America, get with the high speed rail program!

a reply to: thisguyrighthere

And quite frankly people in the country just want the city people to stay the heck away. No one wants their crime or their problems on their doorstep.

This is an interesting topic for me because I have a concept for a high-speed elevated rail transportation system that would have modular track sections for easy repair (swap out a segment in need of repair with a replacement in a couple hours), uses linear induction motors for motive power, and have three classes of rail weights for different functions, let's say Class A, Class B and Class C, all with

Class A would be a heavy freight class and lines would be intercity main lines only. Class B might be equivalent to commuter rail/passenger only type service, and Class C could be light rail and automated delivery service.

Class C motives could run on Class C, B and A lines.
Class B motives could run on Class B and A lines.
Class A motives could run on Class A lines only.

Following?

This would keep costs down in rural areas and metro areas that did not require a lot of industrial rail capacity, and it would allow the lighter lines to reach farther into areas that might not otherwise enjoy rail service.

Perhaps the current freight system is adequate and Class A could be eliminated completely.

I take a pax train to work ant it boggles my mind that the cars are so large and heavy, and it uses two motive units a lot of the time and it still gets bogged down on the few grades it has to go up. Comfy and all, but I'd gladly trade a little comfort to make the trip in half the time.

My concept could actually allow a family to book a trip, reserve a single car-ferry unit and drive on and go without having to drive. The unit they are using could have a unique ID that they can program and pay for from their smart phone, and if someone needs a pee break, they can program a pit stop at a station from their phone.

Imagine getting a bunch of friends together for a trip to Vegas. Book an 8 pax unit and off you go - no driving required. The unit might have 8 seats, a head, and a place to put cargo and bikes inside.

Anyone interested in investing? haha

Well I liked the post about the hotly debated underground military ones and how we should all have some superfast transports, imagine it only taking an hour to cross the country. I want some real tech brought out, debated hotly or not.

originally posted by: Unity_99
Well I liked the post about the hotly debated underground military ones and how we should all have some superfast transports, imagine it only taking an hour to cross the country. I want some real tech brought out, debated hotly or not.

If those military maglevs exist, they'll be available to the public soon enough.

a reply to: ScientiaFortisDefendit

One of the ATS radio shows touched on that issue of disclosure of advanced technology once and I tend to agree with what I recall the main points being made had been.

God help them...if all this existed...and they've said nothing. Nothing else on God's earth will.

How many things have happened in this nation of life and death nature, from disasters to major civil events, where the FAST movement of the right people, supplies and expertise would have saved lives and made critical differences had they used something of that power for fast movement?

Every single example of it will be explored and answers to each will be demanded without mercy or quarter shown to anyone who had ability to act and did not for security or whatever other reason.

I think it's why they've found themselves in a box on a number of things. Technology advanced enough to matter (and I've heard the arguments that tech could be advanced..but wouldn't have mattered... great! They can prove that too) would be technology to explain the omission of action for.

Time will tell....

Rail used to be the primary mode of transportation in the U.S. until after WWII. More or less government planners were impressed with Germany's Autobahn, and to them it made more strategic sense during the cold war since sections of highway could also double as makeshift runways if the country ever came under attack. (Also part of the agenda that pushed for suburbanization, instead of denser cities. Fears of WWIII and MAD.) Then of course you had the big 3 auto companies pushing everything away from rail. Not just city-to-city, but also pushed to replace light rail and trolleys with more cars and buses. It was profitable for them, so they put money into the politics that helped make it happen.

Thing is, once density of cities hits a certain level, you end up with pollution and gridlock... Cars, despite being convenient, aren't exactly the best solution for moving the most people in their daily commute.

The solution now obviously is to go back to using rail for a majority of transport. So now the countries that made the sensible decision to stick with rail as their primary mode of transport are ahead in this game. (And it wouldn't hurt to learn from them.) It's just a matter of shifting priorities in the U.S. transportation agenda once again and funding it, someways paralleling the agenda which de-railed almost everything post WWII.

originally posted by: jrod
Florida tried. We passed a voter referendum amendment for a high speed rail from Tampa to Orlando to Cape Canaveral. Most residents wanted it, the federal government even was going to give us grants. Rick Scott nixed it.

