Fri 20 Feb, 2009
Today’s post comes from Politicus.us. If you don’t visit that site, I hope the next time your mother sucks off a donkey your father catches her.
Despite the fact that the United States still has the largest rail network in the world, unlike many other developed and even undeveloped countries, our passenger rail service leaves a whole lot to be desired, mainly because it is more profitable for the railroads to carry freight, rather than people.
Besides relatively small, regional commuter rail lines and some specialty tourist and sightseeing trains, government subsidized Amtrak remains the only real passenger option in the U.S.
For decades now the world has been marveling at the Japanese “Bullet Trains” and later at the French TGV, both very fast – albeit a bit expensive – but very, attractive alternatives to air travel, cars and buses.
A few years ago, Shanghai was the first to implement a German-developed magnetic levitation train on a route, between the city and its airport. With a maximum speed of 431km/h, or 267 miles per hour, it takes only eight minutes to complete the 30km trip.
One of these trains would be just the ticket for the Washington-New York-Boston route. The problem with the so-called Northeast Corridor (NEC) is the fact that it happens to be a very curvy route, not allowing very high speeds, without complete rebuilding. That of course would not only be very expensive (and we never, ever want to spend money on something useful) and would probably require the acquisition of numerous rights of way, demolition of existing structures and so forth.
Although sections of the NEC have been rebuilt and upgraded, the route still wouldn’t allow speeds even remotely approaching the Japanese, French, or German/Chinese trains.
It was therefore decided to procure tilting train sets, which could use the existing tracks, while achieving greater speeds by tilting the trains inwards on the turns. The Canadian consortium Bombardier has won the $611-million contract with its design, originally termed the “American Flyer”, which later became Amtrak’s “Acela” brand. The trains are capable of 240 km/h, or 150 mph speeds. Some upgraded sections of track actually allow such speeds on the straightaways. This of course is well below the above-mentioned Japanese and French trains and in a completely different category than the Shanghai maglev set up.
The real problem is that the Acela trains were actually built four inches (10cm) wider than they should, reducing the permissible tilt on the turns from 6.5 to 4.2 degrees, effectively reducing the speed on large sections of the Northeast Corridor. At issue is basically the fact that it has been determined that a more pronounced tilt, at a higher speed could be dangerous if two trains were traveling in opposite directions on the same turn.
That said: we still do not have a viable, fast and affordable train service on the very busy Washington-New York-Boston route. Driving takes at least nine hours. Taking a plane has become nightmarish because of the security regulations, overly large airports, which are too often very inconveniently located. The airlines are notoriously unreliable as of late. As a matter of fact, it is a rarity when a plane departs and arrives on time on any route.
The latest, humongous “stimulus” plan does provide a trickle for “investigating” high speed rail to the tune of about $8 billion. I wouldn’t be surprised that this was included thanks to Vice President Biden, who has been a regular Amtrak commuter for many years. But why the hell haven’t we investigated it years ago? How long will it take before the U.S. – a country with the world’s largest rail network will finally enable its inhabitants to travel by rail in comfort, speed and safety and in an environmentally sound way?
Tags: Boston, Guest Post Friday, New York, Tains, Washington
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