When it comes to high-speed rail service, the U.S. is still a 3rd world country

[JacksinPA]

Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Rail Link Opens to the Public This Week | Popular Science

Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Rail Link Opens to the Public This Week

Just three years after breaking ground, China will open the crown jewel of its high-speed rail network to the public this week. The 186 mile per hour (and that's regular operating speed) Beijing-Shanghai link takes just four hours and 48 minutes to traverse 820 miles of Chinese countryside.

Let's break down this little infrastructure project by the numbers. It was deemed "shovel ready" just 39 months ago. In that time, Chinese engineers and workers have erected 288 bridges and punched 21 tunnels through China's often difficult terrain. Some 80 percent of the track is laid 40 feet above the surrounding terrain on concrete pylons, circumventing the need for dangerous roadway crossings. Cost: roughly $34.2 billion.
=======================================================
Every Amtrak trip I've been on his ended in disaster - endless delays, no water in the cars, etc. The one exception was a trip from DC to NJ's Metropark on the Acela - not bad if you didn't mind the SRO crowding & the rocky ride on the antiquated 19th century roadbed. While countries like China, France & Japan have superb high-speed railroads, Amtrak is cutting back on its long distance service.

I guess robbing the military to pay for a campaign-promised & otherwise useless border wall is a priority based on fulfilling a campaign promise. (And no, Mexico is not going to pay for this wall).

I've ridden on both France's TGV & Japan's Shinkansen & they both put our country to shame. The richest & most powerful country on earth can't fix its roads, bridges & railroads.

 

[Rexedgar]

How many “infrastructure weeks” have we had in the last 2 1/2 years?

 

[WillyPete]

We just don't have the right mentality to run many large scale infrastructure projects. China is building with an eye towards the future, whereas the U.S. only cares about profit, whether you're in the government or one of the whack-a-mole "contracting companies" their in-laws and other connected folk operate.

Just look at the doomed California high-speed rail, which was a boondoggle from the very beginning. There was never any interest in seriously building high speed rail there, only in soaking the taxpayer for everything they could get. They lied to the public about what they could do to secure the required votes, and no one has ever called them on it, then they immediately altered the plan and (shockingly) ran into cost overruns, while performing no significant work at all.

They lock in the overages right into the contracts. They knowingly set impossible timetables, and (best of all) make it the government's fault when the impossible plan fails, so that tax money just vanishes into penalty fees and scheduled payments for work that can't be completed, because the government (again, this is intentional) never got around to dealing with securing the rights to build on the land. Their plan worked perfectly.

China doesn't have to put up with the sort of thing. I suppose their oligarchs can just peel money off the top of the national budget whenever they want, so no use for misdirection. For them, the only point of planning to make a train is to have the benefits of a train.

 

[Jetboogieman]

High speed rail is for gays, liberals and communists.

 

[JacksinPA]

High speed rail is for gays, liberals and communists.

And people who have a phobia about airport security & flying on commercial airplanes.

 

[Fledermaus]

And people who have a phobia about airport security & flying on commercial airplanes.

California tried and failed to get it done.

 

[Helix]

high speed rail would be great, because then i could go out west without getting on a ****ing plane. i understand that it has its own set of dangers. i just like the idea of not being 40k feet in the air.

 

[Rexedgar]

high speed rail would be great, because then i could go out west without getting on a ****ing plane. i understand that it has its own set of dangers. i just like the idea of not being 40k feet in the air.

@40K ft. it won’t last long.......

 

[Helix]

@40K ft. it won’t last long.......

neither will i. when i saw that number on the way to (from?) England, i had to have another drink.

 

[JacksinPA]

High-speed rail will get you between major cities like DC & NYC in less than time than going via air when you include the necessary ground transport. A lot more economical & a lot less polluting.

 

[PeteEU]

High-speed rail will get you between major cities like DC & NYC in less than time than going via air when you include the necessary ground transport. A lot more economical & a lot less polluting.

That is the point of high speed rail. Up to distances of say 800-1000 km a high speed rail done right is far more economical and faster than airplanes.

The best example I have is in Spain. To go from Malaga to Madrid it takes about 1 hour 10 min by plane. However you need to be at the airport 2 hours before a flight just incase of security issues and when you get to Madrid you need at least 30 minutes by train to get into Madrid.

The train gets their in 2 hours 40 minutes.

When the high speed train was made active, 90% of the flights from Madrid to Malaga disappeared.

The problem in the US is you have you car and air lobbies that will do thier damnest to sabotage any high speed train system if they can.

Sent from my JSN-L21 using Tapatalk