AutoblogGreen

I was just having this conversation day before yesterday with some
friends. Everywhere out of state we travel to is reachable by train.
Always loved traveling on them. It is slower than airplanes, but I
think infinitely more enjoyable on the way. Im sure with rising gas
prices, tickets for flights will continue to rise, and more companies
will go out of business, but trains will remain and get better.

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Well what do you expect! The price to ship something by ruck is hindered by gas prices so in many ways its easier to ship things by train

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This November, Californians will vote on a $10 billion bond to anchor funding for its proposed all-electric high speed rail (HSR) network, intended primarily as a long-distance passenger service. The remainder of the projected $40 billion price tag is supposed to come from Washington and private investors. Governor Schwarzenegger is still sitting on the fence because he wants the funding firmed up first.

Proponents want the system to deliver downtown to downtown travel times that are competitive with intrastate air travel, e.g. between SFO, LAX and SAN. The comparison includes the time spent getting to and from the airports, check-in, security and baggage claim. In other countries, airlines are now beginning to code-share HSR stations in their booking systems, effectively expanding their number of destinations. Fewer intrastate flights would mean existing runways could be used to support more long-distance travel.

Fierce debate raged over how best to connect the Bay Area to the Central Valley. The California High Speed Rail Authority recently endorsed a southern alignment through the sparsely populated Pacheco pass (close to SR 152) and across the Central Valley to join the main line south of Merced. This expensive option would allow trains would travel at very high speed between Gilroy and Fresno.

An alternate northern route through the Altamont pass near Livermore would have required many fewer miles of HSR track and enabled regional service for a number of existing cities. It would also have provided better connectivity between the Bay Area and Sacramento, but it was feared the resulting compromise would also have made the service less competitive with airline travel between the anchor cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles. After all, you can't run a train at 220mph through built-up neighborhoods, even on new, grade-separated tracks.

More here:

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
http://cahsr.blogspot.com/

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I've been telling people this for the last twenty years. Train travel will make a remarkable comeback if government "invests" as much into rail as it currently does in our highway system.

Now, here's something to ponder; old railroad lines may still own the property rights to the thousands of miles of converted "rail to trail" routes. Even ancient old unconverted rail-beds, abandoned 70 years ago, may still be owned by a rail company. A lot of suburban developments will be in for a very surprising turn of events when they find Amtrak racing through their backyards.

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Train travel is significantly slower (days instead of hours) and much more expensive than air travel over interstate distances (you really do want to pay for a sleeper car).

As we electrify more and more track, especially west of the Mississippi, I can see a greater role for freight, but not passenger travel from east to west coast.

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If any of you are old enough to remember the 1930s through the mid 1950s, you will recall how comfortable train travel was in those days. A traveler could get on a train almost anywhere in the United States, and go anywhere. No hassles, no standing in long lines, no waiting in a terminal for a day or more. ... and you traveled in style. The cattle cars called "airliners" are a far cry from the days. Why did we let passenger trains disappear? What a loss!

By the way, Europeans still have good passenger rail service - anywhere to anywhere. They are fortunate.

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Europe has the advantage of:

1) Dedicated passenger rail lines.
2) Denser population centered around major cities.
3) Shorter distances between major population centers.
4) While they have some tall mountains, we have a lot more such terrain. A high speed rail line between Seattle and Boston, for instance, would have to cut through the Cascades and the Rockies.
5) Over interstate distances, flying will still take less time.

I priced a train trip from San Diego to San Francisco in June. The total travel time involved a bus, two train changes, and an overnight in a sleeper car. 18 hours. I'm driving instead. It'll take less than half that long.

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This is where I find a quantitative lack of regional and national leadership and vision. It will take an "Ike" to map out a plan that is revolutionary to put HSR in this country. Existing rail infrastructure is not the answer, but dedicated newly built lines is. Costly? Yes. Necessary? Yes. I could care less about the health care or Iraq Presidential debates. These are systems and operations ongoing and addressing these issues, to me, is just tweaking an already created entity; not inventing and implementing wholly new ideas outside the box of existing solutions to such things as CO2 reduction and national energy policy. Electric HSR can help solve and address these issues more effectively and efficiently than current or proposed energy policies by any candidate. We just need some genuine leadership to address it and put their words into actions. I wish all the best to CA. Lead the way; other will follow.

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I'd prefer that any high speed rail system be built entirely with private money, and not with another ten billion dollar bond measure whose cost is ultimately borne by taxpayers. The state can ill afford so much additional debt when we already have a $16 billion dollar deficit this year alone.

Let private investors take the risk, not taxpayers.

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The real estate next to train tracks has long been less valuable than land elsewhere, due to the noise of the trains and the fact that most of that land was zoned industrial or agricultural. Now we have government pushing "infill" trying to squeeze more housing developments next to commuter rail and light rail lines in a vain attempt to increase public transit ridership. That has encouraged purchase of that once cheap land for speculation, and more valuable housing construction.

Unless the railroad companies invest in electrifying their tracks, they will be hit by the same increase in fuel costs that most other forms of transport face, and won't have a competitive advantage.

