Via Ryan Avent, true high-speed rail is coming to Argentina which will make them the first in the Western Hemisphere. Someday maybe we'll get some, too.
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More Powerful Than a Less Powerful Locomotive
30 Apr 2008 01:41 pm
Comments (42)
Dream on Matt (and I'll be dreaming with you). True high-speed rail (e.g., Shinkansen, TGV) has to be separated from commuter and freight traffic. Until we can break through the NIMBY roadblock that will keep two new tracks from being pushed through, oh, the southern burbs of Boston, Fairfield County, Princeton/Plainsboro, and Montgomery or Prince Georges county, we will never have real high-speed rail anywhere in this country.
And I say that as someone who would love to have a train that could go from Detroit (and the northern burbs thereof) to Chicago in about two hours.
I'm with Don K. Also, we may want to check back with Argentina in five years to see if, you know, the trains are actually running.
Sigh. Your desire for high speed rail doesn't match up well with the regulatory state you love - so pick one.
Why not? Well, let's posit a high speed line between NY and DC. We can't run it over the existing lines, unless your plan is to shut down Amtrak's most profitable route during the construction. That means new rights of way. Well.
1) I can only imagine how long the Environmental Impact statements will take to clear, and how many lawsuits will be involved
2) I can only imagine how many people's homes and businesses will have to be bulldozed (and what that will cost in taking terms) in order to get those rights of way. Also the lawsuits that will accompany all of that
Look in the mirror Matt - the people who block this sort of thing from happening are people like you. We don't have high speed rail for the same reason that we aren't building the power plants (of any type) that we'll need based on ongoing demand: the regulatory state you love makes such things next to impossible.
Figure out which you want more, and get back to the rest of us when you have.
Yeah, this is such great news in Argentina!!
We're all thrilled to have this high-speed rail, especially since 98% of the already existing railroads, trains, trainstations, etc are falling down. This is ridiculous, our roads and public transportation system is falling apart, and instead of fixing it, this government decides to build this super-train, which will be too expensive to be used by its potential beneficiaries.
This is just the latest corruption deal of the Kirchners. This project has not been submitted to a single evaluation. It will be started without knowing how much the tickets will cost, without an environmental impact assesment, it has not been approved by Congress. I could go on forever.
Anyways, I love reading this blog!
Peace from Argentina
Look in the mirror Matt - the people who block this sort of thing from happening are people like you. We don't have high speed rail for the same reason that we aren't building the power plants (of any type) that we'll need based on ongoing demand: the regulatory state you love makes such things next to impossible.
But I don't love the regulatory state! You've perhaps read my numerous posts about the evils of over-regulation of land use and NIMBYism run amok.
Totally random question: why almost every single time you post about trains, you put a Renfe one in the photo?
Not that I have anything against heavy rail (in fact, I would lay rails everywhere) or Spanish railroads(which have improved leaps and bounds in the last few years), by the way. Just curious.
This isn't a picture of a high-speed train, is it? I've never seen a double-decker high-speed train, although to be fair, the only high-speed train I've ever taken is the ICE in Germany.
Totally random question: why almost every single time you post about trains, you put a Renfe one in the photo?
Not that I have anything against heavy rail (in fact, I would lay rails everywhere) or Spanish railroads(which have improved leaps and bounds in the last few years), by the way. Just curious.
Totally random question: why almost every single time you post about trains, you put a Renfe one in the photo?
Not that I have anything against heavy rail (in fact, I would lay rails everywhere) or Spanish railroads(which have improved leaps and bounds in the last few years), by the way. Just curious.
Ops, sorry for the double post.
Anyway, dork more on:
This is a 450-class commuter train, build by Alstom for the Spanish railways in the 90s. Max speed is 140 Km/h; they are usually put to serve semi-regional lines.
Oh, and there are some double decker HST. France has the TGV duplex, an advanced variant of the TGV-Atlantique that can reach 320 Km/h, and Japan has a crapton of models. Too many to detail them.
Well, all my pictures of French and Italian trains got lost in a computer mishap some time ago so Spanish trains is what you get.
How is Argentina going to pay for this? Is Hugo Chavez going to lend them the money? I can't imagine there are a lot of international lenders out there who would finance this, particular given Argentina's recent track record of stiffing foreign lenders.
