Marc
Donor
Well, not quite - but avoiding serious digression, I think it's fair to say that when it comes to the transportation sector, private interests tend to prevail over public exceptionally so in the US.
US Rail System Transportation?
- Thread starter Modern Imperialism
- Start date
Well, not quite - but avoiding serious digression, I think it's fair to say that when it comes to the transportation sector, private interests tend to prevail over public exceptionally so in the US.
Russia has booth, China has both and the euro rail system is alot more unified than you think.
Also in most of these places high speed gets you between major points, slower rail or bus gets you the final leg. Sure not always convienent, but it works. In Europe most people live in large cities where all the infrastructure is located.
The car is always useful don't get me wrong, but a lot of travel in the USA could be along major corridors such as Boston - NYC - Philly - DC
Phx - San Diego - la- Vegas - sf - Sacramento - Portland - Seattle - Vancouver
St Louis - Chicago - Detroit - Cleveland might work as well
New Orleans - baton Rouge - San anotnio - Huston - Austin - dallas/ ftw - albaqurquee - phx - LA or San Diego
Yes the USA is big.. Doesn't mean we should be totally relient on a cars or even planes for some travel. I just don't want amtrak that sucks
Other point-distances may make it harder to do some forms of HSR but it also provides some advantages since you can do said long distances with few to no stops. I also want to make the point that we should also be investing in good public transit, as that makes a lot of teh use-cases for rail in general easier.
Personally, I think the JR Method, explained in this video by Chris Eden-Green, would be a good system in my US railroad TL:
Given the way car prices are going up, it might not be long before only the rich can afford a car, anyway.
Be that as it may but you are not going to ge the congressman from Alaska, Hawaii or Montana (to name but three) to vote for a rail system that will NEVER help the states they represent unless thier is record levels of pork and the system is already hideously expensive without the pork needed to bribe enough congressional members to vote for it.
If 20 states will never see the system then you you basically needed 89% of the remaining votes to get this system approved and that assumes that in day one 30 states will be included. If you only are doing a small system that covers say 5 states then you need to add in enough pork to get another 21 states to agree so using simple numbers you need 5 TIMES the pork as the cost of the system. So a 2 billion dollar system for example would need 10 BILLION or so in pork for a cost f 12 billion or so.
This is NOT happening.
France the poster child of High speeed rail is about twice the size of Colorado. So basically if you put in two lines in France you are about as far from the system (at most) as you would be if you ran one system through Colorado. Playing fast and loose with the numbers indicates that one system covering half the distance (north south) of France would be the equivalent of a system 25 times as large,
This shows that everyone in France will be closer to High Speed Rail lines then every in 40 US states Assuming you build a system 5 Times the size of the System in France unless you spread the system out so far that it was basically a bunch of short lines. And if you made it a bunch of short ones it may as we’ll be a local project. But no local area thinks it is worth the cost if they have to use Thier own money.
So basically you expect a lot of states that will never see any advantage from the system to spend money so another state can get a system that said state does not think is worth the cost.
If 20 states will never see the system then you you basically needed 89% of the remaining votes to get this system approved and that assumes that in day one 30 states will be included. If you only are doing a small system that covers say 5 states then you need to add in enough pork to get another 21 states to agree so using simple numbers you need 5 TIMES the pork as the cost of the system. So a 2 billion dollar system for example would need 10 BILLION or so in pork for a cost f 12 billion or so.
This is NOT happening.
France the poster child of High speeed rail is about twice the size of Colorado. So basically if you put in two lines in France you are about as far from the system (at most) as you would be if you ran one system through Colorado. Playing fast and loose with the numbers indicates that one system covering half the distance (north south) of France would be the equivalent of a system 25 times as large,
This shows that everyone in France will be closer to High Speed Rail lines then every in 40 US states Assuming you build a system 5 Times the size of the System in France unless you spread the system out so far that it was basically a bunch of short lines. And if you made it a bunch of short ones it may as we’ll be a local project. But no local area thinks it is worth the cost if they have to use Thier own money.
So basically you expect a lot of states that will never see any advantage from the system to spend money so another state can get a system that said state does not think is worth the cost.
Intercity buses would be much cheaper if you don't want to go by car or plane. You could fund thousands of buses for the same price (Although where the hell you would find the ridership for that many busses beats me) and you wouldn't have to build expensive rail. If you want to subsidize mass intercity transit, trains are the MOST expensive option so why take it? What problem are you trying to solve? If its congestion or energy savings or even air pollution intracity subways, buses, trams and elevated trains are going to have a far greater impact for a much cheaper price.
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marathag
Banned
The Big Three can't support themselves on selling 10k $120,000 vehicles every few years.
It's a matter of services..
Remove the cars are replace with busses bus, train and rail and good ol feet.
Also America could do alot more for renewable energy Than it does.
Electric rail.. What's the impact in the southwest?
You fit more people on a train than in a car.
Issue is mentality and how folks want to live, most Americans cant stand each other and choose to live in the absolute furthest reaches from known civilization and then complain about cell service and politics
Why? Cars are a hell of a lot more convenient! In any case, there is zero chance of that happening.
Again that's a mind set.. And yes cars are useful I'm not denying that. Trains and planes and boats are too.. Boats would be even more so if they were not just floating excess waste.
Cars are not always more useful
SsgtC
Banned
This sounds an awful lot like a totalitarian regime. You live where you're told to, you work where you're told to, you do what you're told, when you're told and how you're told. I'll pass
It's not super likely, but if you really want to do it for a timeline, the most plausible scenario would be to have the government build train tracks alongside the interstate highways for military purposes (maybe rail-mounted nuclear missiles or armored trains designed to serve as mobile command centers) and later repurpose it for passenger rail.
Kick
So don't.. Merry Christmas..
I'm really not sure what's up here.. I didn't say any of that. You and the other poster have juxtaposed what I said and reworded it to Now trains are the evil in America again because trains are socialist..
You don't have to get on a train.. No one should force you. You van khve where ever you want, I never said you shouldn't. But you should be prepared to pay for it.
Your thinking is way off, the federal, state and local governments are telling you already where to live and how to live.
So you don't like trains.. Don't ride one.
You don't like a bus.. Don't take one.. I could care less
I'm saying trains for transport are viable, just like solar should be more viable, just like alternatives should exist to reduce our ever growing impact on the only place that is home. Psst it's called earth.
Either way, in 100 years our children pay for our ignorence. So again.. Merry Christmas go enjoy some pure led, pcb, 10% micro plastic water laced with nuclear fallout.
Incentives.. Same with everything
Build the rail, make it affordable.. Build the infrastructure. Offer business incentives to aggrigate into cities not villages in the middle of no where, the government does it all the time. Companies do it all the time.
Have companies foot part of the bill, in the rest of the world this is natural. It seems only in America that tax payers pay for billion dollar stadiums and infrastructure.
Funny thing is crap is often cheaper outside of the USA. Don't let them be so stinking greedy. Jesus many companies are wealthier than entire nations.
It's not hard to visualize, and yiu don't need a dictator to make it so. The USA has been gerrymandering/social engineering since 1776.. Pass some laws that are good for the people and the environment.. Not just for the rich
You were doing SO WELL, right up to the last paragraph. Then you went for a very direct, but entirely polite debate with other members to pointless attack dog.
Okay.
Attack Bear time.
Kicked for a week for insults and trolling.
Strongly advise you to really consider closely those closing comments going forward.
