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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
The U.S. already has high-speed trains: the Acela Express has been carrying millions of riders between Washington, D.C., New York and Boston since 2000. It zips along at 150 miles per hour for relatively short distances—just over 25 miles per hour faster than conventional counterparts.
But compare it with high-speed trains in Europe and Asia that can reach speeds over 200 miles per hour on hundreds of miles of track. The problem is: tracks in the U.S. are not designed to support high-speed travel. Plus, any new express trains might have to share those lines with slower freight traffic.
So is high speed train travel even possible in the U.S.?
Well, the Obama administration hopes to make it so, setting aside $8 billion to create 10 high-speed lines between cities in the east, Southeast, Midwest, and west coast.
But it will take a lot more money to bring the U.S. passenger rail system up to the standards of, say, the French Train a Grande Vitesse, which runs on dedicated tracks and holds the record for fastest train at 357 miles per hour.
And Amtrak has proven woefully inadequate at providing passenger rail service in its three decades of existence, requiring constant infusions of government cash and rarely keeping to schedule.
So don't expect high-speed trains to show up fast at your local station.
—David Biello
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21 Comments
Add CommentOK, so tell me in 100 words or less...why can the French (and Swiss, and Germans, etc.) do something that we can't, since the U.S. is the greatest country on earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAcela is not really a "high speed" train, when compared to other countries. It has a max speed less than half of some other HS Trains.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou also say "Amtrak has proven woefully inadequate at providing passenger rail service in its three decades of existence..."
Well, try providing that on a shoestring (or less).
Amtrak has almost gone bankrupt how many times - because of lack of funding?
It will take will power and a culture change (and maybe $5 a gallon gas) to really move HS Trains forward.
As I see, it, the problem is that we waste all our transportation $$ building and maintaining roads; the more roads we build, the further everybody spreads out, thus the more cars there are, and then the more roads we need...in an ever-expanding spiral. "The automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city. Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable; moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic."--James Marston Fitch, New York Times, May 1, 1960
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoesn't the Grand Vitesse in France and other nation's high speed train systems "require constant infusions of government cash"? Countries that have high speed rail subsidize high speed rail. We subsidize oil extraction and importation and roads and allow the automotive sector that runs on oil to externalize their environmental costs. Your gratuitous slam on Amtrak is akin to picking on a cripple. Tons of momentary fun as you wrote it, but the kind of thing that ought to make you feel bad in the morning after giving serious thought to the issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the '60's, Scientific American published an article about "high speed tube transport for the northeast corridor". It described a subway system that could hit 500 mph at peak in a partially evacuated tunnel that dropped as deep as 2000 feet underground. Boston to Washington in 90 minutes. Look it up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific America? If this the level of scientific thought in America it's not wonder we are decades behind the rest of the world in everything except wight gain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, you're right, this is a pretty crappy article. Not much in the way of analysis, is there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 100 words or less? Okay. Western Europeans generally allow their governments far more power, so it's easier in general for them to create a centralized national infrastructure and stomp on NIMBYs. Also, Europe is not a monolithic entity ... each region/country is free to create its own structure, while the US has a much larger area to contend with. The above, plus history, is in Europe's favor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis country has been under yhe thumb of corruption and controlled political policies dictated by big oil and big money for far too many years. This combination has stopped any and all progress that would be of benefit to this nation and the rest of the world. Any and all improvements in the auto industry has been under the total control of big oil and the same goes for any improvement in our rail facilities. It is obvioue that the entities that have been in control for so long will fight tooth and nail to stop any progress that may usuro thier positions. Watch the acfions of the bought and paid for political actors who represent this largess work to thwart progress in any and all areas that do not benefit Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Health, and Big Insurance. Just observe the deplorable state of our nations infrastructure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJames lee ANderson
Oh, poor Americans...hope you can enjoy a high-speed trip soon...:D