Also, we may want to check back with Argentina in five years to see if, you know, the trains are actually running.
I thought Argentenia was filled with people that 'could make the trains run on time'?
But I suppose that even with Simon Wiesenthal no longer pursuing them, most of that generation is dead by now.
http://www.keeptexasmoving.com/
the only positive of the TTC, the one part that will probably never see the light of day
How is Argentina going to pay for this?
I'm too lazy to google up figures at this time, but, um, off the top of my head I'd reckon Argentina's GDP has gotta be in at least (PPP) the $400 billion range. Which means the cost of the project is less than 1% of a single year's output if it comes in at cost. Anyway, the article says they've found a bank willing to lend them the cash.
We're all thrilled to have this high-speed rail, especially since 98% of the already existing railroads, trains, trainstations, etc are falling down. This is ridiculous, our roads and public transportation system is falling apart, and instead of fixing it, this government decides to build this super-train, which will be too expensive to be used by its potential beneficiaries.
This is just the latest corruption deal of the Kirchners. This project has not been submitted to a single evaluation. It will be started without knowing how much the tickets will cost, without an environmental impact assesment, it has not been approved by Congress. I could go on forever.
But it's kewwwwwwl! And to the fanboys, that's all that really matters. Never mind that it's a political vanity project that will benefit the wealthy few at the expense of the poor majority, steal precious funds from badly-needed spending on rational transportation infrastructure, and line the pockets of corrupt Argentinian politicians and businessmen. We just have to ignore all that.
As a measure of what context the Argentine project is operating in . . .
A journey from Buenos Aires to Cordoba will drop from 14 hours to 3. An impressive result for high speed rail, but a staggering indictment of the rest of the Argentine rail system, which is getting customers around at a glacial 30-35mph average. Our poster from Argentina has a serious point.
The extension to the seaside resort of Mar del Plata will come into a different station from Retiro where the Cordoba line comes in. I don't see any word of a proposal to link the two. No problem for Buenos Aires residents, who just take the subway to the appropriate station, but a huge inconvenience for anyone who doesn't live in the capital and wants to get to the opposite end of the line.
And so far they only seem to have eight trainsets on order. Good for an all-business class, every-other-hour service. But not so good for volume travel for the masses.
Having said that, I wish Argentina every success on this venture. If they pull it off and do it competently and don't get mired in delays and corruption, it will be a major showcase for rail transport.
But like our Argentine poster, I'd like to see the Kirchners as keen to put $4 billion into their regular system as they are to put it into a showcase project.
To all those wondering about the double deck trains, go check out TGV Duplex. All the new TGV trains on SNCF in France are double-deck; SNCF does not seem to like the single-deck trains any more. Given the ridership they're getting, I can see why. Some other rail systems prefer the single deck variety.
The catch with a single-deck train is they require a huge long platform. 18 cars on the Eurostar; St. Pancras is something like 1,500 feet. The advantage of single is they fit under tighter bridges and tunnels (big issue in most of Europe, a non-issue in Argentina), and they're quicker to board.
As an aside an interesting test of the viability of high speed rail is coming up in the next few years; the holding company that operates the rail infrastructure in France is sticking everyone, SNCF, Thalys, Eurostar etc., with big increases in access fees to get them towards a market rate.
Lastly -- can we do it here? My sense is this is a great idea for California, Texas, Florida, the Midwest; big population centers relatively close together and cheap, open land in between them.
The northeast, however, is another story. With the density of development and the NIMBY politics, they're going to have to focus on upgrading routes they have; there's no other economical way.
Some proposals on the table: MARC (Maryland Transit Administration) has a solid proposal that involves major upgrades to DC and Baltimore commuter lines including the Northeast Corridor that would enable big improvements in capacity and speed. Another real proposal on the table is going up from just two tracks under the Hudson River in New York to four, although New Jersey Transit seems to be trying its best to hog the project for itself and make it useless for other train operators (e.g. Amtrak, LIRR). Hopefully NJT's bid to separate the new Hudson tunnels from the rest of the network fails, or passengers are going to have a miserable connection at Penn Station, Amtrak won't get the extra capacity it needs, and any chance of opening it up to competition or even simply to new types of service that connect better will go right out the window. The NJT proposal as it stands is so outrageous that I believe it would be better to stop the project than let it proceed as it is.
