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In the 1960s, New York Central Railroad invested in high speed rail and jet powered train testing, referred to as the M-497 tests. A U.S. rail-speed record of 183.85 miles per hour, which stands to this day, was set back then -- but eventually the train was scrapped for parts.
The NY Sun reports on a resurrection of sorts, however, with news of a two-hour rocket train between New York and Washington in the works. Just last week the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee cleared the idea.
Mayor Bloomberg is scheduled to meet with one of the sponsors of the legislation, Rep. John Mica, a Republican of Florida, on Friday to discuss a proposal that would create an American equivalent of Japan's Shinkansen and France's TGV bullet trains, which can travel at speeds of more than 300 miles an hour.Currently the role of the federally subsidized Amtrak is uncertain, as the company has fallen on hard times in recent years. Their Acela train is still the fastest way by rail to get from New York to Boston and D.C., however, hitting up to 150 m.p.h at times, and generally taking just under three hours for their NYC to D.C. haul. The rocket train would cut that trip down by one hour; with rising gas prices and hassle-heavy airport travel, this could be the beginning of new era for the rails."We're interested in hearing from the congressman on the idea," a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Andrew Brent, said.
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How about a functioning national rail passenger transport system? Mica is part of the reason why Amtrak is in such shitty shape. Mica is a lobbyist for both Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the airline industry and has been attempting to scrap Amtrak for years.
teleportation is betta
Its unbelievable how the richest country in the world for the last 50 years has the rail system of a third-world country. America's policy of clinging to our automobiles has come back to screw us in a major way.
United States - welcome to 20th Century rail travel!
This isn't going to work without new tracks.
I wonder why California doesn't have a high speed rail. Or a highspeed rail from Chicago to Milwaukee or St. Louis.
The government seems to think that only the eastern seaboard matters.
We will never see new track down the east coast corridor. It would cost a trillion dollars just to litigate the right of way.
I for one would love a high speed from N.Y. to L.A... I'd take a 10 hour train ride over a 5 hour plane ride any day.
the tracks on the metro north line have been outfitted over the last several years with concrete railroad ties—designed specifically for high-speed travel. all i have seen is lack of improvement of train comfortability and slower trains.
so typical. this country is such a fuel monster that all we've done for the past 100 years was focus on cars and planes. now they're finally figuring it out and going back to the tried and true and, in our case, pitifully under-developed train system.
"This isn't going to work without new tracks."
Bingo. and a dedicated line for high speed rail only. None of that sharing of train lines bullshit thats going on with the Acela.
It will happen in the near future when gas goes even higher. Its just a matter of time, but its good that they are thinking about it now. You are about to see the resurgence of Amtrak (Or something even better to replace it). Circumstances surrounding peak oil will make it a reality.
The rail infrastructure is awful. Amtrak in the NEC and Acela is better than intercity rail elsewhere, but it's still kind of a joke compared to other cities. My impression is that the "high speed" feature of Acela trains is mostly a gimmick -- it's always been my experience that a lot of the time difference between that and standard NEC trains is just the fact that Acela trains make less stops.
In an ideal world, a true express train between NYC and DC, making limited stops (maybe only in Philly) and running at TGV speeds on improved infrastructure, could cut the time between NY and DC to an hour and a half.
The concrete ties being used by Metro North, LIRR, and Amtrak are simply because they last longer, especially under the heavy traffic in the NYC area. There's an additional environmental benefit, which is an argument used in favor of replacing wood ties even in areas with lighter traffic loads.
The same heavy traffic conditions that led to installation of concrete ties is one of the biggest reasons why high-speed couldn't be run in those sections... too many slower trains would be in the way. High speed rail would require completely separate dedicated tracks.
Matty, California is working on high speed rail between San Francisco and LA/SD. Money has been allocated in the state budget to do the planning and some engineering, but California voters will have to pass a large bond to allow how speed rail to come to fruition.
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
Its unbelievable how the richest country in the world for the last 50 years has the rail system of a third-world country. America's policy of clinging to our automobiles has come back to screw us in a major way.
