High Speed Trains In The USA?

[jadebullet]

Updating the NEC would definitely be something that would be beneficial in the long run. Right now it is one of the only areas with enough urban densities to justify a dedicated HSR line as well as the lessor networks of commuter lines to take advantage of it.

 

[RRSignal]

Like I said, my statement in no way was supposed to be political, but rather a statement of history. Feel free to point out what you believe as wrong.

Read up on Robert Owen, who started one of the earliest communes, New Lanark, in the early 19th century. He later migrated to the U.S. and instituted his socialist vision here as well. When his U.S. communes failed, he went back to England and founded trade (and early labor) unions.

Of course, that pales in comparison to the Bolshevik exploitation of labor, culminating in the October Revolution in Russia and the deaths of perhaps hundreds of millions. I could go on.

In the U.S., you'd find a tight interweaving of socialist, fascist, and progressive forces, and they will often if not usually identify themselves as progressive. From MoveOn, ACT, and their tight integration with big labor, the Progressive Movement has moved to the extreme. And these groups don't deny each other; they embrace each other.

You might have made a good case if, as Superfudd suggested, these radical elements had hijacked or co-oped the progressive brand. But the progressives have hardly shunned these extreme elements; indeed, they seem to have embraced them, MoveOn, SEIU, etc. quod erat demonstrandum.

I really was holding back on discussing labor even though you brought this into the mix. Unions have done some wonderful things for this and other countries, including forbidding child labor, improving workplace safety, and ensuring pay equality and workers' rights. They have also thoroughly trashed the American (and other) economies, driving jobs out of the country, ensuring a lack of competitiveness, rewarding the worst of behavior, increasing the gap between haves and have-nots, and very likely signing a death warrant for the U.S. and its economy through unsustainable practices and pay.

Where this gets into HSR is the fact that HSR is really inseparable from both politics and political realities, and why find it taboo - apart from the obvious expense.

 

[jadebullet]

They have also thoroughly trashed the American (and other) economies, driving jobs out of the country, ensuring a lack of competitiveness, rewarding the worst of behavior, increasing the gap between haves and have-nots, and very likely signing a death warrant for the U.S. and its economy through unsustainable practices and pay.

I just want to point out that there are many more factors that have led to the US economy shifting from an industrial economy to that of a service economy than just the unionization issue. In regards to labor itself, with the exception of government jobs, the biggest problem is very slowly being eliminated. This problem is the Defined Benefit Pension plans, which are a huge drain on capital. These are being phased out and replaced with Defined Contribution Pension plans. The only exception is the unions are paid by the US or state governments, because a common solution to them asking for raises is to throw more pension at them since by the time it becomes a problem, you will be long gone. The auto workers union had really bloated pensions, which was part of the reason why the US automakers failed. The main reason was not properly adapting to the market and economic conditions.

Economically, inflation played a big part in jobs leaving the country. The oil crisis of the 1970s drastically increased prices of most goods, causing the necessity of increasing wages to compensate. Eventually the US's comparative advantage went down for certain products and it became cheaper to make them elsewhere.

*read the entire paragraph please* Really though, the biggest factor in companies being forced to shift their production to other countries, at least for publicly traded companies, is Wall Street, particularly investment bankers. No I am not talking Occupy Wall Street stuff here, so please keep reading so that I can explain. The first rule of business that they teach you is that your main, and most important goal as the head of a company is to maximize shareholder wealth. Not increase, maximize. Why? Because Wall Street is watching. If they notice that there is a way for you to increase your stock price that you haven't taken advantage of, they will pounce on it. They will call a rival company up, and finance their hostile acquisition of your company, getting a good chunk of the profit from the increase of stock price from the new company implementing what the old company hadn't. If you have a factory operating in the US, and it is cheaper to open up a new factory in Vietnam, you better swallow your conscience and close that plant down as fast as possible and open the new one, because if you don't, the company that takes over will, and you will be out of a job. There is a reason why Yeungling, with 1% of the overall market, is the #1 American brewery in the world in production, followed by Sam Adams. Yeungling is privately owned, where as Sam Adams conducts business in such a way that it doesn't put itself at risk. Budweiser couldn't even do that and is now owned by AB Inbev.

So in reality, the movement of the industry from the US to other countries, a trend that seems to be reversing slowly, has been caused by capitalism in one of its purer forms. (The purest form of capitalism of course being the eventual merging together of industries into as singular of an entity as possible which then causes a whole new slew of problems.)