Other possibilities would involve adding passenger service to more routes, and bypassing bottlenecks (e.g. Wilmington, DE; the drawbridge-infested route in eastern Connecticut) with stretches of new track. Amtrak wanted to do the eastern Connecticut thing with the electrification to Boston but couldn't get the money, so trains have to be timed around the drawbridges and grade-crossings are equipped with metal nets to stop idiots from trying to beat the train.
DBX,
A journey from Buenos Aires to Cordoba will drop from 14 hours to 3.
The flight time on scheduled commercial flights between Buenos Aires and Cordoba is a little over an hour. They don't need a multi-billion-dollar high-speed fiasco funded by the poor for the benefit of the rich, they need low-cost airlines and more competition. And some decent roads. The reason cars and buses take so long to go from BA to Cordoba is because the government has failed to provide a decent highway connecting the two cities, which is pretty absurd considering that they are the two largest cities in the country. But then, Latin America is not exactly noted for good government. They have corruption, authoritarianism, and inefficiency in spades, though.
My sense is this is a great idea for California, Texas, Florida, the Midwest; big population centers relatively close together and cheap, open land in between them.
Ah, your "sense." Who needs evidence, studies, cost-effectiveness calculations, etc., when they've got that?
We'll see how long air stands up as an economical solution. I see you're still trolling away though.
Perhaps you don't recall why Texas does not have high speed rail. The franchisee proposed to do it without subsidy. Southwest Airlines decided they couldn't win in free competition, so they organized farmers along the route to not sell their land, and fight it with lawyers. Tens of millions into the project, the Texas TGV consortium realized what many other American businesses know all too well -- that almost anything in this country can be brought to a halt by lawyers -- and threw in the towel.
I know nothing about the economics of the California proposal, other than that the amount of money being discussed for it is less than what it would cost to build comparable highway capacity.
You, Mixner, would not know factual evidence if it hit you in the face, and you've repeatedly shown that you don't care about factual evidence. Wendell Cox, are you? To call you half-baked gives you too much credit; you're not even near the damned oven.
Interesting how I express skepticism of the Argentina proposal, indeed point out how starved of money Argentina's regular transportation system is, and you make me out to be another fanboy.
You have taken it on yourself to declare a one-person war against discussion of rail on this board and you invade every related thread to try and chase away people who have something constructive to say. Evidently you're some kind of fascist. Facts and evidence to you are the enemy, and you are setting out to try and repress discussion.
I live 100 mts away from La Lucila station in northern metro BA. We had a frontal crash today, when a train going into the station hit another train which was thankfully stationary. Nobody died, but even a minor accident like this one left 44 injured.
I'd much rather see that money spent into regular rail service than a project like this one. I'd also rather have a less sexy freight train system to see food prices go down. Just like I'd prefer to see investment in public schools rather than wasting those dollars to buy OLPC XOs to trade for votes. All of these are boring projects, but FAR more necessary than a high speed train.
DBX,
As always, you make assertion after assertion for which you provide not one iota of evidence. Do please show me the evidence substantiating your story about why Texas does not have high-speed rail, for example.
I know nothing about the economics of the California proposal, other than that the amount of money being discussed for it is less than what it would cost to build comparable highway capacity.
"The amount of money being discussed." So if the proponents of a rail project merely "discuss" some amount of money, you just blindly accept that as a realistic estimate, do you? Your posts are full of this kind of nonsense. And why do you think cost-to-build (assuming that is the cost you're referring to) is the relevant comparison, rather than total cost per passenger mile, or some other comprehensive cost measure? Again, you don't seem to have even a vague understanding of how to make meaningful comparisons between different modes of transportation.
Interesting how I express skepticism of the Argentina proposal, indeed point out how starved of money Argentina's regular transportation system is, and you make me out to be another fanboy.
Yes, I guess I must have imagined your fanboy exclamation, "I wish Argentina every success on this venture." Never mind if it actually makes sense economically. Never mind its environmental impact. Never mind how much money it transfers from poor to rich. You just wish it every success, anyway. If that's not the epitome of uncritical fanboy enthusiasm, I don't know what is.
