250 mph trains

[Swoop]

Originally posted by straffo
And did they try to make a London/Paris race ?

I bet no

Watch the video.  The DB9 was well past Paris by the time the Eurostar got there.  Admittedly, it didnt have to deal with the God awful traffic system in Paris.......

[straffo]

Originally posted by Swoop
Watch the video.  The DB9 was well past Paris by the time the Eurostar got there.  Admittedly, it didnt have to deal with the God awful traffic system in Paris.......

Yep at this time the other guy were either walking or using the ultrafast british rail to go to Waterloo...
I won't bet a penny on a DB9 if the DB9 vs Eurostar run was from Waterloo to gare du Nord.

[Dinger]

Guys, it's not resistance to new things -- it's just that it's not practical.

Hell, in Germany they only have a couple high-speed corridors. The same in France. Italy has Florence-Rome. The rest of the time, those fancy "hi-speed" trains run on regular tracks. Why? 'Cos high-speed tracks are expensive to build. You don't have crossings on them, so every time you hit an intersecting road, you need to build some sort of under/overpass. High-speed tracks are also expensive to maintain.
So your shinkansen, ICE, TGV, Pendolino (aka Eurostar Italia) or whatever only runs at high speed on very few, highly travelled routes between population centers in relatively dense areas.
The only places in the US where such trains would make sense would be Washington D.C. - NYC - Boston and SF-LA. Guess what? The first one has "High-Speed" trains, but not tracks, because there's no place to build them. The second has been talked about for some time, and there's always some super-fancy plan on the books.

The rest of the time, you're talking about several times the length of track for more or less the same number of passengers.

Oh, and I can assure you, if we had super-highspeed trains in the US, the boarding process would be more like the Eurostar under the channel and less like the ICE: Assigned seating, X-ray machines, metal detectors. Just look at the carnage that happened when that German ICE derailed due to poor maintenance practices.

[Pooh21]

the german train system rocks, Americas sucks cause
1) amtrak
2)too spread out

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by B@tfinkV
bad points:


1)i wonder what a 300mph train wreck looks like.

125mph train wreck...



(wheel failure btw, in Germany)

[Staga]

I'd rather be in a crashing train than in an airliner...

[Pooh21]

Originally posted by Staga
I'd rather be in a crashing train than in an airliner...

why in an airliner you get to see the ground rush up at you, and can take it like a man, or scream like a *****

[Rolex]

Hi Dinger. I agree that similar systems would probably be impractical in the US, but I would say for different reasons.

I'm not going to retype everything I said again, but the key was "regional airlines," not long-haul routes.

It's always interesting to hear the 'so spread out' and 'high density' arguments. They're used a lot in the discussion of broadband/fiber deployment also (as an excuse for the US lagging behind so badly) but population density in all the major US cities is not that much less than European or Asian cities. London and Tokyo densities are almost the same.

The arguments falls apart when the question is asked: "Well, why aren't the major US cities wired then?" It isn't technology or 'spread' that causes it, it's resistance by the providers to invest in it and continue the high margins derived from the old infrastructure.

On one hand you say that things are too spread out, yet on the other hand, you say that there is no room to build tracks. There is always room to build tracks if people work in good faith to find compromises that benefit a common goal.

Accidents would certainly be more of a concern with any US high-speed rail. While there has never been an injury or death from a shinkansen accident in 40 years of operation, the same operational conscientiousness and employee dedication and professionalism could not be built in Japan and exported to the US. That is a cultural difference, not a technology or application of the technology issue.

The lack of any clean, efficient, 'reasonably fast' rail system is proof that the culture is not flexible enough to find compromises in financing, speed, routing, and right of ways.

Economic conditions (i.e. oil price) are going to change, obviously. The airline industry is going to be under even more pressure as passenger loading increases along with fuel prices. Any plan to bring any advancement in regional rail service will take decades, and decades from now will be too late to start thinking about it.