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI read through all of the comments about the high speed train. All I can say to all of you Americans is that you should be glad that you at least have a functional transport system, and at least someone is thinking of upgrading it. You could have been on another continent such as Africa where we struggle to get a proper transport system established.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen you get some unique, non-perfectly-obvious content for this article, you shoud reprint it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHigh-speed rail is the way of the future for the U.S. in this age of road and sky clog. "Scientific American" needs to get on board. The technology is there. All it needs is the will and some collective effort, such as Obama is starting to energize, long overdue in this country!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEurope is not encumbered with a right-wing hell bent on fighting any form of common good. They are not afraid that if they give tax dollars for the common good, such as subsidizing transportation (something everyone needs), they are being cheated out of THEIR hard earned dollars which will have to be pried out of their cold dead hands. Our total incapacity to understand that the common good doesn't mean the end of American Society is at the root of us having the poorest infrastructure of most modern nations, the 37th health care system, and the worst educated children. In other words, capitalism gone to its worst extreme. Unabated greed and a total disregard of anyone else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is absurd to be published in a "scientific" magazine site. It is merely another planted attack on Amtrak, a system that was expertly designed to fail. You want high speed rail? Hand over the interstate highway medians as free rights-of-way. Develop a corporation similar to NPR to link together state and local transportation authorities. Give high speed rail its own rails. It's do-able in this country most of all -- we have th long distances to travel that most other countries lack. What we have is two highly privileged and subsidized inefficient systems standing on the neck of the passenger rail system (cars and airlines).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto madashell4l
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou should also consider that your country has become a war-economy, the defense contractors can only thrive by the constant unnecessary wars, you civil industry has been outsourced, and for maintaining the infrastructure there is no money available
cleverle from Canada
"And Amtrak has proven woefully inadequate at providing passenger rail service in its three decades of existence, requiring constant infusions of government cash and rarely keeping to schedule."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs if the auto industry and Big Oil don't benefit directly from the constant infusions of government cash that goes to build and maintain the vast network of roads and bridges that automobiles require, and subsidization of oil exploration.
The fact is we pour hundreds of times more tax dollars into subsidizing the automobile than we ever have or ever will spend on subsidizing the entire mass transit industry, including what little we manage to send Amtrak's way.
France's high speed portion of the rail system is remarkably self-sufficient. The tracks have to be built of course, but after that, most high speed lines at least break even, so they don't require continuous subsidies. Its the same around the world, where something like 85% of high speed lines operating at least 2 years (to develop ridership) break even. The first line in France, Paris-Lyon, made enough of a profit in 12 years to repay the entire investment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe US is the greatest country on earth in only some respects. We are the scientific and technological leader in many ways but we are far from the top in most social respects. Even our technology is often applied in inappropriate ways, such as elaborate road systems for cars rather than mass transportation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason Amtrak cannot stay on schedule is simple--freight trains and the railroads' negative attitude toward passenger trains. I saw this in action when I was working Amtrak and also serving as a consultant to a major U.S. railroad. If a siding holds 50 cars and a 90-car freight train meets an oncoming ten-car Amtrak, guess who gets put in the hole? Right. In Paris, I could take a train to downtown London in the same time it takes to go to Orly suffer through and all the security checks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorthless article - by the way, what "conventional" train travels at 125 mph in the US? And the fashionable slam on ATRAK. I use AMTRAK three/four times a year traveling between San Jose and Portland, OR. I think they do a great job considering the route . Just bring several emergency books and extra food to use when the freight in front of you derails. 30 mph up the Siskiyous and 30 mph down the western Cascades Not too conducive for hi-speed. The proposed hi-speed rail run between SF and LA is a pipe dream - but go ahead and build it - it will pay off a certain number of mortgages but will never be financially successful. Kind of a Keynesian dig-a-hole-and-fill-it job. Harmless enough, considering what else we could spend our money on - more F22 fighters or tanks or wars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you're in San Francisco, why would you ever want to go to LA?