10 ms·

France's new high-speed train has Americans asking: Why can't we have that?

80 points by devonnull 1y ago

garbagewoman 1y ago
[flagged]
- trashtensor 1y ago
  how so?
  - hdjjhhvvhga 1y ago
    I believe the GP doesn't believe trains have a future in a country that has a long tradition of automobile industry and its lobby is particularly strong. I'd like to offer an alternate perspective: good public transportation network may decrease the number of vehicles sold in the (very) long run but creates another market that is quite stable - all this infrastructure of busses, trams, trains needs not only new units but also reliable maintenance. This is always a business opportunity and direct us towards a more sustainable future instead of just "produce more new cars no matter what".
- darkwater 1y ago
  What do you mean?
globular-toast 1y ago
> TGV stands for train à grande vitesse, or “train of great speed.” This is one of my pet peeves. Train à grande vitesse means high-speed train in English. There's no need to provide a mechanical word by word translation. It's like people saying al dente means "to the tooth" which is meaningless in English. Being al dente means something has bite. This kind of thing should only be a problem if the target language has no translation.
- hdjjhhvvhga 1y ago
  It doesn't bother me that much really but if we want to be pedantic the literal rendering would be be "train at great speed" - this would make your point more pronounced.
  - tux3 1y ago
    If you want to be pedantic, the preposition à serves about twenty different roles (per the dictionary), so even a literal translation will have to pick the right word, not just one of its homonyms. At is not the right word, even if you're translating word by word.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 1y ago
      I just wanted to reply how wrong you are and that the OP's version would be literal if "de" was used instead of "à" but just writing that made me realize that I'm completely wrong and you are totally right. That's a rare moment and I decided to celebrate it by making this comment. Thank you!
- Mistletoe 1y ago
  Describing al dente that way has helped me understand it quite a bit.
- r0ckarong 1y ago
  God forbid people learn a language's idioms by the actual way they are constructed and used.
  - delroth 1y ago
    Except here it's not even a correct literal translation of "TGV", so you wouldn't be learning anything useful.
    - YawningAngel 1y ago
      I think it's a pretty reasonable one, no? The "of" is not literal but I would struggle to translate better
charcircuit 1y ago
Trains are nice on vacations since I don't care about the price and it's a novel experience. It doesn't make sense to do in America since it's more expensive than having people drive and it limits people's freedom to stations instead of where they need to get to.
- cenamus 1y ago
  More expensive that driving? My public transport ticket for my whole state costs less than 400EUR, (whole country ~1000) while a car would run me around 6000/year, depending on how much I'm driving
  - herbst 1y ago
    I am in Switzerland, public transport ticket is $3500 a year for one person. We are 2 and a dog. It's kinda sad, but a car is the WAY cheaper option for us.
    - mike_hearn 1y ago
      Which ticket do you mean? If you're thinking of an adult GA it's actually now ~$4,700/yr :( But, an adult GA is a premium ticket. That buys you unlimited travel on the entire network for a year. Not many travel patterns need that. If you just buy tickets as you need them and especially combined with a Halbtax it's not so bad. Where the crossover between car ownership and using public transport for everything occurs is going to depend a lot on your specific travel patterns and what kind of car you compare to.
      - herbst 1y ago
        That's a lot more than I remember, but doesn't surprise :) You are right tho. If I would live near a bus station that has more than 3 rides a day (which 98% of all Swiss do, rough estimate) I would probably just use a halbtax and a Region specific subscription. But if I use regular SBB tickets for like 10-15 short trips a year you are already getting closer to the GA. Depends on your patterns :)
usrnm 1y ago
New high-speed train? There is nothing like even France's old high-speed trains in the US
- ulfw 1y ago
  Actually the Amtrak Acela train service is based on a French TGV (Train à grande vitesse). Just that the Americans never bothered to build an accompanying LGV (Ligne à Grande Vitesse ). TGV without LGV = not high speed.
pluto_modadic 1y ago
I wish we had /rail/, period, to many destinations. Utah's frontrunner doesn't go far enough north or south, which means I have to own a car :/
riffraff 1y ago
I live in Europe and I also ask "why can't we have that". High speed rail >240km/h is still very uncommon[0], especially cross border (tho notable exceptions exist, e.g. Paris-Milan with both TGV and Frecciarossa just reopened). There are EU plans for a wider network but it's progressing very slowly. The presence of fast trains between two cities, on the scale of <600km, is transformative, as it becomes more convenient to take a train than to fly, while also having less negative externalities. 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  As distance grows cost really becomes prohibitive and flying also becomes faster.
