3 ms·

Honestly we need to build parallel rights of way anyways. The freight rails are slow and dilapidated. It would make more sense for passenger railways to be sep

Honestly we need to build parallel rights of way anyways. The freight rails are slow and dilapidated. It would make more sense for passenger railways to be separated from freight railways entirely rather than to try and squeeze into inadequate trackage. We don’t try to unload air freight through passenger terminals or vice versa.

nopenopenopeno 4y ago
Good luck with that. The only thing we've been able to do in the last few decades is close railways altogether.
smadge 4y ago
That makes sense on some corridors but I'm not sure about the economics of building 2000 miles of dedicated right of way for a train that runs 3 times a week. Maybe if price, reliability, and speed of the service improved to such a degree it could feasibly compete with air and highway travel between those cities.
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  Chicken and egg. Running 3 times a week slowly and expensively isn't going to increase ridership.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  The good news is that most of the population lives in corridors that would make sense. The I-5 coast and everything west of I-35 represents most of the US population. In particular, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York form a triangle roughly 700 miles on each side. This is roughly the distance between Beijing and Shanghai, or Tokyo to Fukuoka, both of which see high speed trains regularly making the full journey.
thatguy0900 4y ago
The government frankly doesn't have it in it to do a project like that anymore. Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property?
- nopenopenopeno 4y ago
  >Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property? No, I can't, but I don't have to imagine the insurmountable resistance when the government merely suggests using eminent domain on a rich person's property. Besides, poor people don't own property in the US anymore.

nopenopenopeno 4y ago

Good luck with that. The only thing we've been able to do in the last few decades is close railways altogether.

smadge 4y ago

That makes sense on some corridors but I'm not sure about the economics of building 2000 miles of dedicated right of way for a train that runs 3 times a week. Maybe if price, reliability, and speed of the service improved to such a degree it could feasibly compete with air and highway travel between those cities.

ThunderSizzle 4y ago
Chicken and egg. Running 3 times a week slowly and expensively isn't going to increase ridership.
bobthepanda 4y ago
The good news is that most of the population lives in corridors that would make sense. The I-5 coast and everything west of I-35 represents most of the US population. In particular, Chicago, Atlanta, and New York form a triangle roughly 700 miles on each side. This is roughly the distance between Beijing and Shanghai, or Tokyo to Fukuoka, both of which see high speed trains regularly making the full journey.

thatguy0900 4y ago

The government frankly doesn't have it in it to do a project like that anymore. Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property?

nopenopenopeno 4y ago
>Can you imagine the outcry when they have to eminent domain some poor peoples property? No, I can't, but I don't have to imagine the insurmountable resistance when the government merely suggests using eminent domain on a rich person's property. Besides, poor people don't own property in the US anymore.