Fred Frailey Column- "It's Time"

We already have HSR in the only markets that can support it... the NEC.

California HSR is a failure, and can't ever be a success as long as unfriendly geology separates LA from SF.

125 mph is not high speed rail. well it could be , but not with average speeds of 75 mph or so .
Japan managed to build in similar topography to California, if not worst. The whole country is basically a mountainous faultline.

David Benton wrote:Well there's basic house insurance, then there's insurance with all the frills , or insurance without ringing around for the best deal.
I'm thinking there is a real need to get a real HSR line running in the USA, even if it is a one hour ride, to show the concept. Then people will buy in to it . Hopefully the new "Mini California HSR " will at least achieve that .

How about Brightline in Florida?

electricron wrote:You will see freight trains on most passenger train videos running on tracks owned by the freight railroad companies from America for a video that's 2 to 3 hours in length - without edits.

From Best Western Marion IL--

From having "been over a time or two" recently, yes there is freight, but the freight runs at the sufferance of passenger. Lest we forget, a twenty car train of maybe 40T loaded weight each is a train to them. I'm sorry, when I see a freight train over there, it's kind of a joke.

So how do they move their bulk agricultural and mining products about. Talk to God about that one. Europe has many more navigable waterways, some of which flow in great part E-W (Danube). By contrast, our navigable waterways flow N-S. (the Tennesee and Columbia exceptions of sorts).

A 7000T train, par for the course over here, would interfere with their essential passenger trains as much as does the few, but non-essential passenger trains interfere with the movement of freight over here.

David Benton wrote:125 mph is not high speed rail. well it could be , but not with average speeds of 75 mph or so .
Japan managed to build in similar topography to California, if not worst. The whole country is basically a mountainous faultline.

Arguably, the Shinkansan was built for the 1964 Olympics and was a symbol of post-war national pride... It also cost twice its original budget (something it shares with CAHSR?) and arguably might not have been built had it not been for the Olympics and Japan wanting to rebuild their reputation on the world stage.

I don't think it's the government's role to be providing HSR. The responsibility Constitutionally was for post roads, which exist. Anything else should be private industry or the states...

The earlier example of Brightline is entirely appropriate. They're building where they see opportunity... let the same principle apply elsewhere.

Virgin Trains America fka Brightline is an unfair comparison because it receives a massive dose of government subsidy too: use of public rights-of-way, redevelopment grants, favorable SEC rulings, local road maintenance, tourism boards doing Sir Branson’s work, and the publicly-funded passenger terminal at KMCO. It likely is getting more development money than all of Amtrak’s trains that reach Florida, though I don’t have hard figures to back it up.

If the government’s role is not to provide more than post roads, fine, that’s an originalist Constitutional argument that deserves some consideration. If you go that way though, the Federal government also shouldn’t be subsidizing private corporations. An originalist argument demands no less.

Quite a few of Mr. Frailey's suggestion are interesting to me. Some might work, some might not. What's clear is that the current solution doesn't work. It's expensive, often late, often in ill repair, and half the time in the middle of the night. The numbers bear this out: less than 1% of intercity travelers take Amtrak.

I like riding long distance trains, but it's hard to justify as a rider, let alone a taxpayer.

There's reasons our freight and passenger mix is different: Two big ones are public policy as determined by democratic governments following different preferences about public transportation in cities etc, and different patterns of urban development that make living without a car more likely in Europe than the US. Both of those lead to more pax service in Europe. But there are also good geographical reasons:

Europe (at least the western and central parts of Europe we are really talking about) a lot smaller than the US. It would more or less fit east of Chicago. In that space is a population pretty similar to the population of the whole US. Half the north-south distance of Europe is in Sweden and Norway, which have 22 million people between them, mostly in the southern third of each country, so the population is even more concentrated in the main part of continental west and central Europe. There, there are cities all over the place, spaced closely: great passenger train distances. The long-haul freight that keeps a UP or a BNSF busy mostly doesn't exist, because the distances aren't that large. There's no real equivalent in Europe to bringing Powder River coal to the lower Midwest (or, if there is, it's gas pipelines from Russia). So the portion of rail freight charges that comes from loading and unloading is higher, which reduces rail's potential cost advantage over trucks. On the other hand, the infrastructure is such that high-speed, light-weight freight has a better chance of being time-competitive with trucks; for example, the little Gjøvikbanen (runs north from Oslo for about a hundred miles, and connects to the Bergensbanen via a cutoff about halfway along) sees several fast freights in the middle of each weekday, loaded with containers owned by grocery store chains and the like. I saw them near Oslo, so I cant tell you if they are heading for Gjøvik (the end of the line, across a big lake from the main line to Trondheim) or for Bergen, but I can tell you they run close to pax speeds -- competing with trucks.

On military spending: it's worth a debate -- not here, I guess -- about whether our current military expenses are really all for defense, or whether some of them are for power projection and other adventures that don't actually make us safer. What is relevant here is that health, education, housing, transportation, infrastructure generally all make us safer -- less likely to die an untimely death, more likely to have a secure and happy life. If we had spent part of the the cost of the Iraq war on grade crossing elimination, we'd have hardly any grade crossings left and save a few hundred lives a year, and still have been able to spend the same amount on the normal (ie non war) defense budget for upgrades and training and whatnot.

