Government to announce $2.5 billion for high speed rail

It should also be noted that the United States is the world leader in exporting of freight locomotives to the rest of the world. General Electric Transportation in Erie Pennsylvania is the second largest exporter of train engines on earth. Again those are American jobs, and a product that your nation still produces better than anyone else on earth.

In fact the new GE PowerHaul series engines have just started service on the railroads over here in the United Kingdom, replacing engines from the leading producer of locomotives, and another American company Electro-Motive Diesel. EMD is owned by Caterpillar Inc, who is also the largest producer of construction equipment on earth, and headquartered in Peoria, Illinois with their factories that serve the American and European markets all within the United States.

So what was that about overseas-made construction equipment and trains? I'll have to correct you again, because the rest of the world is still buying primarily American on those.

Note of course component manufacture takes place all over the world, but Caterpillar has a total of 51 factories currently open in the United States itself.

reply to post by neo96

if you are spending the hard earned dollars of the american citizen you have the responsibilty to ensure that you spend that money wisely

Well, then I guess they should build no roads, libraries, police stations, fire houses, or one of a hundred other government establishments in this country.

Because somewhere out there is another guy just like you who is going to call it unwise. And we all know how wise and all powerful you certainly are.

This is the end of it folks. Neo says highspeed railing is unwise. Have fun with your Amtrak.

reply to post by Snarf


I think there is going to be a large NIMBY factor for these trains in the United States too though. One thing that Europeans have gotten used to that will be different for Americans is the noise that these trains make. While the motors of electrical trains are far quieter than the diesels that your nation largely uses, when something that large gets going that fast it creates a lot of sound from wind resistance. It's not going to be the low rumble that people are used to with trains but a massive kind of "woosh" instead.

That and as I recall from my time in the US there are a lot of road crossings in America too. A car getting hit by a slow-moving freight train or Amtrak is still incredibly damaging to the car, but the odds of survival are even lower if hit by a train moving at over 200mpr. The British like to race trains at crossings just as much as Americans, and here it's not something many walk away from.

These crossings can be eliminated with bridges and soundproofing can be installed around rail lines but both of those are quite expensive. In the end, I believe that high-speed rail will be a great thing for your nation. It will seriously reduce travel times, add a ton of jobs and make the quality of life far better. (imagine instead of driving for 4 or 5 hours, sitting back and relaxing on a train for 2, all without the hassle of flying) However there are going to be a lot of complaints and the system is going to be fought on every level throughout development.

What you have here is an chance to build something on the scale of the Interstate Highway System, that big a public work, but it's going to be a hard fight.

I have a feeling these will shock everyone and will actually be "Mag-lev" transportation for the public.

It'll be a while before they are built but we'll find out sooner than that about them.

Originally posted by dreampsi
I have a feeling these will shock everyone and will actually be "Mag-lev" transportation for the public.

It'll be a while before they are built but we'll find out sooner than that about them.

All of the proposals I have seen have been for more traditional trains, nothing for mag-levs yet in the US. The problem with that technology, while it is very promising, is that all new construction is needed. They do not work on normal train tracks, or use anything that is currently built for the system you have. The costs of this kind of system would be many many times more than building a system that is based upon existing track and technology.

That is not to say that the new trains will have to be slow, in 2007 a French TGV broke 350mpr. They can also carry far more people than proposed mag-levs; the Eurostar TGVs between London, Paris and Brussels cary 750 people each.

Originally posted by ProjectJimmy

Originally posted by dreampsi
I have a feeling these will shock everyone and will actually be "Mag-lev" transportation for the public.

It'll be a while before they are built but we'll find out sooner than that about them.

All of the proposals I have seen have been for more traditional trains, nothing for mag-levs yet in the US.

Then you havn't seen the proposals I've seen.

Originally posted by dreampsi

Originally posted by ProjectJimmy

Originally posted by dreampsi
I have a feeling these will shock everyone and will actually be "Mag-lev" transportation for the public.

It'll be a while before they are built but we'll find out sooner than that about them.

