Having worked in the railroad industry for a while now, I cannot count the times I've been asked about the possibility of a true high speed rail (HSR) system in the US. In short, the European/Chinese model will not work here. Ever.
We can wish for a fast (300+ MPH) train that would whisk us from, say, Atlanta to Los Angeles, but here are the realities that one has to consider. Just for a route from ATL-LAX.
- Acquiring the land for a right of way. It would be the wild west all over again. Land speculation on a scale unseen in human history. Eminent domain? Taking that much corridor land would cause a civil war.
- Total grade separation. Motorists in the USA cannot seem to keep from driving their McMobiles from in front of a 35 MPH freight train, let alone a HSR train. This means EVERY road has to bridged, Can you imagine?
- You CANNOT run HSR on freight tracks. The engineering of the curves alone prevent this, not to mention the tie ups of freight vs. passenger traffic. Curves are "banked" (called super elevation) like NASCAR and the amount of this elevation is based on the dominant speed of the traffic through the curve and the degrees of curvature involved in order to balance the load between the high and low rails. Think 100+ MPH vs. 40MPH. Look at the battles between Amtrak and the freight carriers we have now. Guess what, the freight carriers OWN the tracks and are FORCED to let Amtrak use their lines.
Let's say we overcome the costs and legalities of acquiring the land and building our track across the country.Commercial interests will dictate that the route look something like this: Atlanta-Birmingham-Jackson- Shreveport-Dallas-Phoenix-L.A. A pure rural routing makes it a single purpose road from ATL to LA costing tens of billions of dollars. Not gonna happen.
For round numbers lets call it 2100 miles. Even at 300 miles per hour that's 7 hours plus.
Does anyone really think that the citizens of all those cities in between are going to stand by and watch a 300 MPH wonder rip by that they cannot get on and go to La as well? So, now we have to make stops along the way. How many hours does that add to our 7 hours? More than a few.
Trains on single or even double (bi-directional traffic) are still a serial entity. One follows the other.
Planes fly over, fly past stop off here and there, you know the picture.
HSR can work in selected paired cities. The Northeast Amtrak corridor is a pretty good example of this. This is the ONLY place in the US where they own the tracks and let freight run as is feasible.
Bottom line. The USA is just to big geographically to realistically support a network of truly cross country high speed trains.
People will always want to fly direct in 3-4 hours. Check out the price/schedule of a ticket on Amtrak from Atlanta to, say Salt Lake City. You definitely won't think it's a bargain even compared to a plane ticket that would cover the airline's costs.
Example:
Amtrak. ATL-SLC Depart ATL at 8:04PM Thursday, Arrive SLC 11:05PM Sunday Stops in Charlottesville, Va (6 hour layover) Chicago (4 hour layover). That's 3 DAYS and 3 hours.
All this for $444.00 ONE WAY. No sleeper, meals NOT included.
Delta. One day advance purchase. One way. 4 Hours 10 Minutes. $719.00 average, and flights leave every 90 minutes.
Which will you choose if you NEED to go?
