SsgtC
Banned
I'm going to quote what I wrote in another thread for why claiming HSR as a national defense asset doesn't really work:I'm not suggesting an entirely new system in parallel to what already exists. I'm saying, take the idea (& money) associated with IHS & apply it to getting faster train service, using national defense as a convenient excuse.
These are the two that I think are going to be nonstarters. By the 50s, air travel is clearly the better option for troop mobilization. Going by rail, it would take weeks to ship an entire division across the country. Whereas with aircraft, that same division can be shipped from California to New York in only a few days and from there to Europe to meet up with prepositioned equipment. In other words, the division sent by air can be in combat while the one being shipped by rail is still in transit across the US.