A tale of two trains: Brightline vs California high speed rail

[Peter]

The United States Railway system is largely freight rail which, for safety reasons, limits track speeds to 125 mph.

This is similar to Switzerland whose highly integrated passenger and freight rail lines have a 125 mph limit.

The Brightline's speed cap isn't bound by technology, only logistics, given that it uses East Coast Railway track which is used primarily for freight.

It also doesn't help when you have an entire political party who seems to demonise public transport at every opportunity.
I honestly can't imagine London without public transport and honestly think they just wouldn't be able to get the millions of people a day into the city who work from all around it.
The town I live in has a direct train route into London and plenty of people here commute to work every day because of it.

 

[jmotivator]

China has an operating maglev line that travels at over 450mph.

Theoretically, but it's more just China pushing old technology to it's theoretical limits, for good or bad.

But those 450 mph trains don't exist in the wild yet, with the Shanghai train operating at more like 180mph.

Also, I've seen video of what the ride on the wheeled Chinese high speed rail is like and no thanks. Those rattle traps seem ready to disintegrate at any moment.

 

[jmotivator]

It also doesn't help when you have an entire political party who seems to demonise public transport at every opportunity.
I honestly can't imagine London without public transport and honestly think they just wouldn't be able to get the millions of people a day into the city who work from all around it.
The town I live in has a direct train route into London and plenty of people here commute to work every day because of it.

This argument isn't backed up with reality. The issue Americans in general have with high speed rail is that it seems to be managed mostly by kleptocrats like we see in California who dump endless billions into a high speed rail project that hasn't laid a mile of track in 10 years, or the Amtrack system that is entirely public owned and charges insane fees for low service.

The EU system is less publicly owned than Amtrack at this point. The problem is that the Party that pushes for high speed rail wants it to be government run, which is what the opposing party doesn't want. This is why Florida has Brightline and California has a boondoggle.

In the end, what the US needs in order to start a High Speed Rail network is to deregulate and open interstate rail to more private companies, and allow for private construction of interstate rail lines.

 

[Peter]

Theoretically, but it's more just China pushing old technology to it's theoretical limits, for good or bad.

But those 450 mph trains don't exist in the wild yet, with the Shanghai train operating at more like 180mph.

Also, I've seen video of what the ride on the wheeled Chinese high speed rail is like and no thanks. Those rattle traps seem ready to disintegrate at any moment.

The problem is China has a habbit of building to extremely low standards.
If you take a look at Japanese HST they ride excellently and that's because they have spent extra money on making sure the tracks are actually on sound foundations and are robust enough to last for more than a few years.
The design life for the new HS2 in the UK is 125 years which is why it's so expensive as that will mean future spending on maintainence will be a fraction of if we just slapped together something quickly.

Yes, China can build more HST tracks than the rest of the world combined in the last 25 years but is it any good and how expensive will it be to fix when it inevitably breaks?

 

[jmotivator]

It is easy to economically build straight rails on flat ground such as in Florida.

California is going to cost more in mountains. Way more. It's a physical thing. It has nothing to do with whether it is publicly funded.

Yes and no. Private high speed trains like Brightline run primarily of existing track. Speed limits of private high speed trains would primarily be limited to logistical coordination with freight lines on the same track, and turn gradients in many areas note rated for high speed use.

Granted, if you want truly high speed rail it will need t be new dedicated track, but even Europe hasn't rolled out much of that. As I pointed out above, about 2% of European rail is dedicated to high speed, with the rest being shared with freight and so operates at a much lower speed.

The original Trans Continental Railway faced the same issue. The straight flat stretches were a piece of cake to build. Slapped down miles a day. Going through the mountains was way more work intensive. Months of labor and dynamite to get one mile.

And they did it with immigrant labor!

I wouldn't laud the Transcontinental railway construction all that much, it was brutal work that paid almost nothing and was only done by the Chinese and the Irish because discrimination left those groups with not many alternative lines of employment.

If you wanted to make it a public works project you could do what FDR did with the interstate highway system and tie welfare benefits to work on building rail lines, and then lease the rail lines to private companies that would operate the trains that run on the rail.

 

[eohrnberger]

Florida's Brightline and California's high speed rail show the difference between capitalism and socialism when it comes to providing infrastructure. Yes, the market can and should provide infrastructure.

Brightline is:

1) Privately funded
2) Cost about 20 - 50 million dollars per mile
3) Was built in under 5 years.
4) Is fully operational, runs to 125mph, is profitable, and expanding.

