This is desperately needed here in the USA.
US High-Speed Rail Map Shows Proposed Routes
Under the plan, which the USHSR proposes to build in four stages, it would be possible to travel between Seattle, Washington; San Diego, California; Miami, Florida; and Boston, Massachusetts, entirely on 220-mile-per-hour high-speed rail lines.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-high-speed-rail-map-proposed-routes-1924237
@pabloniusmonk I doubt it would get off the ground. They'd probably have funding issues, building issues, zoning problems, or other small things.
@Ertain the only difference this time being the leadership role of the feds. But if Trump gets back in office, we can say bye bye to that leadership.
@Ertain @pabloniusmonk and hyperloops and boring companies
@Ertain @pabloniusmonk Tribal rights.
@Ertain @pabloniusmonk There are more systemic problems in the US that prevents the building of passenger train lines. Short version: NIH, long version, check out the https://pedestrianobservations.com blog which explains why has construction costs which are an order magnitude above those of other countries (disclosure, not my blog, but one I follow).
@sortius Last Train to Clarksville!
@pabloniusmonk it's so needed in the US. As bad as things are here in Australia, to read about the decline of rail in the US is pretty tragic. You guys tunneled the Sierra Nevada (in the mid-1800's!) for Christ's sake!
@sortius oil barons then oil companies ripped out commuter rail lines here. They're still lobbying against rail. Australia is so big too. Same issues preventing rail projects there as well?
@sortius @pabloniusmonk yeah, we kind of screwed the pooch. Rail was strong at the turn of the century (1900), but between the 30s and the 50s as the auto manufacturers took off they pushed the idea of the national highway system and that was completed in the 1950s. The whole idea is if the federal government stopped putting money into rail people could drive their own cars and go places you couldn't even afford to build rail. It ignored the fact that highways cannot for the same money, carry 1/10 of the cargo load that rail can. Also that highways are a bigger ongoing maintenance problem! But when the automakers ran out of words Big oil got into it because they saw this car thing as a gold mine. They were right! As a result a whole lot of dollars and support went out of rail and into the highway system and now we got THIS! I'm praying for a Biden win and to get a good start on the new High-Speed rail, it might be our last chance.
@sortius @pabloniusmonk accept this one actually has rail going through Montana, which is sadly lacking on the other one.
@ReverendMoose @pabloniusmonk hehehe, silly Germans, raising your expectations, and dashing them quite expertly!
@pabloniusmonk absolutely right!! Trains, well run and modern lines at least, are a fantastic means of transportation. The US is in the stone age for such passenger service, but there are signs,of growing interest. It may take 100 years to realize what's on that map....but it will be worth having for those future generations. Unless we all die writhing in deadly heat and poisonous gases in the not too distant future....
(Edit for spell)
@pabloniusmonk Wouldn’t that be great!
@pabloniusmonk hahaha lol this will never happen I'm so sorry.
@pabloniusmonk what a dream! Really hope this happens.
@pabloniusmonk sorry but this is highly unrealistic. We're going to build a new, 220-mph rail line between Salt Lake City and Denver?!? Have you seen the Rocky Mountains???
Drawing a line on a map is easy, in the way that wishing for a spaceship from Santa for Christmas is easy. Unfortunately that's all this is, a fantasy wish list.
@akamran @pabloniusmonk lol yes I'm well aware. Railroad engineers managed to find a narrow little pathway that, rather than being impossible, was only near-impossible to build through. They blasted through mountains at great expense in terms of cost, environmental damage, and human lives in order to create a route to the Eastern US, the only alternative to which was taking a months-long journey by boat all the way around the tip of South America.
So now you want to find and clear a *second*
@akamran @pabloniusmonk route through those same mountains?!? Why? So a train can go faster? I can tell ya the trains going through the mountains are not traveling anywhere near 100mph right now and they sure af won't be traveling 200mph around those curves and inclines. The speed limitation there is due to geography not the type of train. Sooo no benefit, in exchange for blasting through endless tons of granite.
Whatever improvements there are to be made to our rail network, it's not that.
@wh0sthatd0g @pabloniusmonk The straight line between Seattle and Boise is maybe the most bizarre. None of the Phase 4 stuff in the western states make sense.
@cramsay @wh0sthatd0g @pabloniusmonk Yeah, I noticed that too. Nobody from Seattle wants to go to Boise, and vice versa
But a 1,200 mile West Coast line and really open things up. At 220 MPH, SEA to PDX would be 45 minutes. PDX to SFO would be 3-1/2 hours. SFO to LAX would be 2 hours.
It wouldn't matter though, the US can't do high speed rail. It would be $2,500 per ticket, take 25 years, be late, dirty, uncomfortable, and only run at 30 MPH due some glitch that will never be fixed.
@pabloniusmonk Make it so
@pabloniusmonk Don't do this without lots of wildlife over- & under-passes.
I saw this and like the idea, but the phases are completely wrong IMHO.
Don't start with regionals.
Build main lines first:
-NYC -> Tampa
-Philly -> CHI -> Denver -> San Francisco
-Houston -> St Louis -> CHI
-San Diego -> Seattle
Don't build convenience routes for "super commuters" first.
Make it getting from corner to corner a priority. Which makes the long distance flights stupider, then fill in regional convenience routes.
It also has the advantage of the early lines being through less populated areas, making imminent domain easier for the initial build.
@pabloniusmonk I think I like the idea of skipping the Dakotas, Montana, and West Virginia. Very few want to go there anyway.
@pabloniusmonk @trendytoots There isn’t even an Amtrak station in Phoenix.
@pabloniusmonk why no love for Montana? They can go plaid there.
@MaybeMyMonkeys @pabloniusmonk
I tip my hat to you for that Spaceballs reference
@pabloniusmonk I want this so badly. I watch train videos on Youtube and am seriously jealous of Europe.
@pabloniusmonk always seems incredible to me that the US seems to be something like 50 years behind the rest of the world in terms of rail travel (and that's being charitable)
@pabloniusmonk I enjoy train travel but cost makes flying a better option. I don't see how this will shift as numbers are just not there.
@grabe No doubt but for a precious few lines (Acela in the NE), this is the case currently. That's what the project aims to address. As a Dallasite, give me a 3rd option to hop on a train to Houston or Austin, and I'm all over it for many reasons. Even if the cost is more, the advantages will be worthwhile a lot of the time.
@pabloniusmonk when I lived in north Dakota I took the Empire Builder to and from the west coast. We now live in Minnespolis and go to and from Chicago via train. Minneapolis is a hub for plane traffic so flights are much less expensive.