  - 7bit 1y ago
    Not really. Flying is fast, but when you measure door to door, in distances of under 1000k, a high speed rail network would not be slower.
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      Hence "as distance grows"...
      - gmueckl 1y ago
        But a 1000km radius around any major center in Europe covers a lot of potential destinations. I assume that a lot of people, especially in the US underestimate the density of Europe.
        mytailorisrich 1y ago
        1000km is a stretch to set the threshold at which trains win on time. It is also costly, not least when you hit a mountain range... at some point you need to balance billions of euros vs saving an hour (or even less).
lqet 1y ago
That's a strange article. The TGV Inoui is not a "new high-speed train", it is an SNCF brand (think "premium TGV") that has been operating for nearly a decade now, using standard TGV rolling stock. SNCF are simply buying new trains for that brand, and the interior design doesn't even look that different from other new high-speed trains in other parts of the world.
- whiplash451 1y ago
  They are referring to TGV M, the latest version of the TGV that is being released by Alstom. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_M https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_M
aborsy 1y ago
Because you can’t have America and France at the same time! You can’t have 300k salaries (you gotta cut it by 90% for taxes), small government, small regulations, limits on other public services that follow suit, low energy prices … You can’t cherry pick. If you want fast trains from France, you need to become France. At the end, public transport will be congested, captured by homeless, dirty, … There is no train from any A to any Z, you have take it from A, change to B, C, to Z. You will burn out in public transport, and drive a car. Not to mention US is a vast sparsely populated country, compared to EU that may have no choice but to rely on a mix of public and private transport.
- ezst 1y ago
  > Because you can’t have America and France at the same time! Why not? That could look something like Denmark, or the Netherlands ...
  - n4r9 1y ago
    Denmark and the Netherlands have income tax rates and public services much more similar to France than to the US.
    - ezst 1y ago
      IIRC they take it more kindly than the French to have their public services be run by corporations
      - n4r9 1y ago
        Yeah true, in France the SNCF [0] both maintains and operates the railways. In most other EU countries (and the UK) the railway infrastructure is maintained and developed by a state-owned organisation and operated by a mixture of state-owned and private operators. In fact there are quite strict EU rules about tendering out railway services, which is one of the few things I dislike about it. Note that France has had true high-speed rail (>200kph) since the 80s, and the newer lines allow speeds exceeding 320kph. Denmark does not have any rail exceeding 200kph. The Netherlands has had high-speed rail since 2009, though I'm not sure if it's used by private operators. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF
Galatians4_16 1y ago
You can ask the Wallstreet Apes for a detailed explanation, but it's a combination of corrupted government real estate acquisition, development, a pinch of nepotism to change ownership, and a lot of money laundering.
bigbacaloa 1y ago
[dead]
lmm 1y ago
A French team offered to build a high speed line in California based on their technology. After several years they gave up and built one in North Africa instead, since the government there was so much more functional.
- lucianbr 1y ago
  France still has some influence in Africa. I doubt the level of function of the government was the only factor.
  - orwin 1y ago
    (to your point: Bolloré will be on trial in a few month for active corruption of foreign state agent. In this particular instance, the first in which he was truly caught, it was for an infrastructure deal)
- jeffbee 1y ago
  This is honestly just a dumb urban legend. SNCF wanted to run a route down I-5 which is highly problematic and would not have accomplished the goals of the project. After tossing around their politically impossible ideas for a few minutes, they went and did something else. CAHSR engaged Spanish civil engineering firms Dragados and Ferrovial instead. There is only one skill that is important for building CAHSR and that is navigating the multiplicity of overlapping governments at the federal, state, county, and city levels and plotting a course through CEQA and America's ridiculous common law system to reach the end of the project. SNCF might have experience building railroads but honestly anyone can build a railroad and SNCF brings nothing relevant to such a project.
  - pas 1y ago
    why is it problematic? could it be on a raised platform?