You have taken it on yourself to declare a one-person war against discussion of rail on this board
No, I have taken it on myself to point out the bad arguments and unsubstantiated assertions made by rail proponents. Yours in particular, since you are such are tireless proponent and your writings so devoid of substance.
By the way, here is yet another, and very recent, study of the economics and environmental impact of rail transit. The author's conclusions are strongly at odds with the claims of rail proponents.
Worse off, that looks like something for Allstom to make money. They also anounces projects that are never built here in Brazil(Like the Lightrail in the city of Santos)...
I'm not much for minutiae on rail issues but if "I wish Argentina every success on this venture." qualifies as 'fanboy exclamation', nothing short of outright condemnation and inferring the kicking of puppies can serve as criticism. Wishing for success involves hoping for optimal outcomes-it is vague enough to include all of the qualifications noted.
If Argentina is able to execute this in a way that is effective and competent, it could be a great model for rail. If they do not do so, it can go down as a case study in what not to do. Attempting to improve transportation infrastructure through actual investment that is bounded by at least a quasi-realistic appraisal of need probably will result in some trial & error.
Mixner's right. All trains are bad.
Keep fighting trains Mixner! Long haul trucks and airplanes forever!
In the 90's, the French company had contracts to build high-speed train lines in Florida and Texas, but lobbying by airlines who feared the competition forced cancellation.
That is how capitalism works in the U.S.
"The flight time on scheduled commercial flights between Buenos Aires and Cordoba is a little over an hour"
And how long does it take to get to the airport, check in, go through security, and take off? I'm not knowledgeable about the merits of this particular train system, but in general, giving flight times on their own is not a useful comparator. Trains go from the centre of a city to the centre of another, and you can arrive at the station minutes before departure.
Ah, Mixner--always good for a laugh on a train thread. There is his normal pattern of making wild assertions without any supporting evidence, then complaining vigorously when people make much more moderate assertions without including a treatise to support their claims. And then there are specific examples of his double-standards when it comes to transportation issues, such as complaining about how high-speed trains benefit the wealthy and take infrastructure dollars from other transportation projects, while at the same time he is promoting airline service for short routes.
Anyway, DBX is right. True high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor is a very expensive proposition--which doesn't mean it is ultimately a bad idea, but it isn't the ideal situation for high-speed rail. Rather, something like a Midwestern high-speed rail network centered in Chicago would be much easier to build, and in general does provide a nearly ideal setup for high-speed trains (lots of people living about the right distance away from each other with a lot of low-population land in between them).
By the way, in anticipation of Mixner complaining, here is a relevant link to an extensive cost-benefit study of a Midwest network done for several relevant state DOTs:
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/state/docs/mwrri-economic.pdf
Generally, aside from the anti-train dogmatics like Mixner, I think the American people are persuadable on this subject. The bottomline is that high-speed trains are in fact a more economic solution in certain intermediate travel applications than airlines.
Mixner, see:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/Downloads/RRDev/cfs0997all2.pdf
And thanks to rising ticket prices, increasing delays, problems with airport expansions, and so on, the American people are becoming indirectly aware of the problem with overrelying on airlines for intermediate travel. Add in a little raw nationalism (do we really want Argentina to have a more advanced travel network than we do?) plus growing concerns over environmental externalities, and I think a critical mass of support in favor of high-speed trains for America is developing.
At which point I expect Mixner's head to explode.
1-) I don´t believe that Argentina will be able to build a TGV Line cheaper than the French - even considering their geography. That´s what Latin America politicians love to do - empty promises.
2-) The problem is to provide airport and airplane infrastructure to everyone. Brazil, that tried to use cheap airlines to provide transportation - there is no passenger rail and with the exception of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo airplane is the only way of travelling between it´s major cities - and faced two deadly accidents in less than two years and major delays.
3-) But I don´t defend the TGV - a simpler train structure would the job better.
1-) I don´t believe that Argentina will be able to build a TGV Line cheaper than the French - even considering their geography. That´s what Latin America politicians love to do - empty promises.
2-) The problem is to provide airport and airplane infrastructure to everyone. Brazil, that tried to use cheap airlines to provide transportation - there is no passenger rail and with the exception of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo airplane is the only way of travelling between it´s major cities - and faced two deadly accidents in less than two years and major delays.
