You just need fast trains, flat track, and large radius curves.

Oh, and an informed populace and progressive government officials.

Especially if the electricity is produced by green methods. This is a good idea because the future will produce clean electricity with wind and solar, and we already have lots of clean hydroelectric.

In California we aim to drastically reduce our grid-based carbon by growing our renewable energy portfolio to the highest standard in the nation (except for Hawaii, recently) even as we reduce emissions to what they were a generation ago.

It cannot be done without the transportation sector working very closely with the utilities and rest of the electrical generation and distribution sector.

It will be challenging, but I expect to see impressive solutions come out of the challenge.

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Canada's rails ain't much, if any, better.

I rode the rails when I worked for Canadian Pacific Railway.

Many places are restricted to 20 - 30 mph,

Hardly any places are safe over 50 - 60mph;

and even at these slow speeds, our (and the USA's) trains fall off the tracks WAY too often.

North America is 20 - 30 years behind Europe and Asia's high speed rail, it can never catch up - even IF (and that's a big if) the corporations that build a future high speed rail stick to quality and safety standards/controls, AND don't line their pockets and bleed the budget. - Good luck with that.

CC

That would be much safer than going to work, etc.

still old and dying to be profited from?





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... makes too much sense.

Yeah, the coal lobbyist are too influential

High speed rail is great for Europe or Japan because of the relatively small distances needed to cover.

I know here in TX it's being considered here as a kind of inverted Y system connecting SA/Austin, DFW, and Houston together. That I can see working because the auto congestion is getting heavier every year and it's a hassle flying esp. for what's a minor distance in US terms.

I can see similar webs making a lot of sense for the NE corridor, the Great Lakes, FL peninsula, and CA coast (probably the most expensive to build). But I'm not sure trying to connect them into one giant national system would work financially or practically. A lot of that $1.2 trillion would be eaten up for spanning mass distances that are better served by airlines.

Now vactrains on the other hand.....

High speed rail is not better in any way. It isn't faster and it isn't cheaper. http://rational.ce.umn.edu/Papers/CaliforniaCorridor.pdf

You will still have to endure the idiocy of the TSA and the perpetual paranoia and incompetency of the Homeland Insecurity morons. It will take longer than a flight, cost more, and provide the customer with no measurable benefit.

So why should we invest billions, and it would be at least double the estimate, it always is, in a system that is inferior in every measurable way? It not only defies logic, it is an insult to logic.

You would not have the convince of your own car upon arrival, unless you paid much more than the plane ticket, more even than the cost of just driving up.

It is something that the supporters of HSR have never managed to explain to anyone. Why would consumers want to spend more money to take longer to make a journey? If it is going to be annoying, uncomfortable, and frightening, why would you pay more and still take three times as long to arrive?

Just how many people would take the train from NY to LA? What a waste of money. I would prefer that money be invested in something that is actually going to make the journey faster (like supersonic air travel, for example).

The "worst boondoggle ever" is George Bush.