And really, why should these companies care about opening plants in the United States? To a lot of them, we are the other country as the companies are owned by foreign entities. Essentially we are in a maelstrom of economic principles all pulling at the economy from different directions. You have nationalism wanting to have things built in your home country fighting against the nature of capitalism and the shifting of the world towards a more global economy, which is of course further fought by the fact that there are countries. Here in the states you also have a fight between our desire to hold onto our Industrial past despite the fact that we are no longer that country, moving past it into a service and information based country. You also have Capitalism and its trend to converge and merge everything together into the highest form of profitability possible being opposed by the need to keep that very thing from happening, and our need to advance social programs for the people and artificially arrange the economy to keep certain industries from being overwhelmed.

Also, I am not saying that some unions aren't corrupt because they are, and they are a factor in the economy. They just make a great scapegoat for why things go wrong.


In any case, I came here for a different purpose. I was wondering if there were any other areas of the country besides the corridor where it would make sense to install a smaller scale HSR?

 

[wholbr]

Hi Jadebullett and Everybody.
Many thanks jadebullett for that excellent analysis of high-speed rail in the United States in your earlier two postings. As someone looking in from outside America it very much gave an insight into the thoughts and problems surrounding setting up high-speed passenger rail in your country.

With regard to the effect on business should extensive passenger rail services be introduced, then certainly the experience in Britain and throughout Europe is that it very much benefits the businesses in the surrounding area of the community and HST services. The nearest big city to where I live in Somerset (UK) is Bristol and in really is a tale of two cities. The north of the city has extensive commuter and HST rail services along with the M4 and M5 motorways running around the outskirts. It has even in these difficult times extensive an expanding commercial business operations and a buoyant employment market.

The south of the city has none of the foregoing infrastructure and therefore lacks employment prospects for its residents and business has generally drifted out of the area over the past decades. A recent survey regarding transport problems in the south of the city demonstrated that where mobile workers were concerned (persons who have to travel as part of their employment) they spend over 30% of their working time in traffic congestion often just trying to get onto the motorway or rail network.

Therefore it can be demonstrated that the introduction of extensive social infrastructure such as a commuter/HST rail system can be very beneficial to the localities surrounding the development. It may well be that the direct cost of building such an infrastructure will never be recouped. However, indirectly the employment created moves people away from social security benefits and therefore drawing on the system into employed contributors to the system by way of the tax they will pay. The improved business prospects for many companies will also create expansion and through that increased corporation tax payments to the system. Through the foregoing the cost of any infrastructure project such as the introduction/reintroduction of a rail system will indirectly be paid back to the taxpayers by way of increased employment and the consequent reduction to the cost of Social Security payments.

I believe everyone accepts that the old Western Nations (America and Europe) have failed to complete effectively with the new economic giants in the Asian region. The combat policy of austerity has failed in Europe and the policy of spending your way out of trouble seems to have had only limited success in the United States. Therefore the only policy left is to work and compete our way out of trouble. We have to forget our much cherished 35 and 40 hour weeks and be prepared to work whatever hours it takes for our countries to re-establish themselves in the world marketplace. Those extra hours must also be fully productive with the employees not spending 30% of their time in traffic jams doing nothing. We must have infrastructures that allow our country’s workforces to optimise their competitiveness in a new era of reality.

Bill

 

[SuperFudd]

IF there was enough demand as in a profit to be made, there would be no shortage of non public/govrnment funding for HSR. no mater how expensive.

 

[wholbr]

Hi superfudd and everybody.

IF there was enough demand as in a profit to be made, there would be no shortage of non public/govrnment funding for HSR. no mater how expensive.

“As in enough profit to be made”, that statement very much relies on how people define profit. The first HST’s were introduced in Britain in the late 1970s. The railways had been in decline since the Beeching era of cuts in the early 1960s. When the high-speed trains were introduced on the Bristol to London Paddington services I distinctly remember seeing television reports with “experts” telling everyone that the services would never make a profit and should not be introduced.

However, the introduction of those trains on the Bristol and Birmingham services to London proved to be a turning point for the railways in Britain. Agreed it was slow at first but as people came to realise that you could be in central London one and a half hours after leaving Bristol the carriages filled with passengers as even the new motorways could not compete with that. It was a great boost to Bristol and Birmingham and something both city’s still benefit from today. As for profit they are still using the same power unit technology that was introduced all those years ago, so I would think that the original investment has paid for itself over and over again.