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      The law only permits the bond proceeds to be spent on designated routes. To accommodate this, the French fantasy plan needed long spurs across the San Joaquin Valley. This would have required more guideways overall, more parcel acquisitions, more waterway crossings, and generally higher costs. It would also have tripled the travel time between Fresno and other major cities, which would have sunk popular support for the project since millions of people would have correctly perceived it as serving only SF and LA.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ineedaj0b 1y ago
The best rail being built in the US is in Florida, the brightline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline it's a tad expensive for a lot of people, and doesn't go as fast as it could because it uses existing lines but.. it's pretty good. it came about during the 08' recession, florida (gov Rick Scott) cancelled what was going to be a statewide rail line to save money. i remember nearly all the people i mentioned it too wished it had been kept. whoever the man/team/group that eventually founded brightline they fought an uphill battle but it helped most seniors in the state at the time could remember the US with trains and it had broad public interest, along with the backing of Disney. it's still really hard to use only the train in FL. florida is very spaced out and a misery of heat during the summer. you can avoid the heat if you go from inside>car>inside, but trains lend themselves to walking. having optionality is nice and i take it at least once month for the novelty and invite friends on to hopefully build awareness. the us can build great things. we just need more builders to take their eyes off software and go back to public projects. https://www.gobrightline.com/ https://www.gobrightline.com/
- Gibbon1 1y ago
  The best rail being built right now is the totally hated and despised California High Speed Rail.
  - googlehater 1y ago
    being, built, right, and now. four words that do not describe CHSR
    - Gibbon1 1y ago
      Informed is a word that doesn't describe you. https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Project-Update-Report-FINAL-030125-A11Y.pdf https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Project-U...
- waltercool 1y ago
  [dead]
rednafi 1y ago
But the US is huge. So is China, and they have fantastic trains. The freedom to choose between public transportation and your own vehicle is immense. I don’t like driving, maintaining a car, or constantly paying for gas and insurance, and I’m fine with the inconvenience. At least in Europe, I have the option to give up a car and opt for public transportation.
- ironmagma 1y ago
  If there's one thing we're good at in America, it's inventing cope. There are many dense corridors in the USA including the northeast and west coast. None of them have high speed rail, and most don't even have dense housing, nor do they have the desire to get them.
josefrichter 1y ago
Americans are asking why they can’t have European trains, meanwhile Japan and China are ROFLing.
animatethrow 1y ago
When a 300mph Japanese maglev passes close by it looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gp4DcRsELc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gp4DcRsELc Imagine living in the SF Bay Area and seeing a BART train move like that? Just unreal.
maaaaattttt 1y ago
An explanation I once read, and I think makes total sense, is WWII. Europe was heavily destroyed after WWII with no exception to railway tracks. They needed to be rebuild. They were, but with a much better technology than what was there in the 1800s. This allowed faster trains, better technology overall to be "deployed" and ultimately better initial adpotion which started a positive feedback loop. Meanwhile railway tracks were never bombed and never needed to be rebuilt like they were in Europe, so the infrastructure didn't allow for the technological improvements and the positive feedback look never started. What they forgot to mention in the article (or I missed) is that train is extremly expensive and has gotten more expensive over the years. I cannot do it right now but I'd bet the price per km is much higher that what it is for a plain ride or even a car ride (if the car is full, meaning 4 train tickets vs card ride) which very frustrating when the consensus is "we need to take the train more often, driving is not good" while salaries stagnate and inflation is having the time of its life.
- gmueckl 1y ago
  That WW2 theory seems like a bit of an odd take, although not a completely outlandish one. I also noticed that in the late 19th century, railways received a lot of government support and that is what enabled a dense network of passenger train stations in city centers in the first place. At least in Germany, there are options to bring the cost of long distance train tickets down considerably. Booking far enough in advance can get you almost any long distance ticket to proces comparable with flying. If you do that a 3 or 4 times a year, consider getting a Bahncard 25, which is a cheap 25% off coupon for a year. It just needs a few train rides to completely amortize. Just don't forget to cancel it in time when you no longer need it (that's the catch). I don't know if other countries have similar options and how effective they are.
