[Plantagenet]

Obama's commitment of 8 billion isn't enough to actually build anything.

The estimated cost of an LA to Las Vegas high speed rail line, for instance, is about 80-100 billion.

The tiny amount of money Obama is giving to high speed rail shows he really isn't serious about it.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')bama's commitment of 8 billion isn't enough to actually build anything.

The estimated cost of an LA to Las Vegas high speed rail line, for instance, is about 80-100 billion.

The tiny amount of money Obama is giving to high speed rail shows he really isn't serious about it.

[Bas]

8 billion builds a highspeed line of about a 150 miles here in holland, but that includes lots of bridges and tunnels and other infrastructure changes in a highly populated delta area.

I doubt that the line from LA to Las Vegas would cost a 100 billion. Actually that kind of money would be a meaningful start to a highspeed railnetwork as it may well build 2 to 4 thousand miles of rail, depending on where you build it. Perhaps Obama is counting on sizable private investments though.

[SeaGypsy]

Define high speed? Here in Australia a line completion from the south to north across the continent was built in 1999 for $1.3 billion AUD (about $1.15 billion USD) for a 900 mile section of 100 mile an hour line max. What is it costing China to do it per thousand miles? Is this about creating a rail network or jobs? If the former, get the Chinese to do it; if the latter, borrow another few trillion from them.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/australiawide/ ... 648039.htm

"In June 1999 the Asia Pacific Transport Consortium was formed to construct the line to Darwin, and in April 2001 the first sod-turning ceremony was performed by Prime Minister John Howard, at a ceremony held at the Alice Springs railway station.
The distance from Adelaide to Darwin is nearly 3000km and the new section built from Alice Springs through to Darwin covered a distance of 1,460 km. It was completed in 30 months of construction, and cost 1.3 billion dollars to build.

It was an extraordinary engineering feat and to put it into some perspective, it involved the laying of 2 million sleepers, there were 93 bridges constructed, nearly 1800 culverts along its route, and it used 100,000 tonnes of prestressed concrete. The track is laid with continuously welded rail along the entire length of the section all the way from Alice Springs through to Darwin.
The first Ghan to Darwin left Adelaide on the 1st of February of 2004 after the track was completed in September 2003.
The completion of this track now enables people to enjoy what is fairly unique in the world in train travel. This is the only country that has a long distance transcontinental journey in both directions - 4000Km east to west and now 3000km north south."

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')bama's commitment of 8 billion isn't enough to actually build anything.

The estimated cost of an LA to Las Vegas high speed rail line, for instance, is about 80-100 billion.

The tiny amount of money Obama is giving to high speed rail shows he really isn't serious about it.

[Newfie]

I don't have the numbers in my head so I don't want to get into the cost/mile debate but I will say that building high speed rail is FAR more complicated than people realize. The French use dedicated roadbeds with extra separation between the tracks. They have to pay a great deal of attention to the track geometry, far, far more than on a freight rail line or even a commuter rail line. The under grade starts several feet down to get the drainage and compression that they need to keep the track straight, level, and stable; not to mention dealing with vibration and noise. Also, remember that it gets HOT in the area LA to Vegas. So rail expansion needs to be controlled so that you don't get kinks when it pushes out. Then in the cold is shrinks and you get pull aparts. So temperature extremes are a challenge.

The grades and curvatures obviously contribute to difficulty (need to minimize) as do grade crossings (eliminate) and intermediate stations need special attention (you don't want to be going by a platform with people at 200mph.) Likely you will want to fence the whole thing and double track it to boot. It will need to have a catenary system to provide the power, diesel won't cut it, so you also need to build a transmission system to distribute the power and then substations.

Train sets will have to be imported as we can't build that stuff anymore. Our FRA crash regulations are generally more stringent than in Europe so they may have to be modified. Perhaps they can get away without that if it is totally separate from any freight lines. But we can still do the signaling and controls, if we can get past the current PTC implementation.

But before anything you have to buy the land, which means doing a lot of condemning and pissing off the NIMBYS. So you will have to grease a lot of pockets. This is probably the biggest hurdle to the whole venture, public opposition and private and political profiteering.

High speed rail means VERY FEW STOPS. It will do nothing for the poor and disadvantaged. It is basically competition for short haul air. That is why Amtrak is successful in the NE Corridor. It is more convenient to take rail downtown NYC to downtown DC than to fly. You CAN share tracks with commuter trains, but then your headway is shot or you have to put in a bunch more passing sidings, in dense areas you will essentially end up with a four track railroad that can be sorta viewed as two parallel systems built on a common ROW.

My 2¢.

[Duare]

It has always seemed to me that a high speed monorail system would be simpler to build, especially through the mountains. It may, however, not be heavy-duty enough to haul freight, but it would move people efficiently and quickly.

[hillsidedigger]

Los Angeles to Las Vegas involves grade changes of thousands of feet at multiple locations.

Regional high-speed rail would be smart and should have been started 60 years ago but East Coast to West Coast is impractical.

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'L')os Angeles to Las Vegas involves grade changes of thousands of feet at multiple locations.

Regional high-speed rail would be smart and should have been started 60 years ago but East Coast to West Coast is impractical.

[TreeFarmer]

MC, you bring up a point I've always thought was very reasonable. In the NE US the cities are pretty close together so why would't dependable train service that runs at 70mph (or maybe up to 100) be reasonable from Alexandria VA up to Boston (or maybe a little north of Boston).

The key here would be dependable service with a reasonable number of trains.

TF

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'L')os Angeles to Las Vegas involves grade changes of thousands of feet at multiple locations.

Regional high-speed rail would be smart and should have been started 60 years ago but East Coast to West Coast is impractical.

[hillsidedigger]

If Americans would ride 'mass-transt', $8 billion would purchase at least 16,000 luxury (natural gas powered) buses which could run on existing infrastructure at 60 to 70 mph.

Luxury buses would have large seats like sofa's or recliners, large restrooms, only carry up to 30 people (instead of 50 or 60) and could run 24 hours a day by alternating drivers so travelling up to 1500 miles in a day.

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TreeFarmer', 'M')C, you bring up a point I've always thought was very reasonable. In the NE US the cities are pretty close together so why would't dependable train service that runs at 70mph (or maybe up to 100) be reasonable from Alexandria VA up to Boston (or maybe a little north of Boston).

The key here would be dependable service with a reasonable number of trains.

TF

[hillsidedigger]

The freight-line tracks should generally not be carrying passenger trains.

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'T')he freight-line tracks should generally not be carrying passenger trains.

[anador]

The sad thing is that most freight corridors used to be mixed freight and passenger, as most trains themselves were, the modern rail shippers have disassembled or neglected to destruction most of the double line track in these corridors. Theres no way to pass. this is why theres such an outcry, its not congestion so much as an inability to move out of the way.

Now returning to mixed freight and passenger on the same engine probably holds more promise then having two competing systems on a marginalized track network.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TreeFarmer', 'M')C, you bring up a point I've always thought was very reasonable. In the NE US the cities are pretty close together so why would't dependable train service that runs at 70mph (or maybe up to 100) be reasonable from Alexandria VA up to Boston (or maybe a little north of Boston).

The key here would be dependable service with a reasonable number of trains.

TF

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'T')he freight-line tracks should generally not be carrying passenger trains.