The British government is about to start building a second high-speed line with trains travelling at over 230 mph between London and Manchester at a cost of over £30 billion which will also cover the cost of an extension to the cities of Leeds/Bradford. The two foregoing cities have suffered industrial decline and high unemployment rates for several decades now with the consequence that hundreds of millions are spent every year in unemployment and housing benefit along with added health cost as long-term unemployment always brings with it poor health.

If Leeds and Bradford experience the same benefits as other cities in Britain have following the introduction of high-speed rail then its people will “profit” from increased employment prospects which will bring a better housing “profit” and with that the un-told “profits” of better health. The line may never directly recoup the cost of its £30 billion build. However, it will undoubtedly save the government over the years many more billions now paid in welfare benefits along with a far better standard of living for many of the residents of those cities.

Undoubtedly if you are considering transport distances of the above 400 miles then the airlines will still hold the advantage over rail. For distances below the foregoing then the rail has the advantage especially with the just turn up and board for last-minute travel arrangements.

The British economy has very much just flat lined over the last few years but surprisingly unemployment is starting to go down. This would seem to be due to the fact that many people are starting their own businesses as I did in 2006. Those people and the people they employ work long hours to keep their businesses and employment in existence. Those small and medium-sized businesses are the future of our Western economies. Therefore it is the duty of any government whether left or right to provide a transport infrastructure that will allow them to maximise their potential into the future and compete effectively against the tide of imports from the new Asian economies.

Bill
posted from the 19:50 Birmingham to Penzance HST cross-country service at the end of a another long day.

 

[BobCass]

The above comment I think is pretty much correct even for the US..It is not the Obama administration thats holding things up for HSR..Its Congress that is standing in the way..

 

[RRSignal]

Good. At least someone's trying to stop a trillion-dollar boondoggle.

 

[jadebullet]

The problem with the feasibility of the high speed rail in the US versus in Europe, England and Asia is that, with a few exceptions, we do not have the density needed to make it worth while, as well as too much dead space to cover. For the most part, the US can be broken into several small parts that would benefit from HST. The first is the Northeastern Seaboard. Here we have a very high density of urban cities compressed into a relatively small area. It is currently the location of the Northeast corridor and has an existing network of branching commuter lines. It is also one step away from being upgraded to HST anyway and is the only place where Amtrak makes a profit. The second location that would benefit from an isolated HST system would be the Chicago, Milwaukee, Twin Cities area. Once again there is existing infrastructure, but the density is nowhere near the Northeast. Still, a few short distance HSTs would probably provide benefit in just linking the major cities and commuter networks of that area. The final area that would benefit from the system is California. A north-south HSR would open up some more residential choices for commuters and possibly shift people out of the currently clogged LA.

So in theory, if you would build up an HST system between New York, Chicago and LA, connecting those 3 systems and those 3 systems alone, nothing else, you could create a potentially profitable system. And suddenly the whining begins. What happens if you don't live in those areas? Well the business minded solution is "tough." You aren't going to be making your money on the New York to Chicago traffic. You are going to make your money off of the Boston to New York to Philly, ect traffic. That part of it is steady and constant. Throwing a line down to Pittsburg so Jimbob can visit his grandmother in Chicago is not going to make you money. In Europe, where the cities are relatively close in proximity and a commuter line can fill in the gaps, it is possible to set up a system where everyone can be happy. In the US though, we just don't have the amount of dense urban areas that would create the shorter haul HST capital to offset the loss from the long distance trains as well as the loss from the trains running to and from further apart cities.

Now it is time to remove even more feasibility from an HST in the US. What a wrote in the preceding paragraphs does not take anything into account but urban density. Once you start adding in other factors, suddenly it becomes more and more difficult to accomplish the creation of the line. Take the California example. Good luck creating a line that does not contain grade crossings, and shares little or no track space with slow moving freight trains in the densely populated city of Los Angeles. Throw in the houses and businesses that you either have to purchase through imminent domain, or avoid and you are in quite a situation. Chicago is easier because of its history. The only reason why the corridor works the best is because of how old it is. It was designed for high speed, high density traffic. There is no need to start fresh.