California's high speed rail project is:

1) Government funded
2) The current projected cost for the full system is now over $200 million dollars per mile - over four times higher than brightline.
3) Voters approved the train in 2008 with a promise to connect san francisco to LA by 2020. But construction didn’t even begin until 2015, and nearly two decades later, not a single train is running. Meanwhile, cost overruns have pushed the price tag past $100 billion.


The results speak for themselves: one train serves the people, the other serves bureaucracies. One didn’t cost taxpayers a dime, the other cost them a fortune.

Agreed, the results speak for themselves. Of the differences which weren't noted, one project isn't run by progressives, and the other project is.

 

[jmotivator]

The problem is China has a habbit of building to extremely low standards.
If you take a look at Japanese HST they ride excellently and that's because they have spent extra money on making sure the tracks are actually on sound foundations and are robust enough to last for more than a few years.
The design life for the new HS2 in the UK is 125 years which is why it's so expensive as that will mean future spending on maintainence will be a fraction of if we just slapped together something quickly.

Yes, China can build more HST tracks than the rest of the world combined in the last 25 years but is it any good and how expensive will it be to fix when it inevitably breaks?

Right. The current construction standards are so bad in China that the Chinese people have a word for it. It translates to "Tofu Dregs".

What I've found when I was looking into the Chinese trains is that the biggest issue is China's inferior domestic steel market. The quality of the wheels is the issue more than the tracks with the shaking, but I have no doubt their tracks are an issue too, since they are also made with the low quality domestic Chinese steel. The only saving grace being that most of their rail lines were built pre-Xi-Jinping, and contracted to outside construction companies so the rails tend to be built to a high standard.

That said, I don't know if I will ever buy into the "125 years" type claims no matter who claims it. It's easy to make claims when you'll be dead even if the failures start happening at 50 years.

 

[Noodlegawd]

So, hsr is somehow unable to make a profit in the US even though it can in the rest of the world?
Maybe if it wasn't demonised by so many people it might stand a chance?

Where does HSR make a profit? Please provide details.

 

[coyote505]

Ours work okay. I enjoyed a couple Amtrak trips I made in a sleeper between Illinois and Texas.

Do a lot of people ride our long distance trains?

The last time I rode Amtrak; Albuquerque to Chicago; I arrived 12 hours late. Mostly due to delays from shitty track. The track most at fault was the New Mexico section one of our Governors took over as a vanity project .

 

[Peter]

Where does HSR make a profit? Please provide details.

Japan.

Japan: Where High-Speed Rail Works: News Article - Independent Institute

The Shinkansen system is efficient and being exported to other countries. Will something similar work in the U.S.?

www.independent.org

 

[Peter]

The last time I rode Amtrak; Albuquerque to Chicago; I arrived 12 hours late. Mostly due to delays from shitty track. The track most at fault was the New Mexico section one of our Governors took over as a vanity project .

Most of the super high tech maglevs and Hyperloop projects are vanity projects with zero hope of ever making a profit which is why those systems don't get built by countries where people actually have some sort of say in the design of the system.
Yeah, it's fine if you have someone who has a few hundred billion to throw at a project and not care about the cost of maintenence (the super rare maglev and hyperloop systems are only able to get parts froma handful of places but standard rail systems have suppliers all over the world) but the UK doesn't have that and we'd rather have a system that has a proven record.

It's why projects such as The Line in Saudi Arabia couldn't be built in the UK or US even if we had the space, which we don't.

 

[madman]

Ah yes.

that's all you had to say.

 

[Safiel]

The last time I rode Amtrak; Albuquerque to Chicago; I arrived 12 hours late. Mostly due to delays from shitty track. The track most at fault was the New Mexico section one of our Governors took over as a vanity project .

The Southwest Chief is a cluster ****, even by Amtrak standards.

 

[Peacenik]

Yes and no. Private high speed trains like Brightline run primarily of existing track. Speed limits of private high speed trains would primarily be limited to logistical coordination with freight lines on the same track, and turn gradients in many areas note rated for high speed use.

Granted, if you want truly high speed rail it will need t be new dedicated track, but even Europe hasn't rolled out much of that. As I pointed out above, about 2% of European rail is dedicated to high speed, with the rest being shared with freight and so operates at a much lower speed.



I wouldn't laud the Transcontinental railway construction all that much, it was brutal work that paid almost nothing and was only done by the Chinese and the Irish because discrimination left those groups with not many alternative lines of employment.

If you wanted to make it a public works project you could do what FDR did with the interstate highway system and tie welfare benefits to work on building rail lines, and then lease the rail lines to private companies that would operate the trains that run on the rail.

Agreed.

I would actually go further. Since transportation is essential to the US economy, the government should run basic mass transportation. Just like cities run mass transit the nation should run the railway system for regular passenger and freight service. It is as essential as the mail.

