THE ECONOMIST HSR article July 22

new passing loops and upgraded tracks . dear i say , a ptc type or better signal system ?

As I'm sure Mssrs. Matthews and Benton know, suspicion of the concentration of wealth and power within the Federal government is probably a stronger component of the American character than that of any other nation; it dates back as far as the United States itself.

Yet all but the most strident of those of us who do strongly subscribe to a basically laissez-faire ideology would concede the emergence of new and very expensive infrastuctural components, many of which naturally lend themselves to centralized management. The problem here is to avoid the pitfalls which also arise from that centralized management.

I must emphasize again: The HSR advocacy has lost much ground over the past year and a half precisely because it has allowed itself to become the poster child for a well-co-ordinated collection of policies which are anathema to a group of roughly equal size and influence holding a near-diametrically opposing view.

And because of this, the opportunity for development of a more paragmatic alternative may be lost, or set back many years.

The number of independent voters who could be coaxed to a more centrist stance is much larger than a superficial look through the eyes of our polarized media would lead us to believe. And a substantial portion of the electorate which holds to a pro-entreprenurial stance and a justifiable mistrust of the alliance between radicals and functionaries becomes a lot more flexible when the opposition comes from other entrepreneurs, particularly when they're "outsiders" without the ear of those at the levers of power.

Accordingly, perhaps a first step toward addressing the infrastructual-management issue might involve a mild form of "open access" designed to cultivate the devopment of rail carriage for "marginal freight" -- quite possibly reviving a few of the lines abandoned or downgraded in recent years. A serious -- and mutual -- recognition of the advantages and costs arising from this experiment might then open the door for a responsible sharing of assets.

But the "break some eggs" behavior of a handful of HSR partisans has given plenty of wieght to the beliefs by some that they have little to gain and much to lose.

4266, It's ironic that you mention heavier rail- PAR wanted heavier rail on the Portland line to counter the effects of 79mph running, but were denied. Anyway, I'm not aware of any important freight routes that NEED these infrastructure improvements. And the roads don't want PTC- that's being forced on them (at industry expense) because of a- yep- passenger train accident.

I think that many flat-road rights-of-way are too twisty for HSR duty. One needs very low curvature to allow high speed. The LGV Sud-Est was designed for a typical speed of 300 km/h -- and its minimum radius of curvature is 4 km (2.4 mi).

As to the troubles of the freight RR's, I think that an appropriate solution would be extra tracks along existing ROW's. If the trains are 110-mph ones or thereabouts, the freight RR's could also have access to those tracks, which I think is a reasonable price for access.

As to Cowford's analogy, I'd prefer to think of someone who wants lots of customers to be able to drive to his business, but a business on a street where lots of people like to park their cars, and where it's difficult to move to somewhere else. In this analogy, the business is HSR (want quick access), the people with parked cars are the freight RR's (speed is not a great priority with them, but they also need the space, and other cars rushing by would be awkward for them), and the difficulty of moving somewhere else is the difficulty of building a completely separate right-of-way.

There's even an analogy with constructing more tracks along the ROW: widening the street, producing fast lanes and slow lanes.

2nd trick op wrote:As I'm sure Mssrs. Matthews and Benton know, suspicion of the concentration of wealth and power within the Federal government is probably a stronger component of the American character than that of any other nation; it dates back as far as the United States itself.

That is perhaps American's view of themselves . I dont share it , and i dont belive the majority of non Americans do either . Your already more heavily regulated than many countries , and what influence there is on the federal govt is mainly by big corporations , not your average citizen .

HSR would be a huge benefit to the citizens , yet here we are arguing over the effect on the railroad corporations .

yet here we are arguing over the effect on the railroad corporations .

Poor darlings.

HSR would be a huge benefit to the citizens , yet here we are arguing over the effect on the railroad corporations .

HSR being a "huge benefit" is speculative. (Particularly the "huge" part!) The nation's privately-owned freight railroads being a benefit "to the citizens" is hard fact. The degree to which HSR will be foisted upon the freight rail industry will, to some undetermined degree, negatively affect their capacity to maximize that freight hauling "public benefit." (Ask yourself if running a passenger train with 75 passengers really is in the public benefit [environmentally or otherwise] if it displaces an intermodal stack train that took the equivalent of 300 trucks off the road.)

So yeah, it does make sense to "argue over the effect on railroad corporations".

The WSDOT website has quoted a response by FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo to the article in The Economist . The letter hasn't been published so far, but here a link to the letter, as quoted at the WSDOT website: http://wsdotfederalfunding.blogspot.com/

...the assertion in the article that freight and passenger rail cannot successfully coexist is not supported by the facts. On the contrary, passenger and freight rail have been successfully sharing infrastructure since the beginning of railroading more than 150 years ago. With good modeling, planning and engineering, we can ensure capacity levels appropriate to the operating needs of both. That is why we are working closely with States and host freight railroads to reach operating agreements that define responsibilities, achieve balance between the private and public interests, and ensure optimal operations for both interests.

I also have to take issue with Mr. Benton's argument, but by a somewhat different path.