You are mistaken if you think travel times will be less than with airlines due to the long security delays at airports. Terrorists have already hit trains in Spain, so security delays for passenger train travel will be just as bad as at airports.

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Cervus,

You say let private investors take the risk on rail? That's funny, I say that about roads. Why should I subsidize the wasteful lifestyles of exurbanites? How about government spending that delivers the most bang for the buck and societal good instead of a government subsidized monopoly on transportation by the oil and automotive industries?

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passenger rail won't make a comeback until it can run on time in this country, im sooooooo sick of amtrak sucking

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Cervus: I feel that if the government pays for the rail system, it should get any profit, and not just turn it over to a private company. Problem is, it probably won't turn a profit - if it showed a potential for profit, the railroad companies or other private investors would be jumping on it, and government funds wouldn't be needed.

Bluegreen: You aren't subsidizing the lifestyle of the "exurbanites". All of that road construction is paid for by fuel taxes and car licensing fees, so those who use the roads are paying for them. If you don't have a car and don't drive, you're not subsidizing it at all.

On the other hand, some of that fuel tax and licensing fees (and a few other taxes) are used to subsidize the operation public transit. If you are a public transit user, those "exurbanites" are subsidizing your lifestyle!

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Freight does not belong on freeways but on rails, it would make the roads safer and less congested. Ecologically cleaner and economically cheaper.. this is the best solution.

Passenger traffic would also be much better in many situations.
The USA is so much more empty than europe, it is easy to construct new lines. Of course there are mountainous areas where constructing will be costlier and less interesting.

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If all freight travels by rail, what happens to all the long haul truckers? Do they just go home and collect unemployment? As for government spending on new rail lines, where will the money come from? we are borrowing money just so we can get tax rebate checks, not to mention the 10-20 billion per month we are spending in IRaq

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S10, the problem with rail freight is the time it takes to get it and the cost is more. A small business in the midwest has a truck load ready for shipment from a vendor on the east coast. By truck, they have the shipment in their warehouse the next day. By rail, if they are lucky, they might get it in a week, not lucky, 3 weeks. Plus the rail freight costs more. Now, how would you choose to get your freight?

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To Cervus:

Some of your comments regarding the European rail system do not mention that in the United States, we HAD passenger rail lines, HAD tunnels already built and in operation, HAD railways EVERYWHERE, HAD modern train stations, and HAVE dense populations centered around major cities - getting denser all the time.

We allowed this great public transportation system to wither on the vine with the advent of the Interstate highway system.

Regarding super fast passenger rail service, the United States doesn't have it, nor does Europe or Asia in any significant, meaningful numbers. Is it even needed?

What American railroad companies need to do, as a start, is to repair their rails - now neglected for decades. At least that would help reduce the number of train accidents we read about almost every day.

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@ Bill, Cervus -

no-one is proposing high speed rail service from coast to coast. In developed countries, such trains are competitive with airlines at distances up to 1000km (600mi) at most, and then only if (a) the majority of the route is traversed at speeds in excess of 200mph and (b) there is no terrorist attack on the rail infrastructure.

Madrid and London did suffer attacks against regional trains, France has had to deal with bombs and bomb threats from extremist groups against its HSR infrastructure in 1983, 2004 and 2006.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/04/europe/EU-GEN-France-Carlos-the-Jackal.php
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/03/24/france.railbomb/index.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/20/wbomb20.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/20/ixworld.html

Still, none of these countries subjects rail passengers to the kind of rigorous security checks that are now routine at airports. Travelers are well aware of but apparently more willing to accept the risk for this mode of transportation.

In the US, the response to an attack against a train - any train - might well be different, at least initially. Securing a rail line is easier than securing a freeway, the power grid or the water supply, but the vulnerabilities exist. Life is risk, so the best strategy is to enter into dialogue with the communities that terrorists purport to represent (but usually don't). Hint: this works better if you're not armed to the teeth.

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Throwback: We can never change anything, because it might put some Americans out of work. Right?

Things change all the time. The question is whether there should be policies, infrastructural projects and incentives in place that increase our efficiency as a nation and reduce our environmental impact, or whether the untethered free market really will find the best answer to all problems.

I know plenty of people who think the free market is always the ultimate answer. Many of them are running China, and they're right; look at China's economic growth!

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"You are mistaken if you think travel times will be less than with airlines due to the long security delays at airports. Terrorists have already hit trains in Spain, so security delays for passenger train travel will be just as bad as at airports."

As someone who was in Japan well after the terrorist attacks in England and Spain, I can tell you that you are completely incorrect -- at least in Japan's case. It was by far the nicest and most comfortable public transit I've ever been on -- fast, virtually no waiting, almost no time between when you enter the station and when you're boarded and heading to your destination, etc. The only places with any sort of relevant delays were little remote, middle-of-nowhere stations, and even those delays weren't that much. The Shinkansen was especially nice -- all seats were like first class, just hop on whatever train to your destination you want (they come frequently), pick any seat you want, stretch out and relax and watch the countryside whiz by.

For trips less than several hundred miles, it's *faster* than going by airplane because you don't have all of the delays. Sure, it's not a way to go coast to coast (at least, not unless they can get closer to airline speeds). But they'd be wonderful for states with any reasonable population density.

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