No, it isn't unbelievable at all. Amtrak needs to be cheaper and more efficient than car travel for anyone to want to take it. It STILL isn't.
One way from NYC -> Boston is still $100. Even assuming it takes a full tank of gas to make the trip (which it doesn't) it's only $60 with tolls.
There's a ton of blame to go around with the rail issues in this country. Start with "property tax per mile of rail" that New York State still charges rail companies. New York still taxes railroads in the same manner they were taxed in the 19th century. I wonder why they won't lay new track here.
So, yeah, blame the "sheeple" for clinging to their cars if it makes you feel superior but government and tax policies are just as much, if not more, to blame. The system is currently set up such that it would actually hurt Amtrak to build new track.
In 2002, it cost CSX over $10k PER MILE of rail in New York in property tax.
http://www.ppinys.org/reports/2002/railtax.pdf
So, there's a reason the infrastructure sucks and very little of it has to do with people's love of cars.
Hah! The interference of the governments is the thing that prevents "the invisible hand" of the market from providing us with the cheapest transportation available. It's the same with the high cost of energy (gas or electricity) and communications. There cost of all of those commodities include an incredible amount of taxes.
The worst thing is that, by law, the state prohibits the utilities like Con Ed from itemizing the taxes in your electric bill (the better to hide their nefariousness). At the federal level, there are all sorts of laws prohibiting the development of new refineries or drilling on the coasts or Alaska (ANWR is as as big as Texas and the drilling site would be the size of Kennedy airport).
But hey, we get the government we deserve.
Each time an idea like this gets floated is a step in the right direction. This country needs to do some serious, serious investment in intercity rail infrastructure. I'm talking all the way down the Eastern seaboard from Boston to Miami, across the Southern states from Jacksonville to Los Angeles via Dallas and Phoenix, up the West coast from San Diego to Seattle, and across the North from Portland to Chicago via Minneapolis, then on through Cleveland to NY. At a minimum.
The land availability will be much less of an issue in other parts of the country than it is in the Boston-DC corridor.
Deregulation and public-private partnerships maybe the only way to create a dedicated bullet train line. The Feds could offer up the medians of the Interstate highways as the dedicated ROW.
In the early 90s Amtrak brought over two trains - one from Germany and one from Sweden to test high speed rail technology. The Swedish train was great, the German train was OK. Both were about a billion times better than Acela.
What really needs to be done with Amtrak (or ideally a privatized successor) is to spin off the money loosing foamer trains (nobody in their right mind wants to spend days on a crappy Amtrak train) to private concerns and focus on corridor services. Part of the reason the fares on the Northeast Corridor are so absurdly high is that part of the money is going to subsidize Mr. Neville Shunt's six day long train trip.
#20
If it was only that easy.
Sure those trains are faster than the Acela but run either of those trains down the entire length of the north east corridor in real world conditions and you'll have injured and sick passengers.
Like several other posters have said, we would need a dedicated high-speed line which would allow 200+ MPH running, like the high-speed line opened a few years between Frankfurt's airport & Cologne in Germany. I rode on that line 4 years ago in a InterCity Express train close to 200MPH. There are several elevated sections/tunnels, which parallels the A3 autobahn (perhaps our HSL could parallel I-95). Freight & commuter trains would not share the tracks. Perhaps overnight trains could use it at night, but that's it. Another HSL could be constructed between Atlanta & cities in Florida.
The track has to be formed in unbroken half-mile segments. There can be no crossings along the route and the tracks must be heavily fenced off. No other users can share those rails and the trains have to be able to round a bend and tip a bit. Acela could move much faster if all these criteria were in place. The freights are scared of losing valuable roads to High Speed because they don't want to spend a nickle more on new track ( in spite of the fact that they're spending billions anyway) We have to lose the congested air system and lose the congested freeways. Rail is the only way and is Barack Obama saying anything about it? Just ask and enjoy the silence.
#15- my rough estimate is that gas would have to rise to about $9/gallon before taking an amtrak train from NYC-albany was cheaper than driving.