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It can be hard to find estimates of the expense of high-speed-rail-line construction, so I'll use a figure of $10 million/mile from some European HSR lines. That's nevertheless 25,000 miles of HSR lines. In any case, I suggest a phased system: Phase 1: Lines already far along in planning. Washington...

I find it hard to take seriously the idea of a continent-length vacuum tube. There's the serious problem of possible leaks -- how will that be handled? Will the tubes have airlock doors and crossovers every few 10s of mi/km? That would likely be necessary to enable detouring by crossover around a di...

And how is one supposed to get from LAUS to Victorville ??? That's a big weak spot of this scheme. Its designers expect many of its riders to drive to Victorville, but once they get to Victorville, they might decide to keep on going to LV. Distances from Victorville: Las Vegas: 200 mi San Bernardin...

It is very welcome that some states are intent on making progress toward high-speed rail. However, such progress depends a lot on states' political whims, which will make progress spotty. And such spottiness is what we are seeing here; North Carolina is leading the way and dragging Virginia along, w...

Vertical vane? Would it be like a pole for pushing the train? Or would it be something like San Francisco's cable cars, which move by gripping a moving cable? Do you have a URL of a page describing the mechanism that you have in mind? One might get improved traction by using rubber tires, though the...

I'll do that for other areas I've lived in, though I will find it hard to avoid repeating others' proposals. San Francisco Bay Area : ** Light Rail: * Livermore - Pleasanton - Walnut Creek - Martinez (Livermore) - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - East Ave. - Maple St. - Livermore Transit Cen...

The hills are relatively easy to handle IF you use compression of the driving rail rather than relying on the weight of the car multiplied by the coefficient of friction (which is, um, variable). I don't see how that is supposed to work. In any case, there was a conference on podcars held at Cornel...

I used to live in Ithaca, NY, and I find this proposal most bizarre. Downtown Ithaca is in the flatland at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, but Ithaca's two colleges are up some steep hills from it, Cornell University to the east and Ithaca College to the northeast. Hills as steep as some of San Fra...

This is likely a non-starter, since these towns are very small, but here goes. Lebanon - Albany - Corvallis in Oregon Lebanon - Albany: - South Lebanon - North Lebanon - Southeast Albany - Albany Amtrak station Albany - Corvallis: - South Albany: Linn-Benton Community College - Albany Amtrak station...