- afiori 1y ago
  > What they forgot to mention in the article (or I missed) is that train is extremly expensive and has gotten more expensive over the years. Expensive for the user or expensive for the state? I believe that almost everywhere in the west the cost-per-trip from the state POV is wildly in favour of trains.
lebrac 1y ago
Please read Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson to understand why there is no TGV in California. Long story short : Well intended regulations and excessive outsourcing to the private sector made the costs prohibitive.
- dekhn 1y ago
  The route was also adjusted to be far less practical as a compromise to get the central valley politicians to approve it. I really wish they had done a straight shot between Burbank and San Jose but even then it would have been extremely expensive because contractors have learned how to extract every last bit of money while doing as little work as possible.
phtrivier 1y ago
Don't despair: - many parts of most EU countries still don't have access to high speed trains, and they complain too (with that said, some of them are French, so _of course_ they would complain) - the parts that are on the way to have high speed train are complaining because of the infrastructure work involved (everybody wants the train station ; no one wants the trails) - that parts that have high speed train will complain about delays, strikes, the lack of electrical plugs, the WiFi quality, etc... - at least in France, it's still very often cheaper to flight than ride a high speed train (which does not make any sense to most people.)
mvdtnz 1y ago
You're in the richest country in the history of earth. You can have anything you want. If you really want it.
ezst 1y ago
Apparently, part of the answer is "because of Elon Musk", after it became clear that the whole hyperloop fuss was a conspiracy to funnel money out of the ongoing Californian fast rail projects, which he was perceiving as a threat to his nascent EV ventures. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-m...
- Gibbon1 1y ago
  Musk hates the High Speed Rail because he's never going to be able to use it.
piokoch 1y ago
The answer is in the American political system. First, USA is not a country, it is a union of states that are quite independent and at the dawn of the USA central government was avoiding enforcement of too much regulation, as states were very different - economically, socially, demographically, religiously, so it would be very risky to do something that might enrage one or several states. Example. USA decided to change tariffs policy to help development of local industry at the times when USA didn't have its own, had to steal inventions from UK (see Slater the Traitor story). Those tariffs helped industrialization of the Northern states, but which hurt states that lived from agriculture production driven by almost free workforce and wanted as much free trade as possible to sell their products abroad. And, as we know, this caused a really bad war. BTW: the tale "to tariff or not to tariff" happens again and again in USA history, now we have another turn. So there is historical reluctance to say for central government "ok, we will build a fast rail from Boston to Oregon, everyone on the way has to pay for it". Secondly, USA is really, really decentralized on the counties level, this is again, historical thing. When American settlers where going West they couldn't count on central government to help them, so they knew that anything they spent, they have to earn, as a result, till today, there is no so much thinking about a "bigger picture", but mostly on the stuff which is just here. County X does not see much reason to pay for fast railway, or even letting it go through it, given the trains would not stop in that county, instead they will "have nasty, loud piece of steel" going through their land. Thirdly, USA is big. Really big, it is way bigger and sparsely populated than France, so the viability of the railway is questionable. On shorter distances cars do their job, on longer flying makes more sense, as it does not require expensive infrastructure on the deserted and mostly empty territories. There are areas in the USA that are more densely populated, mostly the East coast, so I can see fast rail from NY to Florida, but I don't see something like this in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. But how building this NY-Florida railway should be financed? Central budget? This would enrage other states, as for them this does not matter. Will NY, N/S Carolina, Virginia and Florida team up to do an investment? Is there any organizational structure in the USA that would provide a frame for such cooperation? This is far from simple. People often say, "but this is working so great in Switzerland, Finland, France or Norway or even in China!" without looking on the specific political, economical, etc. aspects, that are incomparable to the USA.
- 1y ago
waltercool 1y ago
[dead]
jmclnx 1y ago
OK I'll answer. The US is owned by the fossil fuel industry. Just look at Trump's recent announcement about "clean coal". Trump is too stupid to come up with an original thought, someone told him that phrase and he mimics it now.