3-) But I don´t defend the TGV - a simpler train structure would the job better.
DTM,
By the way, in anticipation of Mixner complaining, here is a relevant link to an extensive cost-benefit study of a Midwest network done for several relevant state DOTs: http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/projects/state/docs/mwrri-economic.pdf
Gee, a group of midwest states issue a report concluding that an infusion of billions of dollars from the federal government would produce a net benefit to their populations and economies. Of course it would. What it completely ignores is the fact that that benefit would be purchased through higher taxes on people who live in other states. It also makes no attempt to compare the benefits of spending the money on rail versus alternative options, such as roads and highways and bus services. It's not enough to estimate that benefits (may) exceed costs. To justify spending the money on rail, you have to show that it is more cost-effective than alternative transportation options. Do you have any studies showing that? No, I didn't think so.
It's also clear you still don't even read your own citations. The second study you cite, the Federal Railroad Administration's study, High Speed Ground Transportation in America, concluded that for all three prospective high-speed route systems involving Chicago (Chicago Hub Network, Chicago-Detroit and Chicago-St.Louis) total costs would exceed total benefits by billions of dollars. And publicly-borne costs would exceed benefits to the public at large by even more billions of dollars. The only net beneficiaries would be the small fraction of the population who used system, thanks to the billions of dollars in subsidies they would get from everyone else. For the three Chicago routes, users would be subsidized by 80-90%.
It's no wonder you can't raise any money for these absurd projects.
Mixner,
Apparently you didn't read the linked studies, or you are just a liar.
First, the methodology in both studies specifically includes analysis of alternate modes of intercity transport, including airlines, cars, and buses. For example, Chapter 2 of the 1997 national study compares the various modes of transport, Chapter 4 details relevant trends and assumptions with respect to other modes of transport, Chapter 5 explains how they projected the usage of other modes of transport (assuming no high-speed rail projects) to use as a baseline for their cost-benefit studies, and so on.
Second, the 1997 study broke out eight different high speed rail options. The study found the Chicago Hub Network had total benefits exceeding total costs for six of the eight options, and total benefits to the public exceeding total costs to the public for three of the options.
Finally, the 1997 study was quite clear about the assumptions it was making (such as energy prices staying at 1997 levels) and the categories of benefits it was excluding (such as environmental benefits). Accordingly, the study specifically noted that if energy prices increased, it would increase the benefits of the various rail projects. Similarly, the study noted that the more expensive projects could become net beneficial if all the categories of benefits were included. And the more recent study for the Midwest network (from 2006) did just that: they used updated information and included some of the excluded categories of benefits.
Now here is the thing, Mixner. You always complain when people don't provide studies to back up their claims. But here I provided you with studies, and yet you are still complaining, and on the basis of misrepresentations (or maybe just lies) about what are in those studies. And what exactly have you offered to counter these studies? Have you provided any studies or evidence to support any of your assertions? No.
Accordingly, even though you often ask for evidence or studies about trains, you don't actually seem interested in learning anything about trains. Rather, for some reason you have just become dogmatically opposed to one particular transportation technology, which I guess deeply offends your moral sense by its unholy use of rails.
In the meantime, though, the rest of us are trying to have a serious conversation. So until you have something to contribute, or otherwise show a desire to actually learn something about the technologies you are dogmatically opposing, I will now plan to ignore you (although I may occasionally mock you, if I think it would be amusing).
DTM,
First, the methodology in both studies specifically includes analysis of alternate modes of intercity transport. For example, Chapter 2 of the 1997 national study compares the various modes of transport
Wrong. The studies contain NO cost-benefit comparisons between road, air and rail travel. Chapter 2 of the FRA study, for exaample, simply summarizes trends in air and highway travel. It contains no cost-benefit comparisons whatsoever. You really need to read your own sources more carefully.
Second, the 1997 study broke out eight different high speed rail options.
