Is America’s quest for high-speed trains finally picking up steam?::New projects in California, Texas, and Florida are a sign that the United States is finally getting serious about modernizing its commuter railway system.
I’ve been hearing these stories for decades. I won’t hold my breath.
America well adopt high speed trains en masse the year Linux becomes mainstream
So we need Valve to make gaming on trains better?
Well, Factorio is doing pretty well on Steam. That may help.
2026?
They better fucking not be running on steam…
Steam engines are eco-friendly. Coal in, water vapor out. Voila 😅
We could run steam engines off overhead electric lines using a good old heating element.
Would it be efficient or practical (or safe)? No.
But it’d be SIICKKKKK
Switzerland used to that, before they were able to update their trains with the purely-electric equivalent.
Coal dust, carbon monooxide and carbon dioxode out
Most American thing ever.
I won’t hold my breathe until there is major progress, but all these plans will get thrown in the trash if Republicans regain the White House and if Democrats don’t either take control of Congress or at least make gains. Republicans have been trying to kill of Amtrak and any US rail improvements for decades now.
Like with seemingly everything else, if Republicans are involved, they will stubbornly try to hold us back come hell or high water.
It still blows my mind that there’s only about 50 miles of “high speed” (greater than 125mph) transit in the US, and that’s only in a small pocket in tbe Northeast. For reference, the EU has over 2,200 mi of high speed rail in half the physical size running at up to 186mph.
I’d love to see the US fully mapped out with true highspeed rail, but part of the problem is the amount of time off work Americans have. We’re guaranteed nothing, and a pretty good portion of us have to use vacation time for sick days. A travel option that takes longer isn’t going to take off here because of that. People won’t spend an extra day travelling, changing trains, et cetera, when their entire vacation is a 3 day weekend so that they only have to use one vacation day in case they have to take their kid to the doctor 4 months later.
Not even close to arguing against the trains, just saying that we need to change some other shit, too. We need better labor laws that couple with things like forced caps on flights, less subsidiaries for airlines, the tracks being nationalized, priority given to Amtrak on certain lines, and better accessibility on the trains themselves.
Amtrak already has the legal right of way on pretty much all lines it operates on, that’s not the issue. The issue is that the cargo companies abuse the shit outta loopholes letting them go ahead anyways by having cargo trains so long that they cannot go onto bypass tracks, forcing Amtrak trains to wait for the cargo train to fully pass before it can continue despite Amtrak having the legal right of way.
It’s basically the same thing that happens with 16 wheelers vs pedestrians. A pedestrian might have the legal right of way when the crosswalk signal is going, but that doesn’t matter because that 16 wheeler isn’t gonna stop in time to avoid hitting them when it’s going at 40MPH. Physics beats laws every time.
We have a newish commuter rail and surface line here. My only complaints are that it doesn’t go enough places, and I want it to have road priority for both the elevated lines and the smaller, surface lines. Both should get dedicated roads where all cars must wait until it passes (save for emergency vehicles, of course).
My other complaint is that our politicians don’t have the balls to build an ultra high speed network from southern California to Vancouver, BC, which is what we need. We should just have big signs advertising a state owned 250+ mph train line up and down gridlocked i5 and state/provincial routes nearby. Then, it would get voter approval immediately. Preferably with QR codes attached to the signs to sign your name up on the proposal or something.
If the article title asks a question, the answer is always NO.
Betteridge’s law of headlines
Brightline is cool, but not cool. It’s shiny, new, has all the things you want to see on high speed rail but didn’t feel like high speed rail.
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Considering all the derailments we have had this year and “big train” cutting staffing I would imagine this isn’t happening or we will have 3 MCIs a year.
Trains are a rather safe. The reason for the derailments are cutting costs. Presumably, if passengers are the cargo, things will be much more strict.
Hopefully but they gotta get those stock buy backs for the board.
Love to see it but can’t help but be disappointed bigger projects aren’t planned from Chicago. I don’t understand why it will take me twice as long to take the train to New Orleans than drive or why there is only a single running east per day.
At least with younger folk yeah. Only people that hate trains are boomers and weirdos who think gasoline is the second manliest thing other than trump. It’s a huge project though, don’t know if I’ll ever live to see New York connected to Texas by high speed rail
Only people that hate trains are boomers and weirdos who think gasoline is the second manliest thing other than trump.
Mass transit has also burned quite a few people with reliability. The train not showing up on time was regular enough I had to stop using it to go to work. There is only so many times you can be late to work before it becomes your fault for not fixing the issue; in my case, by no longer taking the train and driving instead.
The metro in DC is a perfect example lol
People still used the hell out of it up until the pandemic, despite having a terrible two track design, despite having delayed maintenance for essentially 30 years, and despite having three jurisdictions arguing over how to fund what is truthfully only a commuter rail, not a proper full system.
I’d love to see more investment in Metro, but there needs to be a seismic shift in how we think about it, because commuting is only going to continue to decline in the long term, even if it will bounce a bit in the short term. I’m hoping DC can find a way to incentivize development around metro stops to make metro better for locals rather than M-Fers that the Post keeps insisting are responsible for subsidizing the city through lunches and happy hours. That includes repurposing half empty office buildings, and maybe looking at relaxing the height restriction as you get further out of the city center.
What happened to hyperloop? 🤣 🤣
Turns out making a low-pressure vacuum tube that spans 100+ miles, but lets small pods full of people be inserted on demand, was way harder and more expensive than predicted, making it poorly price competitive with existing technology like high-speed rail. For some reason.
Yeah has been since 1904 when the guy that invented liquid rockets had the same idea and the same conclusion. Doesn’t mean it can’t work with some effort and study even if in small areas but we suck at practical small scale thinking and humans want big answers or none.
What do you mean? Hyperloop is still in development.
Yeah, sure…
So you think this is fake? Honest question.
Where is the tunnel?
They should have dedicated train lines for homeless people.