80 points by devonnull 1y ago

garbagewoman 1y ago

[flagged]

trashtensor 1y ago
how so?
- hdjjhhvvhga 1y ago
  I believe the GP doesn't believe trains have a future in a country that has a long tradition of automobile industry and its lobby is particularly strong. I'd like to offer an alternate perspective: good public transportation network may decrease the number of vehicles sold in the (very) long run but creates another market that is quite stable - all this infrastructure of busses, trams, trains needs not only new units but also reliable maintenance. This is always a business opportunity and direct us towards a more sustainable future instead of just "produce more new cars no matter what".
darkwater 1y ago
What do you mean?

globular-toast 1y ago

> TGV stands for train à grande vitesse, or “train of great speed.” This is one of my pet peeves. Train à grande vitesse means high-speed train in English. There's no need to provide a mechanical word by word translation. It's like people saying al dente means "to the tooth" which is meaningless in English. Being al dente means something has bite. This kind of thing should only be a problem if the target language has no translation.

hdjjhhvvhga 1y ago
It doesn't bother me that much really but if we want to be pedantic the literal rendering would be be "train at great speed" - this would make your point more pronounced.
- tux3 1y ago
  If you want to be pedantic, the preposition à serves about twenty different roles (per the dictionary), so even a literal translation will have to pick the right word, not just one of its homonyms. At is not the right word, even if you're translating word by word.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 1y ago
    I just wanted to reply how wrong you are and that the OP's version would be literal if "de" was used instead of "à" but just writing that made me realize that I'm completely wrong and you are totally right. That's a rare moment and I decided to celebrate it by making this comment. Thank you!
Mistletoe 1y ago
Describing al dente that way has helped me understand it quite a bit.
r0ckarong 1y ago
God forbid people learn a language's idioms by the actual way they are constructed and used.
- delroth 1y ago
  Except here it's not even a correct literal translation of "TGV", so you wouldn't be learning anything useful.
  - YawningAngel 1y ago
    I think it's a pretty reasonable one, no? The "of" is not literal but I would struggle to translate better

charcircuit 1y ago

Trains are nice on vacations since I don't care about the price and it's a novel experience. It doesn't make sense to do in America since it's more expensive than having people drive and it limits people's freedom to stations instead of where they need to get to.

cenamus 1y ago
More expensive that driving? My public transport ticket for my whole state costs less than 400EUR, (whole country ~1000) while a car would run me around 6000/year, depending on how much I'm driving
- herbst 1y ago
  I am in Switzerland, public transport ticket is $3500 a year for one person. We are 2 and a dog. It's kinda sad, but a car is the WAY cheaper option for us.
  - mike_hearn 1y ago
    Which ticket do you mean? If you're thinking of an adult GA it's actually now ~$4,700/yr :( But, an adult GA is a premium ticket. That buys you unlimited travel on the entire network for a year. Not many travel patterns need that. If you just buy tickets as you need them and especially combined with a Halbtax it's not so bad. Where the crossover between car ownership and using public transport for everything occurs is going to depend a lot on your specific travel patterns and what kind of car you compare to.
    - herbst 1y ago
      That's a lot more than I remember, but doesn't surprise :) You are right tho. If I would live near a bus station that has more than 3 rides a day (which 98% of all Swiss do, rough estimate) I would probably just use a halbtax and a Region specific subscription. But if I use regular SBB tickets for like 10-15 short trips a year you are already getting closer to the GA. Depends on your patterns :)

usrnm 1y ago

New high-speed train? There is nothing like even France's old high-speed trains in the US

ulfw 1y ago
Actually the Amtrak Acela train service is based on a French TGV (Train à grande vitesse). Just that the Americans never bothered to build an accompanying LGV (Ligne à Grande Vitesse ). TGV without LGV = not high speed.