That's a really good post, and here's a neat population map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... quator.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Look at Europe, Japan, India, and China versus the rest of the world. Their population density speaks well to not just a corridor, but a grid of regional and long distance passenger trains in addition to HST.

Our map does reveal that there are indeed corridors of density - Northeast, Carolinas, Florida, Chicago-Toronto, etc...

The biggest problem right now is that every year we write a check for trains that cover vast swaths of the emptiest land known. We keep hearing arguments about providing a service, not a profit, so that folks in remote areas can be served, or people that don't like flying can be served.

For every one person that is theoretically served out in western Kansas or Utah, there are two hundred in denser areas that could be better served. Each time the argument is made that "we have to serve Fred Smith in Nowhere", we are choosing to divert funds that could help 200 people get better access to jobs and work and customers if there were one more train out of Chicago, Charlotte, or Chattanooga to Detroit, Durham, or Duluth.

mtuandrew wrote:Virgin Trains America fka Brightline is an unfair comparison because it receives a massive dose of government subsidy too: use of public rights-of-way, redevelopment grants, favorable SEC rulings, local road maintenance, tourism boards doing Sir Branson’s work, and the publicly-funded passenger terminal at KMCO. It likely is getting more development money than all of Amtrak’s trains that reach Florida, though I don’t have hard figures to back it up.

If the government’s role is not to provide more than post roads, fine, that’s an originalist Constitutional argument that deserves some consideration. If you go that way though, the Federal government also shouldn’t be subsidizing private corporations. An originalist argument demands no less.

True-- and an originalist argument might point out that when the Constitution was ratified post roads were state of the art. In that light, government support of state-of-the-art HSR might be considered originalist.

mtuandrew wrote:Virgin Trains America fka Brightline is an unfair comparison because it receives a massive dose of government subsidy too: use of public rights-of-way, redevelopment grants, favorable SEC rulings, local road maintenance, tourism boards doing Sir Branson’s work, and the publicly-funded passenger terminal at KMCO. It likely is getting more development money than all of Amtrak’s trains that reach Florida, though I don’t have hard figures to back it up.

If the government’s role is not to provide more than post roads, fine, that’s an originalist Constitutional argument that deserves some consideration. If you go that way though, the Federal government also shouldn’t be subsidizing private corporations. An originalist argument demands no less.

Virgin Trains USA has not received a massive dose of government subsidy. Its use of the Beachline or SR528 corridor involves leases with both FDOT and CFX that include per passenger fees to be paid for the use of the ROW. Virgin is also paying for all costs associated with any new bridges and impact on existing highways. In addition, Virgin has a lease agreement with the GOAA (MCO airport) for the use of the ITF that includes $4M annual rent along with $1 fee per passenger. The rent and passenger fees are also set to increase a certain percent per year over the 49 year lease term. If Virgin has the ridership they expect, they will pay off the $215M construction cost of the MCO train station in 25-30 years.

Maryland DOT received approval to sell PAB'S for the planned Purple line. There is precedent in authorizing PAB's for passenger rail. Virgin is just taking advantage of the tax law like any other corporation would. At least with Virgin, there is a clear public benefit versus giving a private company millions to move an office or production facility to the state for a certain number of years.

Along the FECR, only one county is fighting their road crossing maintenance responsibilites. All other government entities have either settled or recognized their responsibility to maintain a public road crossing of a private ROW.

The Visit Florida tourism board exists to promote all of Florida. Not just Virgin. They would exist without Virgin. The tourist industry is why we don't have a state income tax or higher local taxes. If anything, Virgin will facilitate tourist spending from Miami to Orlando. The economic impact of Virgin will result in a net positive for the state.

I am not aware of any redevelopment grants unless your are referring to the Overtown district in Miami that approved certain infrastructure improvements and zoning variances that made Miami Central possible due to increased property taxes in the future. But again, that is not unique to Virgin. It happens a lot for companies willing to invest in areas that are perceived as higher risk.

mtuandrew wrote:If the government’s role is not to provide more than post roads, fine, that’s an originalist Constitutional argument that deserves some consideration. If you go that way though, the Federal government also shouldn’t be subsidizing private corporations. An originalist argument demands no less.

Or airports / air service, or ports / shipping channels, or interstate highways, or hey, even pavement. The original post roads were dirt, if we're being originalists.

JoeBas wrote:Or airports / air service, or ports / shipping channels, or interstate highways, or hey, even pavement. The original post roads were dirt, if we're being originalists.

This sounds like a plot point in Groundhog Day II: Infrastructure Week

Gentlemen,

The train was supplanted by the plane and the automobile. Unless and until a government decides to penalize speed in travel, and penalize personal convenience in travel, intercity passenger rail travel in the US west of the Mississippi and south of the Mason Dixon Line is going the way of the passenger pigeon In 1905.

I’ve been on Amtrak several times in recent months. The snack bar service sucks. On LD runs, the dining car cannot or refuses to feed all those demanding its services. The coaches lack WiFi, and on the route of 3-4, there are celllular dead zones.

GBN is right. Order the Adios drumheads.

Why does it have to be a race to the bottom? Why can't we level a playing field without someone feeling they're being "Penalized"?

And oh yeah, things aren't perfect now, so chuck the whole thing. That's the (new) American Way, right?