Rick Scott nixed Florida's high rail because he said it would cost to much, this coming from a man whose campaign slogan was "Putting Florida back to Work".

The real reason Scott nixed Florida's high speed rail is he is in cahoots with the FEC(Florida East Coast Railway) and used that to push a light-raIl system in the Orlando area that is an absolute waste of money. Nixing the high speed rail was a gift from Rick Scott to the FEC.

So instead of getting an advanced high speed rail the voters approved, we get a non-functional 'light rail' system in Orlando that does not even run on weekends. Way to send Florida back to the turn of the 20th Century Rick Scott!!!!

I had some experience working at railroads and for some reason large transportation projects are the funding sources for politicians looking to hand out favors.

I guess the bidding process is easy to rig and then there's always the profitable contract extensions.

It's a huge problem and one of the reasons why the US is so behind other countries.

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
originally posted by: OpinionatedB
a reply to: crazyewok


All the city folk want high speed rail so they can send their populations out from the cities and into the rural areas to share in the misery.

What they want is to send there criminals out to rural areas.
We rednecks make short work of them.

There is a lot of desert to bury a body in. Just don't complain when they go missing.

a reply to: ANNED

No really it isn't about them sending the criminals out... as crazywok said, its about expanding business possibilities. Except, its not about expanding the people's business possibilities, it's about putting the old couple that owns the hardware store out of business so an Ace Hardware or Home Depot can move in, its about putting the guy with the small car repair shop out of business so Jiffy lube can go in, its about putting the locally owned and ran bank out of business so CitiBank can move in, its about putting the local grocer out of business so Price Chopper can stand in his place...

It's about getting rid of self sufficiency, and making us all slaves, making minimum wage for large corporations.

Americans have been conditioned to be short-sighted and selfish. Unless they can see an immediate personal gain, they don't care. More concern with calling each other names.

originally posted by: intelligenthoodlum33
Americans have been conditioned to be short-sighted and selfish. Unless they can see an immediate personal gain, they don't care. More concern with calling each other names.

Tell that to George Marshall.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Could you elaborate?

originally posted by: intelligenthoodlum33
a reply to: Xcathdra

Could you elaborate?

It becomes problematic when you make a claim without due consideration to history or even facts to support it.

General George Marshall
The Marshall Plan

Rebuilding of Europe...
Rebuilding of Japan...
The Cold War...

Instead of permanent occupation of foreign countries at the end of WWII based on debt owed to the US, we forgave the debt and helped rebuild.

If you don't like the US I can respect that. All I ask is you educate yourself some on the actions the US has taken towards aid to other nations. I ask you stop looking thru blinders while laying all the blame on the US yet I notice you are silent on nations, like Germany, Japan, Russia etc who arbitrarily kept territory / occupied it for more than 60 years. We have sent aid to those countries.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Your talking ancient history. I'm discussing today.

I don't hate any country and the notion is silly. Maybe your nationalistic pride are your blinders. This thread is about America, so I wrote about America.

Quit the knee-jerk reactions anytime someone criticizes the U.S. Maybe you could learn something.

P.S.- I am American...but can see her faults, rather than pointing to other countries proclaiming, "They are just as bad!"
How can we ever grow being so juvenile?

Apples and oranges. What does China's Interstate highway system look like? Oh, wait.....it doesn't have one and even if it did, the percentage of people who can afford to own and drive cars is minimal. Plus, with rail systems, they only go where the tracks go. With the Interstate, you can go in your own personal rail car pretty much anywhere and are difficult to track. China wouldn't like that at all.

The cost, of course, would be horrendous. Every time a fast rail system is tried it costs billions, then billions more in boondoggle costs. And for what? To get a few people from one place to another a little faster? What is the economic incentive to do so?

Now this Chinese idea of a rail line to the US sounds very grandiose. What do you think, realistically, the chances of doing that are? You want to go under the Bering Strait, across Alaska and Canada and down into the US? Why? It would be a hell of a commute. Why not just shuttle a few airplanes back and forth with a couple hundred people each? There would be no track to maintain, not right-of-ways to purchase. Might be cheaper.