pluto_modadic 1y ago

I wish we had /rail/, period, to many destinations. Utah's frontrunner doesn't go far enough north or south, which means I have to own a car :/

riffraff 1y ago

I live in Europe and I also ask "why can't we have that". High speed rail >240km/h is still very uncommon[0], especially cross border (tho notable exceptions exist, e.g. Paris-Milan with both TGV and Frecciarossa just reopened). There are EU plans for a wider network but it's progressing very slowly. The presence of fast trains between two cities, on the scale of <600km, is transformative, as it becomes more convenient to take a train than to fly, while also having less negative externalities. 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Europe

mytailorisrich 1y ago
As distance grows cost really becomes prohibitive and flying also becomes faster.
- 7bit 1y ago
  Not really. Flying is fast, but when you measure door to door, in distances of under 1000k, a high speed rail network would not be slower.
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    Hence "as distance grows"...
    - gmueckl 1y ago
      But a 1000km radius around any major center in Europe covers a lot of potential destinations. I assume that a lot of people, especially in the US underestimate the density of Europe.
      - mytailorisrich 1y ago
        1000km is a stretch to set the threshold at which trains win on time. It is also costly, not least when you hit a mountain range... at some point you need to balance billions of euros vs saving an hour (or even less).

lqet 1y ago

That's a strange article. The TGV Inoui is not a "new high-speed train", it is an SNCF brand (think "premium TGV") that has been operating for nearly a decade now, using standard TGV rolling stock. SNCF are simply buying new trains for that brand, and the interior design doesn't even look that different from other new high-speed trains in other parts of the world.

whiplash451 1y ago
They are referring to TGV M, the latest version of the TGV that is being released by Alstom. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_M https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_M

aborsy 1y ago

Because you can’t have America and France at the same time! You can’t have 300k salaries (you gotta cut it by 90% for taxes), small government, small regulations, limits on other public services that follow suit, low energy prices … You can’t cherry pick. If you want fast trains from France, you need to become France. At the end, public transport will be congested, captured by homeless, dirty, … There is no train from any A to any Z, you have take it from A, change to B, C, to Z. You will burn out in public transport, and drive a car. Not to mention US is a vast sparsely populated country, compared to EU that may have no choice but to rely on a mix of public and private transport.

ezst 1y ago
> Because you can’t have America and France at the same time! Why not? That could look something like Denmark, or the Netherlands ...
- n4r9 1y ago
  Denmark and the Netherlands have income tax rates and public services much more similar to France than to the US.
  - ezst 1y ago
    IIRC they take it more kindly than the French to have their public services be run by corporations
    - n4r9 1y ago
      Yeah true, in France the SNCF [0] both maintains and operates the railways. In most other EU countries (and the UK) the railway infrastructure is maintained and developed by a state-owned organisation and operated by a mixture of state-owned and private operators. In fact there are quite strict EU rules about tendering out railway services, which is one of the few things I dislike about it. Note that France has had true high-speed rail (>200kph) since the 80s, and the newer lines allow speeds exceeding 320kph. Denmark does not have any rail exceeding 200kph. The Netherlands has had high-speed rail since 2009, though I'm not sure if it's used by private operators. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCF

Galatians4_16 1y ago

You can ask the Wallstreet Apes for a detailed explanation, but it's a combination of corrupted government real estate acquisition, development, a pinch of nepotism to change ownership, and a lot of money laundering.

bigbacaloa 1y ago

[dead]

lmm 1y ago

A French team offered to build a high speed line in California based on their technology. After several years they gave up and built one in North Africa instead, since the government there was so much more functional.

lucianbr 1y ago
France still has some influence in Africa. I doubt the level of function of the government was the only factor.
- orwin 1y ago
  (to your point: Bolloré will be on trial in a few month for active corruption of foreign state agent. In this particular instance, the first in which he was truly caught, it was for an infrastructure deal)
jeffbee 1y ago
This is honestly just a dumb urban legend. SNCF wanted to run a route down I-5 which is highly problematic and would not have accomplished the goals of the project. After tossing around their politically impossible ideas for a few minutes, they went and did something else. CAHSR engaged Spanish civil engineering firms Dragados and Ferrovial instead. There is only one skill that is important for building CAHSR and that is navigating the multiplicity of overlapping governments at the federal, state, county, and city levels and plotting a course through CEQA and America's ridiculous common law system to reach the end of the project. SNCF might have experience building railroads but honestly anyone can build a railroad and SNCF brings nothing relevant to such a project.
- pas 1y ago
  why is it problematic? could it be on a raised platform?
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    The law only permits the bond proceeds to be spent on designated routes. To accommodate this, the French fantasy plan needed long spurs across the San Joaquin Valley. This would have required more guideways overall, more parcel acquisitions, more waterway crossings, and generally higher costs. It would also have tripled the travel time between Fresno and other major cities, which would have sunk popular support for the project since millions of people would have correctly perceived it as serving only SF and LA.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ineedaj0b 1y ago

