport, waiting for luggage, etc. Which is a plain idiocity. A train derailment, even of a non-high speed train, will make for a many times bigger bodycount than an even A380 crash.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    No it won't. A few years ago, we had an Amtrak passenger train come off a bridge over I-5 between Olympia and Seattle at 78mph, ending up on the freeway. Three fatalities. Seventy-two people transported to hospital. Fun fact: I was on the first fire engine that arrived on that accident. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Washington_train_derailme...
    - reducesuffering 5y ago
      Wow. I've heard firefighters are typically excited to get a call as opposed to being bored at the station, but how did you feel going into that? At the time, you can't imagine what you're about to see or what you're going to have to do...

BurningFrog 5y ago

Everyone would love a high speed train going where they travel. They will never, for good reason, be built for most routes. Because they're very expensive, both to build and operate, so they're only sustainable between large cities at a mediums distances apart. China, with maybe 10x the population density of the US, has a huge number of such routes. The US does not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_pop...

r00fus 5y ago
If we had a rail system instead of an interstate road system, the same thing would be said about highways. In fact, the cost of building & maintaining the highway system is quite astronomic.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Highways are far more useful than HSR. They can connect much more than hub-to-hub, they can be used 24/7, they can be used by a wide variety of vehicles supporting a wide variety of industries. HSR is just for passengers. If we were designing the interstate system today, that's actually a fun thought experiment. What would we change? I would probably focus more on throughput -- cars can be half as wide and still seat tons of people, 5 lane highways today could easy be 8 lanes of narrower cars.
  - justaguy88 5y ago
    I'm now imagining higher power Renault Twizys everywhere
  - wobblykiwi 5y ago
    There have been several studies that more lanes tend to lead to more traffic, not less. Here's a wiki article about the phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
    - 5y ago

codegeek 5y ago

I have made my peace with the fact that Car and Airline Lobby will not let this happen. I mean we are the richest frikin country in the world and we cannot build a decent high speed train network. Only reason is that some strong forces do not want this to happen. I hope I am wrong. I also hear funny arguments (in my opinion) about why high speed Rails are a bad idea. Oh it's too expensive. Oh it is ok for countries like China because they have lot of people etc etc. Excuses. I thought we like choices as Americans. Right now, if I don't want to drive, my only option is to fly mostly in a shitty plane cramped up with strangers on a 4 hour flight. I would gladly trade that with a train even if that takes say an additional hour or so. Are Amtraks the best we can do America ?

jbverschoor 5y ago
No, your country is bankrupt
- justaguy88 5y ago
  That would imply that the US can't pay it's debts, but it can by printing more money
5tefan 5y ago
You spend it on warfare and throw the rest after some billionaires.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Why do you make a comment like this when the US federal budget breakdown is clearly available online. Most goes to social services benefits, welfare, and socialized healthcare. https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/mandatory_spending_pie%2C__2015_enacted.png https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/mandatory_spend...
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    I'd like to see that overlaid with military spending at the same scale. Probably wouldn't mean that much anymore, then. Ah, well, not overlaid, not to scale, but nonetheless: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/guides/tipsheet-pentagon-spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/guides/tipsheet-pentagon-... tl;dr Military & Security Spending In fiscal year 2015, Pentagon and related spending will total $598 billion, accounting for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending. That's roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgets around the world, combined. Peanuts!

thehappypm 5y ago

Trains aren't that great of an idea for long-haul intercity transit in the US. The distances in the US are pretty big outside of a few pockets of European or Japanese style population density. Airplanes are just better at a certain distance.

gsnedders 5y ago
This is why you don't build HSR across all of the continental US, just where the population density justifies it.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  I mean, you could have had this for a long time already if there were political will. This newly unveiled Chinese train is based on decades old German tech. They tricked Siemens into building them a "test track" in Shanghai ages ago, with the promise of giving them a contract for longer routes. Now they have the tech and plan to build it themselves. Btw, other countries determined the maglev tech to be uneconomical. I think India and Saudi Arabia and some other places were interested but ultimately nothing became of it.
  - gsnedders 5y ago
    I was talking generally about HSR, rather than specifically about maglev. Maglev is complex because: * it guarantees you can't run services beyond the limit of the new-built track, * the extra speed comes with higher operational costs (because drag, so you need the time saving to increase modal shift), and * higher construction costs (to get the higher speeds, you need to build it with very large radii corners, which limits your ability to choose one's route to minimise significant structures; and if you want city-centre stations, you have no choice but to build a new line all the way in, and it turns out that acquiring land in cities is expensive). I wouldn't _totally_ write off maglev, but there are relatively few corridors which align to make all of this worthwhile.
    - thehappypm 5y ago

Proven 5y ago

> I would love to have a good high-speed intercity train network in the United States connecting the major cities in each State. Of course. But you wouldn't want to pay for it.

fullshark 5y ago

I’d rather fly

grishka 5y ago

Here in Russia trains are rather popular. There are "high-speed" trains between Moscow and St Petersburg, they go around 200 km/h but they still take around 4 hours. Oh and they're made by Siemens, and they're capable of going faster, except their speed is limited by shitty tracks. Like you can't even walk in a straight line inside this thing while it's doing 200, so I imagine it'd shake itself apart if it tried accelerating any further. That's probably better than Amtrak, but Russian railways could still use a lot of improvement.

wil421 5y ago

Spirit has Atlanta to Dallas round trip for $61 on an 8am flight according to Google. That’s not much more than I paid on a last minute booking in Germany. To drive it would be an 800+ (~1300km) mile trip my my house North of Atlanta to Dallas and take 12 hours no stops. What trips in Europe are 1300km and how long is that train ride? I would love an Atlanta to Raleigh or Atlanta to Savannah train but I think your comparison is kinda extreme. A better comparison would be Atlanta to Athens/Columbus/Chattanooga.