High Speed Rail coming to the US
- Thread starter 88m3
- Start date
john goodman
All Star
Philly to ny in 37 minutes 
But it won't happen til 2040
But it won't happen til 2040
the hate comes from the price.. 68 billi!! we are already almost 20 billi in debt.. but with that being said its going to make jobs and going to open up markets statewide..
it would take about 6-7 hours on train to go from LA to Frisco. with this highspeed train it will only take an hour and half.. that means people can live in Okeland and work in Longbeach.. If everything works like its pose to this will change the face of transpitaion in Amaerica.
ItalianoCAC
Spaghetti Slurping WOP
This really isn't true. You just need to be savvy in searching for tickets.
Just a few days ago I copped a ticket on Airtran to Atlanta for 65 dollars one way, copped a US Airways ticket for my return for 90 dollars
Amtrak? They want 188 EACH WAY
john goodman
All Star
If you ask me it only makes sense on the east coast
Only place in America with euro style density
Put all the money towards a line thru dc, baltimore, Philly, ny, boston
Only place in America with euro style density
Put all the money towards a line thru dc, baltimore, Philly, ny, boston
Cali is fukkin bankrupt man
I think free healthcare + education are good ideas... when you have the fiscal means to pay for them. You can't just buy shyt cause its a good idea in theory
Arrogance.
King Novak of Melbourne, the First of His Name
I'm not from Cali, and I understand that with the way the government taxes and redistributes money to keep other states that don't generate the income Cali does (sounds like state welfare, right? 
). Can somebody explain how Cali is broke and has been broke for a while?
). Can somebody explain how Cali is broke and has been broke for a while?
ogc163
Superstar
True,but even in regards to Bay/LA I'm skeptical as to whether the business activity would justify the high price tag.
ogc163
Superstar
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You're a top 3 poster on this forum just off the strength you stay dropping relevant links and like to substantiate stuff that's out here.
After Amtrack and Pacific Union settle some railway disputes the Detroit/Chicago corridor is supposed to get it as well...
changes a 4 hour train ride to like 90 minutes.
changes a 4 hour train ride to like 90 minutes.
newworldafro
DeeperThanRapBiggerThanHH
The Shanghai Maglev Train - 250mph - from WINDING ROAD
Only posted the first of two pages...
Riding the world's fastest train in Shanghai. - Slate Magazine
Mine's Faster Than Yours
Riding Shanghai's maglev, the world's fastest train.
By Henry Blodget|Posted Monday, March 21, 2005, at 12:23 PM ET
When you finish lugging your bags through Shanghai's massive Pudong International airport and recover from the blast of cigarette smoke in the lobby, you have two main ways to get to town. First, a taxi. Second, the world's fastest train. For me, that's an easy choice.
In a drive to reclaim its historical place in the cosmos—biggest and best—China is notching one superlative after another (biggest dam, highest hotel, etc.). In an effort to climb the industrial food chain, meanwhile, it is also acquiring technology from anyone willing to share it. So, in 2001, with Germany's Transrapid International seeking a place to demonstrate its magnetic levitation train—and apparently willing to give the technology away in the process—China killed two birds with one stone. Shanghai's maglev began full operation in March, 2004, covering the 20 miles from Pudong to the outskirts of the city in a blistering 7 minutes and 20 seconds.
To get to the maglev from Pudong's central terminal, you lug your bags down an endless corridor to a dome-shaped atrium with an information booth, a ticket window, and new-age piano music emanating from invisible speakers. You fork over 50 renminbi—$6—and schlep into a gold-pillared room resembling a Chinese banquet hall. You wait there, still enveloped in Muzak, and contemplate a maglev mural displayed like a portrait of Chairman Mao. Then you descend an escalator to the track—or, rather, because maglevs don't have tracks, the monorail-style "guideway" that the rain whooshes along.
A moment later, the train floats in. And "float" is the word. Thanks to its electromagnetic levitation system, the train hovers a half-inch above the track. It floats like a cigarette boat gliding into a slip, the surprisingly blunt nose emitting a marvelous, rumbling growl. With maglevs, the propulsion system resides in the guideway instead of the train, allowing for less weight and faster acceleration.
Inside the car, you expect to see seat belts and shoulder harnesses (for all the good they would do in a derailment or collision at one-third the speed of sound), but, instead, find only normal seats. The doors shut, and the train accelerates like a skyscraper elevator, silently, smoothly, and rapidly, and by the time the last car leaves the station you already seem to be going 50 miles per hour. Four minutes of gravity-simulator-style acceleration later, in which the taxis on the parallel highway lose ground slowly, then quickly, then disappear as fast as if they were parked and you were whipping by at 220 miles per hour, you reach the peak speed of 270 miles per hour for the tiny 20-mile run.
Transrapid claims that the maglev is quiet and glassy smooth, but, on the contrary, when the speedometer at the end of the cabin reaches its apex, you are distinctly aware that you are speeding. The car jerks from side-to-side like a jet in turbulence, the air outside whistles in protest, and the growl beneath the floor becomes a full-bodied roar. Just after the speedometer tops out, there is a pop and blur as the maglev headed in the other direction blasts past at an aggregate speed of 534 miles per hour, approaching that of a 747 at 35,000 feet. Then, with about seven miles to go, it's time to hit the brakes, and a few miles later, when you've slowed to a mere 150 miles an hour, you feel as though you are strolling.
For gawkers and other one-time users, the maglev is the equivalent of an adult theme-park ride: cheap, thrilling, and fodder for cocktail parties. For those who just want to get to or from the airport, however, it leaves much to be desired.
First, there's the problem that the maglev doesn't really run from Pudong to Shanghai, but from Pudong to the end of one of Shanghai's subway lines, aka the burbs. So, to get to Shanghai proper, you have to schlep your bags again, either into the subway or into a taxi like the one you could have grabbed at the airport.
Then, there's cost. Thanks to China's polarized pricing system—one price for goods and services sold to foreigners and other rich folks, and another for everything else—the $6 one-way ticket is not a deal. When you throw in the added schlepping at both ends, the maglev loses in cost, convenience, and possibly even time.
Losing money at the speed of sound
These are two of the reasons the train is running at less than half of capacity, and, probably, hemorrhaging money. The maglev cost $1.2 billion or more to build, which means the system chews through north of $60 million a year in capital costs alone. Assuming 12,000 passengers per day (my estimate), the maglev generates about $27 million of revenue per year, or less than half its capital costs, much less its total costs. It is not clear who is absorbing these losses, China or Transrapid, but, either way, someone's taking a bath
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Dusty Bake Activate
Fukk your corny debates
The most successful one would've been the Florida one. They were going to connect Tampa and Orlando, which is the biggest tourist hub of the country. They eventually were going to connect Miami, Jacksonville, and Atlanta. All the ridership estimates done by independent researchers saw it as being a win. The federal government tried to go with that one first because it was supposed to be the most guaranteed success of all the proposed HSR projects the showcase for the other places, and it was estimated to create 20,000 jobs.
Also, 3 private companies agreed to pony up the money for any cost overruns. Everyone in the state wanted, the corporations wanted it, and the elected officials wanted it, even the Republicans. And that piece of shyt Rick Scott vetoed it for no reason other than to deny government-funded projects and Obama administration a political victory. I made a thread about it on sohh. People were
about that here. Rick Scott's approval ratings never recovered from the nosedive he took after that.