I hold a strong belief in technical progress, but not at the expense of the freedom and dignity of the responsible individual. I believe that greater personal privacy and autonomy while on the job is not incompatible with increased productivity. But in a de-industrializing economy, not-really-needed service, and the indulgence of consumer foibles and unrealistic expectations (for a while, anyway) has become the norm in too many cases. And too much of our recent progress is directed toward "whip-cracking" and in-secret monitoring of the large majority of employees who genrally play by the rules, rather than the identification and suppression of an irresponsible few.

That belief carries over into the field of personal transportation.

HSR would be a huge benefit to the citizens.

I retain my doubts. Like it or not, the consumer places a high value on direct contol of his/her increasingly-scarce personal time and space. The ability to go directly from home to office, not to mention the opportunity to take care of a couple of personal errands along the way, is a very difficult advantage for mass transit to overcome. (Perhaps if employees enjoyed greater autonomy and less usually-senseless "face time", they would have more opprortunities to enjoy the side benefits of mass transit?)

And so let it be for freight transportation as well. An infrasturcture with open access (paid for by the "secondary" user) might be able to generate enough marginal revenue to justify the expansion and/or increased flexibility of the physical plant. (Economies of scale should be much easier to realize in a capital-intensive mode such as rail carriage - passenger or freight.) The sole role of the public sector here should be that of an impartial referee. And access to the government's monopoly to coerce via the (ab)use of the principle of eminent domain might justify a requirement for multi-party access to the fruits of that privelege in return

My view is, admittedly, an unconventional one. For I've come to recognize, over the last few years, that the limitations on both the mobility of capital annd the individual's growing recognition of the futility of his/her efforts as he/she confronts the realities of advancing age have compounded the effects of the "culture of short-sight" which rules too much of our thinking today.

But as again evidenced by the President's attempt to blame most of his troubles on an Administration now 19 months removed from power over the weekend, the current Beltway circus remains obsessed with the redistribution of wealth and privelege, while attempts to implement modest, but permanent improvement, most of them in "blue" states, continue to take a back seat to a determination either to rule or to ruin.

"My way or the highway?" --- if we return to gridlock after this fall's elections, it could come to just that.

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2nd trick op's "I value my time, therefore, I'll drive everywhere" argument is most directly relevant toward urban-rail development. It's more peripheral for HSR, which competes with airlines more strongly. I must say that I've never heard of anyone who refused to travel by air because air travel is supposedly collectivist, socialist, Communist, un-American, you name it.

Joseph Szabo's pointing out history is all well and good, but some RR's had built as many as 4 tracks in their main lines, suggesting that they faced fast vs. slow conflicts back then. So for HSR development, we may end up doing the same thing again.

In response to Mr. Petrich's observation, I want to begin with a quote from Mr. Matthews' own website:

Along with economic decline goes social weakness. The predominant individualistic philosophy erodes social solidarity in families (very high divorce rates and numbers of malfunctioning families) and communities and encourages individualistic crimes (mugging) which have made many urban areas of the country unsafe.

There are serious social problems in the US, deriving from the increasing gap between rich and poor, caused mainly by the failure of social solidarity after the wealthier successfully campaigned to have their taxes reduced. Some have described the frequent riots and high murder rate as a low intensity civil war. Although the culture is a synthesis of many groups, lack of solidarity is causing at least some of the elements of a race war. The prevalence of the use of dangerous drugs also suggests a cultural imbalance or weakness (common to most of the western world).

The pooling of sovereignty which has occurred in Europe, because of the need for co-operation to solve modern problems, may also be needed in North America. If a world authority of some kind is needed, the people of the United States are likely to resist its introduction - though so would the Chinese and Japanese and many other groups.

Admittedly, I represent a more individualistic viewpoint than most of the regulars here; I never had much taste for the inherent contradictions between ambition and feigned self-effacement which characterize "corporate life".

I'm the son of a dairy farmer; my one brother and I both ended up in non-traditional career paths. And within those passages (his as a farm veterinarian; mine in trucking and warehousing) we both got a greater-than-average exposure to life on the lower rungs of "the system".

Few people trapped in that life, whether in factories, "big box" stores, or call centers, would argue against the point that the contemporary American workplace has become quite a bit more like a scene out of George Orwell, thanks to a combination of Political Correctness and a largely-for-show response to a work force diversifying rapidly, but dominated in the past by male breadwinners, often with a rural and/or ethnically uniform background predominant.

And when you are limited to that sort of daily existence, the moment at the end of the day when you re-enter your own space and fire up your own vehicle becomes more of a high point. Unfortunately, it can also spill over into "road rage" for an irrational few.

But my point in all this is that the HSR "panacea", often held up by the same "soccer Moms" who emphasze European conformity and class-consciousness over the long-ingrained American skepticism toward authority, provokes a strong reaction from those who know that another portion of their individuality wil be diminished. Stridency begets stridency, and the possiblity for short term progress can be lost in the process.

My post oversimplifies, and I readily admit it. But the fact that my learned opponent has also noticed it is a pretty stong testiomony as to the depth of the conflict.