Also false. Only two options, "new HSR," and "Maglev" constitute true high speed rail, and for all three Chicago-area routes the study estimates total costs for such systems would exceed total benefits by billions of dollars (Table 7-5). The other options, various flavors of "accelerail," are not true high speed rail and would simply consist of upgrades to existing locomotives and tracks to produce modest speed increases. Even for those options, the smaller speed increases are generally the most cost-effective--increasing the top speed to 110 miles per hour (the average speed would of course be very much lower). Obviously, a train only modestly faster than the existing one would be much less competitive against air and highway alternatives than a true high-speed system.
Furthermore, the study estimates that even most of the "accelerail" options would cost far more in public subsidies than they would produce in public benefits (Table 7-7). Once again, to the extent that any of these options would produce a net benefit, the study indicates that that benefit would be concentrated among the small segment of the population that actually used the system, at the expense of a huge tax burden on everyone else.
And you wonder why you can't build any serious public support for these fiascos.
Mixner,
OK, I guess you are indeed just a liar.
High Speed rail at the 200 mph+ level is not as good a bargain as some think. In fact, if the Europeans are really serious about cutting carbon dioxide emissions, they might want to slow down their high speed rail services (as well as curbing the proliferation of ultra-cheap airlines, i.e Ryanair, etc.)
The reason is because the power needed to move a vehicle (and thus its fuel efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions) is a function of its speed. Power to overcome rolling resistance is a linear function of the speed and weight of the vehicle, but the power needed to overcome aerodynamic drag increases as a cube of the speed. So increasing speed really does a number on the fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions.
Do the math: 50 mph cubed is 125,000, 80 mph (the most common speed limit on most Amtrak routes) is 512,000, 100 mph cubed is 1,000,000, and 200 mph is 8,000,000. The other stuff affecting the power requirements are drag coefficient and vehicle weight, so you can fool around a little with streamlining and and weight reduction to reduce the power requirements. But there are limits to that, especially weight reduction in the US, because of regulations. Apparently, the US rail environment, as compared to Europe, has more of a mixture of passenger and freight, and American freight cars tend to be larger and heavier than European freight cars. So American passenger cars have to be built heavier with more reinforcement so they won't get totally smashed in a crash. At least that's the theory. Whether it's really necessary is argued ad nauseum on some of the railgeek internet forums.
Of course, running more slowly will be more efficient even for lighter trains. But it probably makes sense (from the point of view of CO2 minimization) to optimize the speed to be the slowest that will nevertheless attract ridership. In the case of the Northeast Corridor the current Acela Express (maximum speed on that part of the route is 135 mph, average speed ~79 mph) takes about 2:48 to run from New York to DC. The Regional train (maximum speed 125, average speed ~69) takes about 3:15 for the same trip. This is already pretty competitive with flying, when you factor in the trip to the airport, messing with security, the boarding process, etc. I've arrived at the station as close as 10 minutes before train time and was able to buy a ticket (from the machine) and catch the train. Those sorts of speeds are much faster than driving (average speed about 50 mph), a door-to-door trip to New York (assuming no traffic snarls) takes me a little over 4 hours. This level of speed seems to be quite adequate at attracting riders, as the Northeast corridor is a very well patronized service. It's probably a better use of money to expand capacity to allow more trains and rebuilding some of the bridges and tunnels than it would be to build new right of way to allow 170 - 200 mph service.
Trip times can be reduced in other way, like reducing the number of intermediate stops, but the intermediate stops are part of the advantage of the train. The same vehicle can let people off at New Carrolton and BWI airport as well as downtown Washington. So you need local and express trains, which means more track capacity.
In fact, to get the full benefit of rail, it would be better to invest in track capacity to allow for more frequent service to more places, rather than trying to compete with air travel on the basis of speed. As far as optimal speed, I would suppose that running average speeds of 65-70 mph with 100 mph maximums would be enough to compete with driving on the basis of speed, and even air travel on the basis of speed for trips up to 200 miles. Building a 100 mph rail line is a lot cheaper than building a 200 mph rail line, which means we could have a better rail network more quickly. And it would be pretty functional as well.
Green Gearhead,
The problem is that in the higher part of the plausible 100-500 mile range for high-speed trains, you necessarily are starting to talk about competing with airlines for intercity travel. And while faster trains may have lower operating efficiencies (e.g., in terms of fuel use and environmental externalities) than slower trains, they are still a lot more efficient than airplanes. So, to the extent you need pretty fast trains to get people to switch from planes to trains for trips in, say, the 200-500 mile range, that could be worth doing, even if you don't need trains that fast for shorter trips.
