America's Coming High-Speed Rail Financial Disaster

As I mentined in my last post, I've been spending a fair amount of 'Net time among the under- and unemployed of late, and those sites are not exactly hotbeds of conservatism. So it doesn't exactly suprise me that the long-term unemployed have been drawn into the general political split;

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100326/ap_ ... t_benefits

and it would seem a natural progression for the HSR question to end up similarly whipsawed.

And that's a shame, because under all the argument lies room both for expansion of the current conventional exurban rail network (no LD, please) to something approaching the scope of the 1950's, plus upgrading some of the present services to accomodate higher speeds.

But the battle over the cost is heating up on a daily basis:

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/all- ... 1492.story

A poolroom philosopher once observed that if a little guy knows he's going to find himself in a brawl, it's best to get close to the biggest guy in the joint ... not in the hope he'll protect you, but that he'll fall on top of you and you won't be noticed. Seems like good advice in these times.

hs3730 wrote:The station needs to either be in downtown, or as easily accessible as downtown. People need to be able to get to the station and from the station easily without their cars, since if they have to deal with long term parking, they may think "I might as well drive there".

The airports seem to do fine with long term parking. Isn't regional airplane trips the target competition for HSR? Get people from Chicago to Indianapolis/Cincinnati or Chicago to Toledo/Columbus competitive with airline travel. Airports need connectivity to their cities for "coming" passengers, plenty of services for "passing" passengers and parking for the "going" passengers from the many parts of the airport service area that doesn't have local connectivity. People will drive over 100 miles to get to an airport. If you want those people on your trains, give them a place to park. If you don't give them a place to park you might as well concede the competition to the airlines and not build HSR. You're not serving the market.

At no point did I say "don't build a parking lot", obviously some people will be quite happy with long term park & ride, the same who are fine with it at airports. But a small town airport cannot accommodate people who prefer to leave their cars home, simply because their very nature precludes them from being downtown (and thus airports naturally find themselves on a spoke). A rail station can be built downtown (especially an electrified one that can be placed underground) and thus benefit from the same "infrastructure" (as much as a bus system can be called that) as is already in place for commuters, since downtown is always the "hub".

To put it another way, the long term parking lot is for people who's thought is "plane or HSR", good local PT is for people who's thought is "HSR or intercity bus". Even the Shinkansen has a class of low priced tickets for unreserved cars that allow standees...

Ocala Mike wrote:It's the Heritage Foundation, after all, a conservative think tank that is anti-government involvement in anything except national defense. What would you expect them to posit regarding Amtrak/HSR?

That is actually a libertarian viewpoint. They don't go all the way libertarian, e.g. positing that interstate highways or airports be removed from government funding/construction. Furthermore, their "globalization" viewpoint is not conservative, but left-leaning rather (Marx, not Fabian).

electricron wrote:Interstate highways weren't exclusively built in brand new ROWs

Not exclusively, but mostly.

Some portions of interstates were built on top of former railroad rights of way (e.g. the Pennsylvania Turnpike on the unbuilt South Pennsylvania Railroad, I-80 between Paterson and Totowa NJ on the former DL&W Boonton Line).

Deutsche Bahn's continued practice for HSR has been to build the NBS corridors next to an Autobahn. Saves on capital costs (to a degree) and certainly prevents any problems with their equivalent of "eminent domain" as well as keeping the "environmentalist" segment of society (both legitimately scientific and lunatic fringe) appeased.

railaw wrote:As a blanket rebuttal to many of posts above, the "arguments" presented are classic ad-homenim attacks, questioning the motive of the arguer and ignoring the argument. The bias of an arguer does not affect the validity of an argument

Depends on the strength of both personal bias and logic of argument. AFAICS, Dr. Utt has an historic axe to grind, but real-world evidence seems to be overwhelmingly in refutation of his claims, ad hominems aside.

I wonder if Dr. Utt noticed that the HIRE legislation/a.k.a the "Harry Reid Jobs Bill" which recently passed Congress contained a $19.5 billion appropriation from the General Fund to prop up the Highway Trust Fund through next year?

I've been categorizing my personal ploitical viewpoint as "libertarian" for over 40 years, and have been registered as a Libertarian for about 20. The latter action stems from the reasoning that one of the few things pn which the two major parties agree is the desire to prevent smaller parties from developing; if not enough people register as Libertarians, Socialists, Constitutionalists ... or whatever, that party no longer appears on the ballot. And it also means that when I want to vote for a threatened candidate in another party's primary, I have to make a trip to the court house to change my registration.