The best rail being built in the US is in Florida, the brightline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline it's a tad expensive for a lot of people, and doesn't go as fast as it could because it uses existing lines but.. it's pretty good. it came about during the 08' recession, florida (gov Rick Scott) cancelled what was going to be a statewide rail line to save money. i remember nearly all the people i mentioned it too wished it had been kept. whoever the man/team/group that eventually founded brightline they fought an uphill battle but it helped most seniors in the state at the time could remember the US with trains and it had broad public interest, along with the backing of Disney. it's still really hard to use only the train in FL. florida is very spaced out and a misery of heat during the summer. you can avoid the heat if you go from inside>car>inside, but trains lend themselves to walking. having optionality is nice and i take it at least once month for the novelty and invite friends on to hopefully build awareness. the us can build great things. we just need more builders to take their eyes off software and go back to public projects. https://www.gobrightline.com/ https://www.gobrightline.com/

Gibbon1 1y ago
The best rail being built right now is the totally hated and despised California High Speed Rail.
- googlehater 1y ago
  being, built, right, and now. four words that do not describe CHSR
  - Gibbon1 1y ago
    Informed is a word that doesn't describe you. https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Project-Update-Report-FINAL-030125-A11Y.pdf https://hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-Project-U...
waltercool 1y ago
[dead]

rednafi 1y ago

But the US is huge. So is China, and they have fantastic trains. The freedom to choose between public transportation and your own vehicle is immense. I don’t like driving, maintaining a car, or constantly paying for gas and insurance, and I’m fine with the inconvenience. At least in Europe, I have the option to give up a car and opt for public transportation.

ironmagma 1y ago
If there's one thing we're good at in America, it's inventing cope. There are many dense corridors in the USA including the northeast and west coast. None of them have high speed rail, and most don't even have dense housing, nor do they have the desire to get them.

josefrichter 1y ago

Americans are asking why they can’t have European trains, meanwhile Japan and China are ROFLing.

animatethrow 1y ago

When a 300mph Japanese maglev passes close by it looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gp4DcRsELc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gp4DcRsELc Imagine living in the SF Bay Area and seeing a BART train move like that? Just unreal.

maaaaattttt 1y ago

An explanation I once read, and I think makes total sense, is WWII. Europe was heavily destroyed after WWII with no exception to railway tracks. They needed to be rebuild. They were, but with a much better technology than what was there in the 1800s. This allowed faster trains, better technology overall to be "deployed" and ultimately better initial adpotion which started a positive feedback loop. Meanwhile railway tracks were never bombed and never needed to be rebuilt like they were in Europe, so the infrastructure didn't allow for the technological improvements and the positive feedback look never started. What they forgot to mention in the article (or I missed) is that train is extremly expensive and has gotten more expensive over the years. I cannot do it right now but I'd bet the price per km is much higher that what it is for a plain ride or even a car ride (if the car is full, meaning 4 train tickets vs card ride) which very frustrating when the consensus is "we need to take the train more often, driving is not good" while salaries stagnate and inflation is having the time of its life.

gmueckl 1y ago
That WW2 theory seems like a bit of an odd take, although not a completely outlandish one. I also noticed that in the late 19th century, railways received a lot of government support and that is what enabled a dense network of passenger train stations in city centers in the first place. At least in Germany, there are options to bring the cost of long distance train tickets down considerably. Booking far enough in advance can get you almost any long distance ticket to proces comparable with flying. If you do that a 3 or 4 times a year, consider getting a Bahncard 25, which is a cheap 25% off coupon for a year. It just needs a few train rides to completely amortize. Just don't forget to cancel it in time when you no longer need it (that's the catch). I don't know if other countries have similar options and how effective they are.
afiori 1y ago
> What they forgot to mention in the article (or I missed) is that train is extremly expensive and has gotten more expensive over the years. Expensive for the user or expensive for the state? I believe that almost everywhere in the west the cost-per-trip from the state POV is wildly in favour of trains.

