I tried to make it fairly realistic. Obviously I would like HSR absolutely everywhere, but a line through middle of nowhere Montana probably would not see much ridership and would come at extreme cost (especially in the mountains).
Imagine Montréal<->New York in 2h instead of 11h… We could go there the morning like leave at 6AM from Montreal and be in NYC at 8AM, spend the day there, and go back at like 10PM
Is this 11-hour figure based on driving or some type of train that already exists?
There is a train, it’s 10 hours. And by car it’s 6 hours…
High speed rail goes faster than traditional rail
The clue is in the name, see!
In related news, I’m never going by Nonstop Testicular Torsion Rail again no matter how cheap the tickets are.
Train that already exists, depart is at 11AM and you arrive in NYC at 10PM.
By car it’s way faster, 6 or 7h iirc
Is that really how fast high speed rail could be?!?!?
Man… I could visit my family and go home in the same day … visit every weekend if I felt like it
I feel like something’s been taken from me :'(
TGV in Europe do 200mph for something like 40 years now
I think you would need an east-west line further north - perhaps continue west from Omaha or Denver - to make east coast to west coast travel practical.
Maybe Seattle->Spokane, Spokane->Boise->SLC->Denver, Spokane->Minneapolis.
I think there also needs to be more in Canada, Vancouver->Calgary->Winnipeg->Toronto.
I was just thinking this too, having to go all the way to LA from Washington before the rest of the country is weird, and anyone who lives in the west is screwed over by this map.
Transit shouldn’t be profitable… But the cost to build an HSR rail (which costs more than traditional rail) that went that distance vs ridership that a Vancouver to Toronto line would see to recoup some of that cost would make it a really tough sell to tax payers.
It’s different in the US with 10x population.
A line from Seattle to Atlanta with big metro stops in between is would be amazing
IIRC I clocked that NY-LA line at something like 14 hours with medium HSR and down to 10 with the newest shit that can run on steel. In either case it’s plenty fast for a sleeper train. There’s also a pre-existing corridor, and, most importantly, massive population centres: A sleeper each direction each day won’t nearly be enough to cover demand but that’s no biggie you can spread them out and e.g. have people get up or start sleeping at Huston (allowing them to get on and off) or let them sleep through the whole of Texas. That’s already three trains each giving the passengers even more possibilities.
You probably want to close the middle traverse from Colorado to Oregon and then connect to whatever the Canadians are doing east-west, but that doesn’t mean that the southern corridor doesn’t make sense in isolation.
NY to LA will never be 14 hours with current or near future technology. Its 50 hours from Chicago to LA with the slow trains and while high speed rail is a significant improvement its not crazy enough to get speed increases like that.
About 4500 km on current roads, that’s at least in the right ballpark for rail. The currently highest-rated rail route is in China, 350km/h, that’s 12.8 hours. Canada is currently building to that spec. TGVs can go 574.8 km/h (yes, on steel), that’d be 7.8 hours… 10 hours would be a mere 450km/h, I think that’s perfectly doable in ordinary service, on steel, if you have the will. A bit faster than a Bugatti Veyron why is that so hard to believe steel has quite some advantages over rubber on asphalt.
That assumes the train is traveling at its maximum speed for the entire duration of the trip-- which is almost never the case, even in China. For a route that long with many many stops large portions running over rough terrain necessitating curves and grade changes the actual average speed along the route would certainly mean the average speed of the route would be much slower.
Ultimately, spending a tremendous amount of money embarking on an ultra-high speed rail route between the coasts-- which would certainly be one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in human history-- would be a waste of time and money compared to almost any other rail project. All that money would be much better spent on high speed rail where it actually makes sense, and on conventional rail connecting every city in the US.
Night trains don’t tend to have many stops, less than ordinary HSR ones. And really all that empty space in the US should lead to the average speed being quite a bit higher compared to maximum when compared to Europe. But, all that said, don’t nail me on the details. Even if it’s a 16 hour trip, there’d still be plenty of people who would be interested.
And then, well, LA-Huston and NY-Huston make sense independently so the track is already there.
and on conventional rail connecting every city in the US.
Bombardier Talent 3’s are technically HSR, given that they max out at 200km/h. Tracks and rolling stock supporting on the order of 150km/h aren’t a rarity for S-Bahn systems, here, that’s more like commuter rail. Meanwhile, Amtrak is running trains over vast sections at more like 50km/h because the track is so shoddy you can’t go any faster. (That’s a sensible average speed for subway systems…) Those vast sections have to be rebuilt, anyway, and while you’re at it you can just as well build them to higher standards as the cost increase is almost negligible compared to what building non-shoddy track costs.