And I think if you look in places like the Midwest, it turns out that there are not that many big routes in the 100-200 mile range. For example, around Chicago, you have Milwaukee at about 100 miles, Indianapolis 200, Cincinnati 250, St Louis 300, Detroit 300, Columbus 350, Cleveland 350, Minneapolis 400, Kansas City 500. So doing just a 200 mile network out of Chicago would be missing a lot of potential routes in the 250-500 range.
I agree the Northeast Corridor is different, however (e.g., with Washington, Baltimore, Philly, and New York all on a line just over 200 miles long).
DTM,
And while faster trains may have lower operating efficiencies (e.g., in terms of fuel use and environmental externalities) than slower trains, they are still a lot more efficient than airplanes.
Fuel efficiency calculations and comparisons between different modes of transport are problematic and complicated, but your claim that trains (fast or slow) are "a lot more efficient than airplanes" is not supported by the evidence.
The Wikipedia entry on fuel efficiency in transportation reports fuel efficiency for intercity passenger rail in the U.S. of 3.17MJ/passenger-km, and for airplanes of 1.4MJ/passenger-km. In other words, airplanes are more than twice as fuel efficient as passenger rail.
Gearhead,
In the case of the Northeast Corridor the current Acela Express (maximum speed on that part of the route is 135 mph, average speed ~79 mph) takes about 2:48 to run from New York to DC. The Regional train (maximum speed 125, average speed ~69) takes about 3:15 for the same trip. This is already pretty competitive with flying, when you factor in the trip to the airport, messing with security, the boarding process, etc. I've arrived at the station as close as 10 minutes before train time and was able to buy a ticket (from the machine) and catch the train. Those sorts of speeds are much faster than driving (average speed about 50 mph), a door-to-door trip to New York (assuming no traffic snarls) takes me a little over 4 hours.
You may want to read Matthew's earlier post on the "Boltbus" between NYC and DC, and the comments to that post. According to the fare and travel-time data posted by Beowulf (his travel times agree with yours), for the privilege of shaving 40 minutes off a 4-hour bus journey, you'll pay between 5 and 7 times as much to travel by regular train, and for the privilege of shaving off an hour and 10 minutes, you'll pay between 6 and 10 times as much to travel by "high-speed" train (Acela). And you lose the wi-fi service to boot.
This level of speed seems to be quite adequate at attracting riders, as the Northeast corridor is a very well patronized service.
Because ticket prices are massively subsidized by taxpayers. And Acela certainly does not seem to be very successful at attracting non-business travelers, even with those massive subsidies (not terribly surprising given that the bus is much, much cheaper). According to Amtrak, 82% of Acela passengers are travelling on business. So the Acela subsidy is mainly subsidizing businesses. Corporate welfare.
The people who responded to my comment totally missed my point.
The point is that high speeds in and of themselves work against fuel efficiency and reducing emissions. Power requirements increase by at least a cube of the velocity, plus rolling resistance for ground modes. The faster you go, the less fuel efficient you will be, and the more CO2, particulate matter, and NOx precursor emissions you will spew out. That's the laws of physics, and all the economic bullshit in the word won't work against that. The fact that our economy is set up so that we can't operate transportation systems that provide optimal fuel efficiency and emissions reductions is a different story from the physics that described how to provide that optimal fuel efficency and emissions reductions. If we're going to be serious about reducing oil use, CO2 and emissions, we will have to think hard about whether the "savings" in time and money are really worth it. And we don't need a 200 mile per hour train between New York and Washington, because the current service has a market share of 55 percent already.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02522t.pdf
(look at figure 3)
Personally, I'm pretty pessimistic that our society has what it takes to deal with the problem in a rational way, so in the end, I predict a collapse of our vaunted motorized transportation system. But I won't care, because I'm planning to buy a horse farm as my retirement career. At least I won't be one of the former middle class riff-raff that has muddy boots.
Comments closed May 14, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Ah, but it's not able to leap much of anything now is it? This is where high-speed rail falls down in its match-up against Superman.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | April 30, 2008 1:58 PM