lebrac 1y ago

Please read Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson to understand why there is no TGV in California. Long story short : Well intended regulations and excessive outsourcing to the private sector made the costs prohibitive.

dekhn 1y ago
The route was also adjusted to be far less practical as a compromise to get the central valley politicians to approve it. I really wish they had done a straight shot between Burbank and San Jose but even then it would have been extremely expensive because contractors have learned how to extract every last bit of money while doing as little work as possible.

phtrivier 1y ago

Don't despair: - many parts of most EU countries still don't have access to high speed trains, and they complain too (with that said, some of them are French, so _of course_ they would complain) - the parts that are on the way to have high speed train are complaining because of the infrastructure work involved (everybody wants the train station ; no one wants the trails) - that parts that have high speed train will complain about delays, strikes, the lack of electrical plugs, the WiFi quality, etc... - at least in France, it's still very often cheaper to flight than ride a high speed train (which does not make any sense to most people.)

mvdtnz 1y ago

You're in the richest country in the history of earth. You can have anything you want. If you really want it.

ezst 1y ago

Apparently, part of the answer is "because of Elon Musk", after it became clear that the whole hyperloop fuss was a conspiracy to funnel money out of the ongoing Californian fast rail projects, which he was perceiving as a threat to his nascent EV ventures. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-musk-hyperloop-rail-17486877.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/elon-m...

Gibbon1 1y ago
Musk hates the High Speed Rail because he's never going to be able to use it.

piokoch 1y ago

The answer is in the American political system. First, USA is not a country, it is a union of states that are quite independent and at the dawn of the USA central government was avoiding enforcement of too much regulation, as states were very different - economically, socially, demographically, religiously, so it would be very risky to do something that might enrage one or several states. Example. USA decided to change tariffs policy to help development of local industry at the times when USA didn't have its own, had to steal inventions from UK (see Slater the Traitor story). Those tariffs helped industrialization of the Northern states, but which hurt states that lived from agriculture production driven by almost free workforce and wanted as much free trade as possible to sell their products abroad. And, as we know, this caused a really bad war. BTW: the tale "to tariff or not to tariff" happens again and again in USA history, now we have another turn. So there is historical reluctance to say for central government "ok, we will build a fast rail from Boston to Oregon, everyone on the way has to pay for it". Secondly, USA is really, really decentralized on the counties level, this is again, historical thing. When American settlers where going West they couldn't count on central government to help them, so they knew that anything they spent, they have to earn, as a result, till today, there is no so much thinking about a "bigger picture", but mostly on the stuff which is just here. County X does not see much reason to pay for fast railway, or even letting it go through it, given the trains would not stop in that county, instead they will "have nasty, loud piece of steel" going through their land. Thirdly, USA is big. Really big, it is way bigger and sparsely populated than France, so the viability of the railway is questionable. On shorter distances cars do their job, on longer flying makes more sense, as it does not require expensive infrastructure on the deserted and mostly empty territories. There are areas in the USA that are more densely populated, mostly the East coast, so I can see fast rail from NY to Florida, but I don't see something like this in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. But how building this NY-Florida railway should be financed? Central budget? This would enrage other states, as for them this does not matter. Will NY, N/S Carolina, Virginia and Florida team up to do an investment? Is there any organizational structure in the USA that would provide a frame for such cooperation? This is far from simple. People often say, "but this is working so great in Switzerland, Finland, France or Norway or even in China!" without looking on the specific political, economical, etc. aspects, that are incomparable to the USA.

1y ago

waltercool 1y ago

[dead]

jmclnx 1y ago

OK I'll answer. The US is owned by the fossil fuel industry. Just look at Trump's recent announcement about "clean coal". Trump is too stupid to come up with an original thought, someone told him that phrase and he mimics it now.