So it is done? …
What would a map look like if you shifted those European cities 1,000 or so miles to the northeast? West of the Mississippi River, the only rail service that makes sense is high speed rail service between major cities and freight.
On St Louis to Chicago. The website says due 2023 but has not been updated. Will see if i can learn more.
Exactly. Of course you could ‘bank’ the curves, but then you can’t run low speed freight over those rails, so you’re caught either way. Running high speed would be much easier in the west, except the distances are too great for the population density to support it. It would be more economically viable in the east, except it would be vastly more expensive to build it, and thereby uneconomic. A real paradox for us.
The St Louis Chicago route went through all those concerns. It was an upgrade of existing railroads. In addition there were concerns about grade crossings and safety.
The Illinois prairie is so flat an overpass on the interstate usually requires digging a lake for dirt.
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If you drive I-80 through Nebraska you may note small “lakes” along the route. They were excavations for gravel used to build the highway.
DB2
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Don’t build high speed rail for passenger trains. Build it for freight/most cargo. Readily justifiable over almost any distance in the US. Transportation costs reduced, environmental issues may be achievable, and so on. Passenger trains MAY use the same rails if justifiable–but it is an “add-on” benefit, not the basis for building it in the first place.
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It’s an interesting idea, but given that the railroads are an oligopoly, and in effect a cooperative of local monopolies, you would have a hard time convincing them to make the changes for any economic reason. The hundreds of billions it would take could never be recouped by “faster freight” tariffs.
Unless airlines were a significant threat to railroad volumes (which will never be true, as far as I can tell), the incumbents are happy to have their business, occasionally to trim around the edges by eliminating a second person from the crew, and have a cigar after lunch.
It will never be done absent government dictat, which is why none of the high speed rail lines around the world are privately owned, as far as I know. We have a couple of attempts at it here in the land of the heroic private entrepreneur, but nothing so far. Meanwhile in Europe (for example, not to mention China, Japan, etc.)
“Brightline is the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the United States.”
DB2
Some of that is fixable or does not need fixing. Going into cities some of that is direct enough and straight enough but the speeds are slower coming into stations.
Out in the countryside that is not such a big deal. Land can be bought.
In suburban areas it is problematic. I agree. Eminent domain works.
Brightline West’s high-speed rail project from Southern California to Las Vegas has scored $3 billion in federal funding.
The funds will help pay for the $12 billion project, which includes main stations in Rancho Cucamonga, Apple Valley, and Las Vegas, as well as a passenger stop in Hesperia.
President Joe Biden is expected to officially announce the grant award Friday in Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Congress has been notified of the grant award, the source confirmed to the Review-Journal.
Brightline and the Nevada Department of Transportation applied for the funds from $3.75 billion available from the Federal-State Partnership Program, part of the U.S. infrastructure bill.
Tax-exempt private activity bond allocations from both states and private capital would pay the remaining cost of the project.
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