China's High Speed Rail

[ring]

Railway is always better than plane be it comfort, view, fare..except speed... but that will be take care of in future...

 

[STR]

Shorter hops delegated to Boeing 727s?!

I lived very close to O'Hare International Airport until 2009. The last Boeing 727 I ever saw was in September 2001, just after they reopened the skies to civil flight. I do not believe any 727's are still used in the United States commercially.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Unfortunately, trains are not competitive with airplanes financially. Such a project always has to be a political decision and in part publicly-funded to work. Especially super-expensive high-speed trains like this one.

The TGV competes with airlines quite well, as does the Eurostar train that goes from London to Paris, as well as all of the other high-speed train systems worldwide; what you said is bullshit and epic fail all around.

Also, California is trying to get a high-speed rail system off of the ground, as is Nevada: California High-Speed Rail

Nevada High Speed Rail, AKA DesertXpress

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

California's High Speed Rail

Looks as though California may soon be getting a high-speed rail to connect the Los Angeles neighborhood to the San Francisco area.
Calif. awarded $2.25B for high-speed rail

 

[John Picard]

Can America Get on Track?

High-speed railroads that travel upwards of 200 miles per hour whisk commuters around France, China and Spain. Does America have the technology and the know-how to build such a system?

President Obama has announced a multibillion-dollar investment in high-speed railroads that could travel as fast as 200 miles per hour. Could high-speed rail become America's new Eisenhower Interstate, criss-crossing the nation and whisking us from Baton Rouge to Bethesda in mere hours? And does America have the technology and the know-how to build such a system?
"The talent is here in the U.S. to build high-speed rail networks," says Thomas D. Simpson, executive director of Washington D.C.'s Railway Supply Institute. "All we've ever needed is the wherewithal to do it. And 8 billion is going to get us started."
High-speed rail is an umbrella term that encompasses trains that travel over 90 mph, and as fast as 200 or more. And it's very real: Today, French TGV trains can take you from Paris to Lyons -- a journey of 250 miles -- in two hours. Amtrak's Acela covers the same distance in five hours, and that's the best the U.S. has to offer at present. China's high-speed trains cover 664 miles in just 3 hours, averaging a stunning 217 mph.
High-speed trains are very different from existing passenger trains (and from maglev trains, in which magnetic forces lift, propel, and guide a vehicle over a guideway at up to 300 mph): The rails they ride on need to be electrified and require different grades, plus federal regulations dictate that trains that travel over 110 mph can't go over graded crossings. That means they'll require entirely new tracks.



***** READ THE ARTICLE FOR MORE *****

 

[FordSVT]

For some, hassles dim the appeal of air travel

Tom Seeley remembers when he thought flying was fun.
"When I was a kid growing up ... it was a special thing to do," says Seeley, 45, who works for a company that produces print materials. "Now, it's like you're getting on a Greyhound bus to go somewhere. The crowding, the screening through the security ... in the last couple years, flying is just not a pleasant experience."


So when he and his family visit relatives, they pile into the car and drive 13 hours from their home in Brooklyn to Chicago. These days, they say, it beats flying.
Just when travelers had gotten used to carrying miniature bottles of shampoo and walking through checkpoints without their shoes on, air security is being ramped up after a 23-year-old Nigerian man allegedly tried to set off explosives on a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day.
Some passengers are advised to arrive at the airport as much as three hours before their flights. Americans coming home from overseas may undergo a full-body frisk before they board. It's up to the captains on international flights to decide whether passengers can go to the bathroom the last hour of their trip. And federal officials are planning to deploy hundreds of scanning machines that can peer through fliers' clothes at airports across the United States.

Yep. Flying certainly is convenient

So you think security will be non-existent on a country wide HSR service once there is a terrorist plot or two against it?

 

[scotpens]

Get rid of all the highway systems and parking lots. There is a lot of land that could be reclaimed for better use. Do away with the air pollution and make life more convenient. It can be done, and although I've been a car guy my whole life, I am growing to despise the automobile as a vehicle that has actually pushed us back rather than having brought us forward.

No matter how fast, efficient and reliable mass transit becomes, the private automobile will always exist in some form. There is simply no substitute for the freedom of being able to get into your own car and drive wherever you want, whenever you want, as long as there's a road. See how well public transportation works when there's an emergency and you have to take a big sick dog to the vet at 3:00 in the morning, or when you buy a bunch of lawn furniture or a Christmas tree and have to schlep it home.

And there are the intangibles -- the pride of ownership, the satisfaction of keeping a car in good running condition and keeping it clean and shiny. And there's the sheer pleasure of driving.

. . . Transportation is, after all, a means to an end--not an end in itself.

Oh? Try telling that to any Southern California car enthusiast!

 

[John Picard]

Get rid of all the highway systems and parking lots. There is a lot of land that could be reclaimed for better use. Do away with the air pollution and make life more convenient. It can be done, and although I've been a car guy my whole life, I am growing to despise the automobile as a vehicle that has actually pushed us back rather than having brought us forward.

