US Rail System Transportation?

[SsgtC]

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.

I'm going to quote what I wrote in another thread for why claiming HSR as a national defense asset doesn't really work:

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.

 

[WaterproofPotatoes]

Another big problem with HSR in the USA: The "too short to fly, too long to drive" distance gets stretched considerably if you need a car at the other end of your journey- DFW to Houston, for instance.

 

[Johnrankins]

^There's also Spain, but they had a good express service anyway with the Talgos before the AVE came online. As for freight - even the best freight rail system could use improvement, even at slower speeds.

Spain is small country.

 

[Dan1988]

Spain is small country.

Does not matter. Spain started off with virtually no HSR track before Barça '92 and now vies for the No.# 2 slot behind China. Size and geography do not matter and even an existing conventional rail network (as Sweden and Italy have demonstrated, among many others) can be beneficial. And in the latter case, any improvements made to facilitate HSR will also be beneficial to other trains on the same lines, whether passenger or freight, and whether intercity or intracity.

 

[marathag]

Size and geography do not matter and even an existing conventional rail network (as Sweden and Italy have demonstrated, among many others) can be beneficial.

Spain is almost the size of Texas, but with near twice as many people.

HSR outside of of the Dallas/Fort Worth area would be pure money wasted

San Antonio to D/FW is 45min flight time, 15-30min for the rest.
Flights to Dallas, Texas (DFW) - TripAdvisor (440km)
https://www.tripadvisor.com › United States › Texas (TX) › Dallas
$58.00 to $114.00

https://rail.ninja/route/madrid-to-barcelona 500km
$111 to $154, but 2 hrs 45 min for the AVE Bullet Train.

Cost more, and around 1.5-2 hours longer.

Bullet Train service to San Antonio would fail, hard.

 

[Johnrankins]

^There's also Spain, but they had a good express service anyway with the Talgos before the AVE came online. As for freight - even the best freight rail system could use improvement, even at slower speeds.

Again is it worth the cost in the US? The answer seems no. I don't know what problems you are trying to solve that wouldn't be cheaper by simply upgrading metro mass transit. You are going trillions of dollars to solve what problem exactly?

 

[phx1138]

the division sent by air can be in combat while the one being shipped by rail is still in transit across the US.

That argument undermines the reasoning for highways even more than for rail, yet the IHS was put up as a defense project.

Also, in the '50s, I don't recall an airlift capacity for M26s or M48s.

 

[SsgtC]

That argument undermines the reasoning for highways even more than for rail, yet the IHS was put up as a defense project.

Also, in the '50s, I don't recall an airlift capacity for M26s or M48s.

And you're not moving tanks by HSR. Those are handled just fine by existing rail. The IHS was proposed as a defense asset because it goes everywhere. You can load armor, men and supplies onto trucks and buses and send them literally everywhere. You can't do that with rail. Especially not with high speed rail.

 

[Johnrankins]

I'm not. It's just this thead isn't about urban trams or radial rail. (I started a thread on radials, but nobody wanted to comment. {Maybe I shouldn't have focused on Canada?})

@phx1138 That may indeed be the problem. You might want to start another one that doesn't focus just on Canada. Canada is a nice enough country but there are about 10 Americans for every Canadian. I would imagine it is also be something that might be of interest to other low population density countries like Australia as well as the US/Canada.

 

[TimothyC]

But you don’t have defense as an excuse. You can’t ship tanks and jeeps on a HSR. Just the troops with no equipment and that is useless.

You could, but it would require an investment in the systems needed to do so, per: AD-A237 044

"Key Issues in the Application of Conventional High Speed Railroad Technologies to Mobilization"

Donald E. Plotkin

The development of high speed passenger service (at or above 125 mph) has stimulated questions about the adoption of similar technology for Army mobilization and heavy freight traffic. This report identifies key issues involved in the application of high speed railroad technology to mobilization. Topics considered Include: route alignment and track requirements, equipment (locomotive and car) design, power and energy needs, construction and maintenance costs, operational and safety issues, and general technological challenges.

This report compares characteristics of high speed and existing conventional services and discusses the differing requirements for heavy freight and passenger transport. Also included are performance comparisons between a high speed French TGV-SE passenger train and an idealized (hypothetical) TGV-style freight Intended to carry M1 tanks.

Hauling heavy freight at high speed presents substantial technical and economic challenges. The practical use of high speed trains for mobilization implies the need for a basic national high speed railroad network, much of which would require new construction. Thus, the considerable costs associated with high speed would have to be carefully weighed against the expected benefits.

https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA237044

 

[DougM]

Ok you COULD ship tanks and such on a HSR system but that means you are building special equipment to carry this. Not the least of which is a box car that can open to take a tank then close and hold up to 280mph winds. (180mph train +80mph gust of wind plus safety margin)
This equipment is going to be massively expensive and basically never used. Also the weight is going to really slow the train down. Like pulling a travel trailer with a corvette.

So for all intents and purposes you can’t haul a tank on a HSR