[gunnss]

OK I cant resist this one.....
I am a train nut, here is my photo site, http://www.railimages.com/gallery/kevinevans  and here is our club site  http://www.nmrhs.org/

There are a few points that haven't been mentioned,
1. No form of public transportation makes money.
2. Public perception trumps reality every time.
3. Special intrests groups would work Hard in oppisition.
4. The RRs dont have the capacity to allow it. (OK sortta mentioned but not why)

1.  Not even the public roads are supported by use fees, gas taxes don't even come close to what it costs to maintain the road systems.  Airlines have enormous subisidies provided in airports and control systems funded by the gvt.  Amtrack come closest to breaking even on its long distance trains it is the commuter coridor that is eating up the budget.  So what it come down to is, where dose the Gvt. want to put it's money?  this is influanced by;
2. Public perception,  The genral public has been sold the concept that trains are "Old Fashioned" and inefficent.  Also, there is a "knee jerk" reaction that trains are slow, and don't go where you need them to.  then we get to #3;
3. Car companys, Air lines, and Petrolium co.s would be in dire oppisition, as they would lose market share, the 50-100 mpg carbs came in to exstance in the 40s and have been ridgidly supressed ever since, just try  to start a patent search on gasoline carbaretion in the patent office.  (BTW my tip for making big money, reproduce one of these carbs, the petro guys will ether buy ya off or crush you )  and lastly, the class1 RRs dont have the room for it.
4. BNSF the class one RR next to me is running 100+ trains a day from Belen to Willams (NM to AZ) on the transcon, (Cheap stuff from China for Wally world) one of our sister groups has to put up a 10 mill insurance policy every time they want to run an excursion (the SBRHS opperators of the 3751) web site, http://www.sbrhs.org/  Look at what they say about setting up opperations.  In fact it is near impossable to find a road Locomotive for sale right now, if it can pull, it is in use right now, BNSF is even advertising on the radio for crew.... And the cost of new right of way is gigantic.... most of the land is owned by some one, and when "they" smell money a new project is finshed....

I would love to see it, but it probably won't happen.  On the other hand, NM has just bought the tracks over Raton Pass, and CO has an option on the tracks to Denver, a Cheyenne to El Paso Passenger train is a possability, (it won't affect the trans cons)

Just a thought,
Gunns

[deSelys]

Bullet trains are cool, but transatlantic rigid, helium-filled LTA would be UBER cool!!

[lazs2]

Ok Rolex...  I don't think we need to get to an airport an hour early and be strip searched and wander around in our stocking feet either but that is what is going on here...

So why would a 250mph train with 400 passengers going over bridges in the heart of major cities be less of a terrorist target than a 400 mph plane?

in velocity and weight the train would beat out the plane for energy.

So.... how many terrorists caused train wrecks before your shiny new toy has hour long strip searches at the terminal?

plus... Americans  (except metrosexuals) like to have some independence.... sure... they might think the train is great for their kid to take home from school in the summer but not for them... they don't want to be stuck somewhere with no way to get around.

You would first have to convince people that being at the mercy of public transportation was a good thing.   People here like to live out away from the masses... you gonna have a terminal in every little city or town?

I agree that it would probly be a good idea tho for moving one group of blue people or another from one blue city to another.... who cares what they do or what happens to them anyway?

lazs

[Dinger]

I grew up in what is considered the San Francisco Bay area. The "Big City" I identified with and used for all my transportation was San Francisco. San Francisco is 80 km away from where I grew up. I challenge you to find anywhere in the old world where you have a similar degree of geographic dispersion.

As far as the "metropolitan areas": yes, the cities themselves are roughly the same density as anywhere else in the world, and yes, they are "wired". The problem isn't the cities, but the rural and peripheral suburban areas.

But you are on to something when you suggest that corporate interests are not interested in having competition. Basically, the US government cannot impinge on any existing business' territory without them doing everything possible to sabotage it.
Now, right-of-way is critical for rail. And the only way the US is going to get right-of-way for a high-speed rail network at a reasonable price is through eminent domain. We haven't done it yet (AMTRAK rents its right of way), and we're not going to do it, since it means that some politician has to go in the face of corporate interests to seize private land for a project most Americans cannot even conceive of as being useful.

[RAIDER14]

View from inside of a bullet train

[Swoop]

Originally posted by straffo
Yep at this time the other guy were either walking or using the ultrafast british rail to go to Waterloo...
I won't bet a penny on a DB9 if the DB9 vs Eurostar run was from Waterloo to gare du Nord.

And therein lies the problem.  Trains go where they want to go, not where you want them to go.

This is fine if you live in Bristol and want to get to Longon.  But what if you live in Worcester and want to get to Norwich?

Answer:  A bus, 4 different trains and another bus.

[RAIDER14]

Amtrak has a engine that kinda looks like a bullet train