No matter how fast, efficient and reliable mass transit becomes, the private automobile will always exist in some form. There is simply no substitute for the freedom of being able to get into your own car and drive wherever you want, whenever you want, as long as there's a road. See how well public transportation works when there's an emergency and you have to take a big sick dog to the vet at 3:00 in the morning, or when you buy a bunch of lawn furniture or a Christmas tree and have to schlep it home.

So, how do the many thousands of Europeans, who don't own vehicles and use public transit, have their furniture, appliances, and other unwieldy items hauled home? It's called delivery Your argument that cars will always be here is BS, as is your remaining arguments. Typical short-sighted American who doesn't know. You talk, talk, talk about progress and efficiency, but when faced with it, you scream and yell and prefer to fear the unknown. It's funny, but streetcars and rail worked very well up through post-WW II.

And there are the intangibles -- the pride of ownership, the satisfaction of keeping a car in good running condition and keeping it clean and shiny.

You left out the exorbitant monthly payment, cost of fuel, regular maintenance (e.g. tires, belts, filters, wipers, brakes), license and registration fees, transmission R&R regardless if an automatic or standard, and insurance costs. Yep, nothing like owning a depreciating asset

And there's the sheer pleasure of driving.

Yes, there is no greater joy than: traffic jams/congestion; errant elderly drivers; left-lane vigilantes; dipshit teenagers; women applying make-up; people yapping on the cell phone; people who run Stop signs and/or red lights; people who cannot drive in inclement weather; drunk drivers, road taxes.....

Wow, you nailed me there, Ace

 

[scotpens]

John Picard: Just don't ever get into an argument with Jay Leno.

 

[PlixTixiplik]

For some, hassles dim the appeal of air travel

Tom Seeley remembers when he thought flying was fun.
"When I was a kid growing up ... it was a special thing to do," says Seeley, 45, who works for a company that produces print materials. "Now, it's like you're getting on a Greyhound bus to go somewhere. The crowding, the screening through the security ... in the last couple years, flying is just not a pleasant experience."


So when he and his family visit relatives, they pile into the car and drive 13 hours from their home in Brooklyn to Chicago. These days, they say, it beats flying.
Just when travelers had gotten used to carrying miniature bottles of shampoo and walking through checkpoints without their shoes on, air security is being ramped up after a 23-year-old Nigerian man allegedly tried to set off explosives on a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day.
Some passengers are advised to arrive at the airport as much as three hours before their flights. Americans coming home from overseas may undergo a full-body frisk before they board. It's up to the captains on international flights to decide whether passengers can go to the bathroom the last hour of their trip. And federal officials are planning to deploy hundreds of scanning machines that can peer through fliers' clothes at airports across the United States.

Yep. Flying certainly is convenient

So you think security will be non-existent on a country wide HSR service once there is a terrorist plot or two against it?

HSR trains are extremely poor terrorist targets, which is why HSR worldwide has limited security (except for the Eurostar, and that's to protect the tunnel more than anything). The train runs on a fixed track so can't be turned into a missile, like airplanes on 9/11, and the passenger density is low enough so that a bomb in one car would only kill a handful of people. That of course would be unfortunate, but it's not a big enough target for terrorists really to care - they would get the same effect by bombing a Greyhound bus. The biggest issue is with a bomb on the track, which is why HSR tracks are fenced and monitored. Crowded subway systems are much more vulnerable (and have been attacked by terrorists several times) but there still isn't a security theater on any subway or commuter rail in the US.

 

[John Picard]

Detroit wants to save itself by shrinking

DETROIT – Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.
Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.
Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.
Detroit officials first raised the idea in the 1990s, when blight was spreading. Now, with the recession plunging the city deeper into ruin, a decision on how to move forward is approaching. Mayor Dave Bing, who took office last year, is expected to unveil some details in his state-of-the-city address this month.
"Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable," said James W. Hughes, dean of the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, who is among the urban experts watching the experiment with interest. "There is now a realization that past glories are never going to be recaptured. Some people probably don't accept that, but that is the reality."
The meaning of what is afoot is now settling in across the city.

Hopefully, this starts happening across the US. End the urban blight as well as urban sprawl, and with it build up public transit, like trains.


Sorry people, but to argue that the US should remain dependent on the automobile is ludicrous.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Hopefully, this starts happening across the US. End the urban blight as well as urban sprawl, and with it build up public transit, like trains.

“In nature, as an organism evolves it increases in complexity and it also becomes a more compact or miniaturized system. Similarly a city should function as a living system. Arcology, architecture and ecology as one integral process, is capable of demonstrating positive response to the many problems of urban civilization, population, pollution, energy and natural resource depletion, food scarcity and quality of life. Arcology recognizes the necessity of the radical reorganization of the sprawling urban landscape into dense, integrated, three-dimensional cities in order to support the complex activities that sustain human culture. The city is the necessary instrument for the evolution of humankind." - Paolo Soleri (1973).

SLR

 

[cardinal biggles]

^I knew that had to be you, TGT. Nobody else around here knows who Soleri is, much less quotes him. Interesting that you managed to get that new name approved.

re: the article John Picard posted, why is it every time they talk about this, all I can think of is that line from RoboCop: "Old Detroit has a cancer. That cancer is crime."