Many long-time libertarians trace their origins to disenchanted conservatives who were around during the Vietnam era, and could clearly see the contradiction between the waste of huge sums of money, the debasement of our financial system, and the imposition of temporary slavery via the draft, to fight the heirs of Marx 10000 miles from our shores while it was tolerated 90 miles from Key West. The Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, which stresses both non-contrdictory reasoning and the inseparability of all freedoms --- political, artistic, personal and economic --- is also a cornerstone.

But as an individual matures, confronting both the necessity to adapt economic theories to the real market and the limits of both advancing age and personal circumstances, the thories have to be adapted to the realities of daily existence. Few industrial sectors offer stonger proof of the high price of economic inflexibility and illiquidity than does the railroad. Once the very expensive facilities are in place, human nature, more often than not aggravated by political pandering focused entirely on the short term and the "swing voter", usually tends to diminish their profitability. And the very fact that the HSR movement has been identified with people at the opposite economic pole from those who struggle to run small entrepreurships and deal regularly with a grittier "street scene" makes it a hard sell among conservatives.

But it's worth noting that the continuing evolution of human progress mandates furthrer refinement of our economic structure. The revolution in communications and the coming of age of the "information industry" were replete with examples of our ability to develop many new products and services, but they also demonstrated that the "perfectly competitive" ideal was not attainable, through such spasms as the AT&T breakup and realignment, and the dominance of Microsoft at the expense of Apple, Netscape and others.

The rail industry, both passenger and freight, offers examples of economic evolution both positive (the restoration of a profitable rail freight system via the vehicle of Conrail) and negative (the Long Distance passenger train as "middle class welfare" from a viewpoint focused primarily opon efficiency of resource allocation). And its intense concentration, coupled with an ignorance of its operating ralities among the genral public, means it will remain a juicy target for political opportunists.

Yet we're now at a stage where it appears that the long, high summer of the personal auto is at an end. It will, of course, remain indispensible for local travel, and something geared to that will be more readily adabtable to alternative fuel. But reductions in size and comfort, coupled with a dwindling supply of the most readily-adaptable fuel, argue in favor of greater use of mass transit where population density justifies it, provided both that the politicians can restrain their natural tendencty to interfere and corrupt, and that a rejuvenated freight rail industry can be encouraged to develop new forms of service which can coexist.

My experience in dealing with many people, from many career fields and backgrounds, over the course of the two years since the "economic meltdown", leads me to believe that the vast majority of voters, while disenchanted with most political insiders, are not buying into the argument of the private sector as scapegoat, nor do they view the quantum leap in governmental control over our daily lives as proposed by many of the HSR movement's most prominent advocacy, as a good idea. What evolves over the next 32 months, in the transport sector as much as in any other, remains to be seen. But the HSR panacea inreasingly appears to have been primarily identified with dubious company.

2nd trick op wrote: Yet we're now at a stage where it appears that the long, high summer of the personal auto is at an end. It will, of course, remain indispensible for local travel, and something geared to that will be more readily adabtable to alternative fuel. But reductions in size and comfort, coupled with a dwindling supply of the most readily-adaptable fuel, argue in favor of greater use of mass transit where population density justifies it, provided both that the politicians can restrain their natural tendencty to interfere and corrupt, and that a rejuvenated freight rail industry can be encouraged to develop new forms of service which can coexist.

This is an opinion I share. And a few interesting articles to that effect:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0903/S00156.htm

http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/Artic ... &e=1257153

http://marysoderstrom.blogspot.com/2008 ... at-be.html

The last article tells of an interesting trend-namely that fewer young people have much of an interest in even getting a driver's license, never mind buying an automobile. Whether this is a due to lack of income, a disenchantment with the auto after seeing how much money it costs their parents, ever present traffic jams, identifying with the green movement, or other factors, is unknown. Nevertheless, it's fairly clear to me that the auto in the future will be relegated mainly to the role of local errands. As such, it will change radically from the large, fossil-fuel powered Interstate cruisers of today. Many will choose to go carless, either by free will or necessity. Still others will use bicycles for local travel in much the same way their parents used automobiles. This reality has yet to be acknowledged by either party. Interesting though is the new philosophy where the US DOT will treat pedestrian and bicycles as equals to the auto in transportation planning. This can only bode well for mass transit.

Like you, I lean towards a libertarian viewpoint, but with the ackowledgement that sometimes certain necessary things need to be done which private enterprise is incapable of doing. Building a mass transit system, which includes HSR as one of its components, is one of these things. I think it's imperative for the coming reality to start shaping policy. If it doesn't happen with either of the existing parties, in time a third party may gain enough traction to take over both houses and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And it may be the today's twentysomethings and teens who form the voting block which brings this party to power. My generation ( today's 40-somethings ) could be seen as the first generation who grew up with the auto, and also the first for whom the negatives sometimes exceeded the pluses. For the coming generation, the net balance seems to be shifting even further in the red column. The utility of the auto for errands is still clearly recognized, of course. However, shoe-horning it into every transportation role, or having it as the sole mode of getting around, are equally clearly seen as negatives. So is the high price of entry.