This guy could’ve saved some major photo editing time by just posting a Ticket To Ride game board.
“I guess crossing the Rocky Mountains is impossible”
-OP
For high-speed rail? Basically, yes. Unless you’re into spending a couple million bucks per mile to rip out big chunks of the mountain. High speed rail can’t reasonably navigate tight turns or steep grades.
I’m inclined to believe you, and have to say I love to see discussion like this here on lemmy’s version of fuckcars, but curious, does anyone know what switzerland does? Afaik, they have tons of rail and tons of mountains. Is it all/mostly low-speed? Sorry if it’s a dumb question or easy to answer.
Yes, it’s low-speed. There are only a handful of HSR lines crossing the Alps, afaik, but they’re generally huge, expensive projects that basically tunnel through many kilometers. For example, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is a 57-km tunnel through the Swiss Alps, but its feasible because it’s connecting large population centers with large existing HSR networks on both sides.
I also love that this community is picking up some discussions so very much thanks to @Fried_out_Kombi!
As I live in Germany, directly at the swiss border I may be able to give some insight. The West of Switzerland is quite flat in comparison to the rest, so a lot of south/north traffic goes there. Also a lot of cargo trains. (Funfact, there is a project ongoing to make the north south cargo route more useable. Renew and expand the railways. Swiss has done its part years ago but Germany has not even started)
But as he said, there are also quite some HSR lines through the alps. The swiss people are pretty good in building them, but yeah its mostly possible due to the high population density in Europe. There are also quite some slow trains in switzerland but the view is always incredible so I don’t mind to much.
So yeah I think its probably not feasible to do the same in the US. At least as long we don’t invent magical new tunnel construction
I love the Buffalo to Mexico City line
Fuck you Winnipeg!
Agreed
That made my day and also inspired me to watch some vintage Simp-i-sone’s. Thanks!
The car centric infra is one of the things that might do the states in at some point unless power production and storage and raw materials is resolved
I honestly think it’s a marquee example of some of the ways our North American culture has failed us. It’s a level coordinated infrastructure that we just can’t pull off despite so clearly being a net gain in quality of life for the average citizen.
So many if not all of the faults of the US where the average citizen would benefit don’t benefit the wealthy and so things remain the same. And many if not all of the faults that benefit the wealthy harm the average citizen. The US government does not care about the average citizen they care about the wealthy class and nothing more.
It’s not a “we just can’t seem to pull it off” and more of a “they won’t let us”
That’s one of the main things that drives me crazy here - the massive poor people tax that is the automotive industry.
Sorry guys I’m trying my best. 🚄
You have 6 States that have no routes that go through them and a few that have cities on the edge of the border. That’s at least 12 senators that would never let’s this pass on the federal level. I would love to see this happen but you have to have some connection in each state to get federal support.
The green one in Wisconsin until Scott Walker wanted to make a point or something. Yet anothe thing he left smoldering when he fucked our state royally.
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One of the problems with this is that currently, a lot of these smaller city routes don’t have a lot of demand. You could maybe get one train per weekday from Des Moines to Chicago for instance, Thats if you stopped at Iowa City, Moline/Rock Island, and maybe outside Chicago.
Same thing, like Tuscon to Albuquerque. Or any of the Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska lines.
I think if these routes existed though, there would grow demand around that route tho.
Well, last I checked there’s only like six people in Montana, Idaho is full of potatoes, no one has ever willing gone to South or North Dakota and Wyoming is like a public toilet, only if you’re really desperate do you ever go there.
At this rate, I will be on my death before we have much of functioning hi speed rail.
Maybe they will at least make Boston-DC line run faster
I grew up in a completely non-walkable part of this country and then moved just outside of NYC and it’s been life-changing. I walk almost everywhere.
Driving is garbage.
Thank you for giving us something to dream about for the future. This country neeeeeeds to advance.
This is always such an interesting topic. I remember doing a project on this in school. This would be such a nice upgrade for the public.
The tough thing is how much US rail & land is privately owned by commercial operators. Plus virtually all of that rail would need to be redone to accommodate HSR. Additionally, I think tickets would often need to be subsidized to be competitive to alternatives in many cases (some regional flights will already likely be the same price as what commercial HSR tickets would be).
The cost always makes it tough to justify versus other potential places for the government to spend its money.
Not that I wouldn’t like to see it done. I think having HSR would be transformative for America in a great way.
![[image] What I wish high-speed rail were like in North America](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2a660a9c-0c5f-4947-b7fd-cbd578403df9.png){kind=link}