The fact is that the US once HAD a national railway system. You could say it helped the nation grow. It was heavily subsidized by land grants from the Feds, which didn't matter because no one owned that land anyway, 'cept maybe Indians, who didn't count. We gave it up because it ceased to be economically effective. It didn't just die because people got tired of it. It died because it became obsolete and because the combination of trucks and the Interstate system kicked its butt. It's not that we need to CATCH UP. It is that we have MOVED BEYOND the need to have such a system.

a reply to: schuyler

While much of what you say here is true, the US still has a huge national rail system.



This is a graphic of just the 7 Class 1 railroads. There are more than 500 additional Class 2 and 3 roads.

Currently the US has over 140,000 miles of active rail systems, employing 180,000 people and carrying 50 billion dollars of freight per year. Traffic on the national rail system is currently very high.

Link to pic source

a reply to: schuyler

While I understand the outdated railroad systems do not make sense from an economic view, I think you are unaware of the need for mass transit.

The reason why big cities have an efficient public transportation system is there simply is not enough room on the streets if everyone drove. We have essentially reached critical mass with automobiles in densely populated areas which creates a need for a mass transit system.

What Rick Scott did in Florida, was nix a high speed railway that was supposed to essentially go Coast to Coast in Central Florida, Tampa to Orlando to Cape Canaveral. If it were successful then possibly building a line from Orlando to Miami. This would have been a high speed rail like they have in other industrialized nations, The drive from Tampa to Cape Canaveral takes about 2.5 hours, the rail in theory would have taken about an hour. Given this area has a giant tourism industry, the railway would have had a great economical benefit in the local in that aspect alone.

Instead Rick Scott who is in cahoots with the FEC(Florida East Coast Railway) saying the high speed rail would cost too much and turned down the federal money set aside to help Central Florida build this. That money went out of state. Instead we get an FEC controlled SunRail that is still subsidized, that does not run on the weekends, located only in Orlando and adjacent towns, and offers no real value to the community. This was one of many scams Rick Scott has pulled off, now his buddies with the FEC are getting tax payer funds for SunRail.

Lets not forget that over 60% of the voters approved the amendment for high speed rail that Rick Scott nixed.

Remember this man Elon Musk and his high speed transit

www.zdnet.com...



Elon Musk challenges California high-speed rail plans with 'Hyperloop'



Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and the innovator behind spacecraft designers SpaceX, has introduced a proposal that -- if it ever comes to fruition -- could change the face of transporation forever.

Admitting the inspiration came from disappointment in California's high-speed rail project, Musk lamented further in a blog post on Monday that "there is not even a short distance demonstration system operating in test pilot mode anywhere in the world, let alone something that is robust enough for public transit."

Enter "Hyperloop," a supersonic model of travel put on the table today, designed for traveling distances 1,000 miles or less in essentially aluminum pods traveling through a vacuum-like tunnel

Do people have to get old before they realize the way things are going now just don't fricking work?.

In the 1980's I visited Germany and was amazed at how easily one could get around the entire country, around the entirety of Europe by rail, the first time I ever really heard of terrorism too..(We lived in a dream-world till 9/11 and still do for the most part.)...

I can't even find a safe place to ride my damned bicycle without having to worry about some stupid asshole in a car running me down EVEN ON THE SIDEWALK which has nearly happened many times !!.

**SNIP** , never mind the fact you're dying in there doing absolutely nothing, driving a car is like sitting in front of the TV with stress added, it's no wonder diabetes and heart disease are at epidemic proportions here....

Please, no offense intended, hopefully I don't get run down just for the comments preceding....

I would like to see a workable train network here, but it would mean I lose my bicycle trails and that would suck.

Driving does not equal anything resembling independence once you tally all of the costs and consequences, get over it and grow up America.

FREEDUMB.

a reply to: schuyler

I think we make a major blunder in underestimating China. They are roughly equal land mass with 4x's the population and now that they've generally chosen as a nation to move as much into modern tech or beyond as the agrarian side they've always been in tradition? They can have just 1/4 of their population focusing on something, like general infrastructure and modernization of the nation and still have 3x's our population to do anything else. The economy of scale is incredible.

It's how a chart like this is possible...on China's highways.


(Source)

In some ways, they've done in two decades or less what most of the world took several to accomplish. They've also avoided the first trial and error of everything it takes to get to that outcome. Still, the 'then and now' aspect is incredible, geo-politics aside for a moment.