|
|
| Re: High Speed Rail vs Really Fast Regional Rail (1152948) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > SubChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: High Speed Rail vs Really Fast Regional Rail |
|
|
Posted by WillD on Wed Apr 25 03:35:27 2012, in response to Re: High Speed Rail vs Really Fast Regional Rail, posted by NIMBYkiller on Wed Apr 25 01:19:46 2012. Why would a regional service lose money while an HSR service makes money?Because the regional rail, outside of your untenable 'really fast regional rail' will be slower and thus have a disproportionately smaller market and lower revenue than a high speed rail line which delivers travel times between major cities in 2 to 3 hours. If the regional service is still faster than flying between the two end points, Because your "regional service" is high speed rail! In fact it's REALLY Fast high speed rail. There are LGVs, Shinkansens, NBSes which are slower than the average speeds of your 'minimally upgraded' regional rail lines. You're talking hundreds of billions of dollars to improve the tracks of the extensive network you've described to the point where you could do 130-150mph on them alongside freight traffic. Even then you'd be extremely lucky to get the average speed above 100mph, and locals would be unlikely to top 75-80mph. A more realistic 'minimally upgraded' regional rail alternative would be the Amtrak Cascades, Amtrak California, or the stillborn Ohio 3C project. In those cases you're looking at under a billion dollars in expenditures each, but they top out at 79mph for the time being, and average speeds don't top 40mph. then why not add on the benefit of serving the medium sized cities in between? Again, what makes you think there won't be local service along high speed rail lines? The California HSR project will stop within the cities of Fresno, Bakersfield, Palmdale, and, eventually, Merced, Modesto, Gilroy (maybe), and Stockton. For the time being Tulare, Visalia, and Hanford can't seem to make up their mind as to whether they want a downtown station, or a centrally located Haute-Picardy-like P&R, but I think CHSRA is planning on a park and ride. Either way, new build high speed rail lines offer a lot to the 'medium sized' (and indeed, small) cities in between the anchor cities. |
|
|
|