Then comes the terrain. You know what would be a pretty decent HST route? LA to Las Vegas. The only problem is that you have the Sierra Nevada mountains in the way. Locomotives didn't have to be as big and powerful in the UK and Europe as in the US because of two factors. The smaller distances needed to be covered in Europe, and the harshness of the terrain in the US. The terrain is a big factor and it is just as big today as it was back in the steam days. In the US there are three main barriers to railroads when it comes to the terrain. The Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Appalachian mountains. There are a limited number of ways through each of these and for the most part, they have already been filled, and are usually twisting and have steep grades. An HST is all well and good on flatlands, but how effective will it be upon going up several miles of 2.6% grade track, or going down said track? You also won't be able to maintain that 160mph+ speed when you are winding your way through a mountain pass and clinging to the side of a mountain. Especially with the possibility of rock slides.

And really, for that matter, I don't think that we could keep the proper maintenance up on the rails to keep them at a safe quality level. Once again, it is the mountains that become the problem. The flatlands will result in rails that are stressed from the speed, but they are relatively easy to access and the curves won't be as bad. In the mountains though, the curving nature of the path through the mountains as well as the harsher conditions will put more strain on the rails. The remoteness of the area will also make it more difficult to quickly repair and maintain the tracks and not cause delays.

 

[Blutorse4792]

Regardless of where one stands on the issue, I thank JadeBullet for at least providing a level-headed, well written and rational analysis, and not more whining "BUT I LIKE TRAINS SO THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD FUND THEM" or irritatingly passive-aggressive "I'm just glad I live in a civilized nation where we value our infrastructure, but I guess that's not for everyone".

 

[uracco]

It's funny how people in Britain say we're so far behind in high speed rail. Yet we're not that far Behring compared with the US. In the us though, most people I know out there just hop on a plane for long distance journeys. Anyway, I was told that the freight companies virtually killed off passenger services.

 

[Blutorse4792]

The freight companies were the ones running passenger service. They had been able to offset the cost of their passenger services with profits from RPO service, but in 1967 the U.S. Post Office cancelled their railroad contracts in favor of airplanes and trucking.

This was the final nail in the coffin for private* U.S. passenger rail, and Amtrak was formed a mere 4 years later, allowing them (although a few like the D&RGW held out for a few more years) to turn over their unprofitable passenger service. It was already hard enough for railroads to profit before the Staggers Act, so dropping the passenger trains was a no brainer.





*If I'm not mistaken, Amtrak is technically a "private company" but all of its shares are owned by the federal government.

 

[BobCass]

I do believe it would certainly help if one of the Big Class I's Tied in with HSR..But They Love there Feight too much..

 

[Blutorse4792]

Probably because freight makes money, and the U.S. freight rail network is generally regarded as the best in the world.

 

[jadebullet]

I do believe it would certainly help if one of the Big Class I's Tied in with HSR..But They Love there Feight too much..

The thing is, what benefit would they get out of it? It would cost capital at a time when rail is becoming increasingly more viable when it comes to freight. That capital would be better invested, both for the company and the country, in expanding, adapting, and improving the existing freight network. Intermodal has definitely facilitated this improvement, as rail, ship and trucking networks are able to intermesh themselves into a mutually beneficial supply chain network rather than competing against each other. What we don't need is this progress being hamstrung by the class 1s investing in a project that has negative returns.

Also, the class 1s are publicly traded companies. The stockholders woudn't be too happy if they started wasting money on a doomed HSR project. It would most likely tank stock prices.

 

[sparky15]

If we support rail transit, wouldn't that undermine the billions we spent bailing out the automotive industry?

 

[amtrak2041864]

But I was wondering, so what if Amtrak had its HSR line do you think that the US postal services might start to use HSR trains as a way of moving mail within the Northeast region. In France the do it, and also what needs to be recognized is that HSR trains are faster, so better services example same day delivery. Also more capacity. Also another factor is that the HUB NY Penn will be a postal office/train station. So I think that if Amtrak gets it way, they can not only gain profit from passenger but also mail. The faster the better for mail, equals more money.

 

[boomer_aus_00]

now i don't know how it works over there in the US but here in AUS the mail service is slowing down as more & more ppl just email other ppl LOL

 

[amtrak2041864]

In the US mail services are speeding up as more and more people buy items online.

 

[jadebullet]

The US Postal service probably couldn't afford it. They are really hurting as it is, and are actually thinking about stopping Saturday deliveries. Mail is down quite a bit due to email, and packages tend to be shipped via UPS or FedEx. To make matters worse, their quality sure has suffered in the past several years. I have had lots of packages lost, or delayed for over a month when shipped USPS, where UPS and FedEx have never let me down.