 

[BirdinHand]

the end, what the US needs in order to start a High Speed Rail network is to deregulate and open interstate rail to more private companies, and allow for private construction of interstate rail lines

Yeah, I mean what could possibly go wrong with lack of regulations and trains moving at high rates of speed through population centers

 

[CLAX1911]

Florida's Brightline and California's high speed rail show the difference between capitalism and socialism when it comes to providing infrastructure. Yes, the market can and should provide infrastructure.

Brightline is:

1) Privately funded
2) Cost about 20 - 50 million dollars per mile
3) Was built in under 5 years.
4) Is fully operational, runs to 125mph, is profitable, and expanding.

California's high speed rail project is:

1) Government funded
2) The current projected cost for the full system is now over $200 million dollars per mile - over four times higher than brightline.
3) Voters approved the train in 2008 with a promise to connect san francisco to LA by 2020. But construction didn’t even begin until 2015, and nearly two decades later, not a single train is running. Meanwhile, cost overruns have pushed the price tag past $100 billion.


The results speak for themselves: one train serves the people, the other serves bureaucracies. One didn’t cost taxpayers a dime, the other cost them a fortune.

I remember hearing about why there is no high speed rail in the US mostly Western us and it's because the Earth is bumpy. Especially there you'd either have to flatten mountains or tunnel through them in order to have a high speed rail cuz I can't go up and down like that.

 

[Real blank]

It does slightly depend on the transport countries have decided on. The Uk is linked fairly well from some cities to others but realistically using public transport from most places for long journeys is impractical.

 

[CLAX1911]

LOL There is no comparison to the costs of building a new railroad in S. California and Florida. And Brightrail is hardly high speed rail either.

Right because you have a bunch of scum in the government that have to wet their beak. California is operated like a mafia and Florida isn't.

The geography in California makes high speed rail impossible or excruciatingly expensive but you can have other forms of rail or transport or just have roads built except for the government interferes with that.

And that's why a house you can buy for $150,000 in Florida will cost you $5 million in California.

 

[CLAX1911]

It does slightly depend on the transport countries have decided on. The Uk is linked fairly well from some cities to others but realistically using public transport from most places for long journeys is impractical.

Well it also depends on the size keep in mind UK is smaller than Texas I think you can fit in Texas three times so rail may be a lot easier in UK there are limits besides government.

I don't think California will ever have high speed rail. They'll have to tunnel through a bunch of mountains. That's expensive and we don't even know if it's possible.

 

[Real blank]

Well it also depends on the size keep in mind UK is smaller than Texas I think you can fit in Texas three times so rail may be a lot easier in UK there are limits besides government.

I don't think California will ever have high speed rail. They'll have to tunnel through a bunch of mountains. That's expensive and we don't even know if it's possible.

A high speed cross country train line should be a goal though.It would be an excellent use of government funds in terms of stimulating growth. Just have to make sure they don’t get ripped off.

 

[CLAX1911]

A high speed cross country train line should be a goal though.

I don't think it's possible.

It would be an excellent use of government funds in terms of stimulating growth.

I think it would be a tremendous waste.

Just have to make sure they don’t get ripped off.

So that would mean you put the cost on the user it probably be about three times more expensive than flying and take longer too.

 

[iguanaman]

Right because you have a bunch of scum in the government that have to wet their beak. California is operated like a mafia and Florida isn't.

The geography in California makes high speed rail impossible or excruciatingly expensive but you can have other forms of rail or transport or just have roads built except for the government interferes with that.

And that's why a house you can buy for $150,000 in Florida will cost you $5 million in California.

Much of the new track in Cali had to be built through populated areas and has no grade crossings so it had to be elevated. Elevated track is far more expensive especially when it needs to be able to support 150 MPH plus,

 

[CLAX1911]

Much of the new track in Cali had to be built through populated areas and has no grade crossings so it had to be elevated.

And about a thousand other regulations that they put in place just to stop this sort of development or to milk the developers for every penny they can get out of them.

Elevated track is far more expensive especially when it needs to be able to support 150 MPH plus,

Then figure out a way to make it not elevated are the people in California just too stupid to figure this out?

I've been to Washington DC I've been to New York I've been to plenty other places more populated than most of California they don't have elevated trains and they just smarter than people in California?

We have built trains here in Houston Texas they're not elevated. LA and Houston Texas are pretty close to the same size.

 

[Real blank]

I don't think it's possible.

I think it would be a tremendous waste.

So that would mean you put the cost on the user it probably be about three times more expensive than flying and take longer too.

Governments waste money on far worse things.

 

[CLAX1911]

Governments waste money on far worse things.

A train that can't work is probably about as dumb as a war in Ukraine maybe less expensive.