What's coming isn't so much the demise of the auto as the balancing of our transportation network. The auto will no longer be dominant, but neither will any other mode. Each mode would be used in the roles best suited to its inherent strengths.

Here is another thing to consider: Freight trains and passenger trains don’t really mix all that well. With freight and passenger traffic sharing lines, they both have to make operational tradeoffs. Most of the proposed high speed passenger rail corridors already happen to be high volume freight lines running near capacity, which is not a coincidence since both the freight and passengers are moving between high density population areas. The efficiency and economics of moving passengers by rail don’t compare to moving freight by rail. Since most of the high speed passenger rail proposals including the one in California for part of the route expect the passenger trains to use existing high volume freight corridors, in order to have the number of passenger trains needed to establish a convenient network competitive with other modes, it is going to come at the cost of existing and future freight capacity, which will end up back on the roads. And since the freight railroads are already privately owned and profitable, I find it highly unethical to force them to accommodate subsidized passenger rail. Union Pacific has already expressed their desire NOT to accommodate the California trains on their right of way.

Mr Milwaukee raises a very important issue, particularly in light of the fact that ruling grades and other physical characteristics of a particular route carry much more wieight in the contemporary railroad game. For example, upgrading the former Erie main line east of Youngstown would vastly increase the amount of track capacity to serve the New York Metro ... the road could easily be double-tracked end-to-end and the Erie was a favorite for "high-and wides" ... but current operator NS doesn't make much use of it, and CSX would have to be dragged kicking and screaming before the Water Level route would be relinquished in favor of Gulf Summit.

And on the West Coast, the issue has been out in plain sight for decades. Remember that ATSF's San Joaquin service revolved around consolidating and distributing Southland passengers, by bus,from a Bakersfield hub because SP wouldn't allow more moves over Tehachapi, yet the service proved popular enough for Amtrak to successfully revive it after a couple of years' absence. Think UP might prticipate in developing a new tunnel underTehachapi in retrun for sharing it with passengers? ... I doubt it.

Over the long run, I'm pretty sure that the scenario of seven large players/four super-giants fighting over control of an industry somewhat similar to automobile manufacture in that the investment is huge, and the individual revenue components both hard to differentiate and heavily impacting the bottom line, is highly likely to draw unwanted media and political scrutiny. Better to have a plan ready to defuse the issue and expand the range of forms of entreprenurship and operation than to wait for wolf to appear.

So...

Milwaukee_F40C wrote:Here is another thing to consider: Freight trains and passenger trains don’t really mix all that well. ...

That's why the moderate-speed plans often include building additional trackage. Not surprisingly, true high-speed service involves building separate tracks, as is the practice at the eastern and western ends of Eurasia.

Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor > Frequently Asked Questions

13. So there will be continued freight service in the corridor as well?
The SEHSR is being designed as a passenger and freight corridor. Freight service already exists in most sections, and will be reinstituted in the currently discontinued section between Petersburg and Norlina in NC. The SEHSR is being designed to allow passenger trains and freights to operate on the same track, and with 5 mile-long passing sidings every 10 miles on average to allow the faster passenger trains and the slower freights to meet and pass with minimal conflict. The operating efficiency for both passenger and freight service will increase dramatically as a result of SEHSR corridor improvements.

So single tracks will become 1.5 tracks.

TRAINS Magazine - Illinois: Over $1 billion for Chicago-St. Louis and Kansas City
Though to be upgraded to 110-mph duty, CHI-STL will remain single-tracked. However, there are plans for double-tracking it.

TRAINS Magazine - High speed rail in the Northeast: Beyond the Corridor, slow trains get some help
Albany-Schenectady is to get double-tracked.

lpetrich wrote:So single tracks will become 1.5 tracks.

1.3333333 tracks, but who's counting? (Five mile sidings ten miles apart is 20 miles of rail in 15 miles of travel. 1.5 tracks would be with sidings five mile apart.)

There is a major difference between High Speed Rail and what is being planned today, "Higher Speed Rail". Florida is the closest to HSR. Mixing freights in pretty much eliminates the possibility of true HSR. But then America doesn't need HSR as much as they need "Higher Speed Rail" as a stepping stone to get people back on trains nationwide. Improving existing lines to increase passenger and freight speeds helps everyone a lot more than a showcase line in a couple of states.

It's not going to be a disaster unless it is built before the government figures out how to pay for it.

So ...... as usual, the pie-in-the-sky promises are being adusted downward, toward something that the public actually sees a need for, and the private sector likely could provide ..... if it weren't wary of the politicians. It's a case of the same destination, but via a much longer and costlier route.