All of the proposals I have seen have been for more traditional trains, nothing for mag-levs yet in the US.

Then you havn't seen the proposals I've seen.

Really? Well that is quite exciting! Please link me on that mate, I'm quite curious. It would be brilliant, and bring the United States to the absolute forefront of technology, but again the expense would be very massive. The SNCF proposal for conventional high-speed trains had a 30 year price tag in the billions, but it created nearly a million new jobs directly in the Midwest alone. A national mag-lev system would be a massive undertaking, but the potential for job creation and improvement in quality of life would be astronomical.

This is very big and interesting news if it can be properly backed!

reply to post by ProjectJimmy



well you knew it was coming so here goes.. I can't exactly link you to it.

You see, I made acquaintances with a gentleman who wrote proposals for corporations. When I asked him about some of them he talked about a few but said most fell under Top Secret and he couldn't discuss them. I laughed and being me said things like "Oh, back engineered alien craft", etc. He would laugh and say no it's nothing like that and even it was (he would laugh) and say "I can't tell you".

Met him many mornings at a local coffee shop and he wrote on his laptop which he would take with him even to the restroom. One morning he abruptly headed to the bathroom and didn't take it. I couldn't resist so I sneaked a peek. I saw it was about Mag-Lev transportation and the page mentioned the implementation in large cities followed by connections across the USA. Something of a time frame of 5-10 years I noticed but wasn't sure what that referred to. He came back, we talked and I left.

The next time I saw him I brought up the topic of Mag-Lev trains and what made me tell him I saw it was the fact he said things like people have delusions about underground Mag-Lev trains and brought up conspiracy type stuff rolling his eyes. I told him he had to be joking because I looked at what he was working on. He got very angry and never denied it but said "You could place yourself and others at risk for doing things like that ...and you better not discuss this in public". With that he packed up and left and I never saw him again.

Take it for what it's worth, which probably isn't much. Did he plant that for me to see? Maybe. Did he know I 'd look and he had a fake document on the screen? Perhaps. All I can do is relay it. Could it be these new high speed trains are just that? Of course but I'd bet that Mag-Lev trains aren't too far away for public use. If not in 5-10 years then certainly in our lifetimes.

Originally posted by Snarf
Well, then I guess they should build no roads, libraries, police stations, fire houses, or one of a hundred other government establishments in this country.

The ignorance is astounding!
You do realize that your state and local taxes are supposed to pay for roads, police and fire right? The FEDERAL government has nothing to do with them. You pay local and state taxes for these services. The FEDERAL government has no business getting involved.

interesting that this ($2.5Bn works project) announcement is a week before midterm election day...

more BS for the dems to grasp at that shows the 2008 legislature' are 'for-the-people'.
just so much fluff


next off, the completed rails can then be sold out to foreign entities like the 'Toll Roads' are...

CA & FL...2 sunbelt states with a large demographic of 'boomers'...
this whole last-minute scheme stinks to high heaven!

This nation has more than enough cars and roads. In fact, we have so many that we can no longer afford to maintain them properly. It's high time this country began to build a high speed rail system and 2.5 billion is nothing compared to what we're spending on unjust wars.

Every industrialized nation in the world, except the good ole U.S. of A., has high speed rail and it's a much more efficient form of transportation than we currently have in this nation. Unless of course, you enjoy traffic jams and waiting in lines at airports.

I just checked and there are currently 5,173 airborne planes being tracked in the skies above the U.S. and that's just right at this moment. flightaware.com... When compared to the air traffic in other nations, we blow them out of the water.

I wrote President Obama many times during the 2008 election discussing this very topic and expressing my opinion that we need this, like yesterday.

In what nation have high speed rail lines been a flop or a waste of taxpayer dollars? The availability of high speed rail will help reduce both automobile and airline traffic on our highways and in our skies while providing a cleaner, more efficient form of transportation. By the way, I think that Japan is also prone to earthquakes and they weren't "afraid" to build them there.

As usual, Neo96 and I are on completely different sides of this issue and I couldn't disagree with his opinion more than I do now. No S&F from me.