SNCF intends to invest billions of dollars into US high-speed rail system.

[Klinger]

There's a bit more to it than just going faster. The French, Japanese, Germans and others have spent a long time perfecting high speed technology. Current US passenger speeds (outside the NE corridor) are lower than 100 years ago - most US development has been in the field of freight, and no-one does that better. I don't doubt that American first could do it, they would just be playing catch-up if they weren't able to leverage existing expertise in some way, and the last thing American HSR needs right now is too much learning on the job - it's got to prove that it can be delivered on time and budget first time. There's a huge advantage if existing designs and practice can simply be copied from European or Far East practice.

In any case, this plan is just a response to a call for expressions of interest. It's just by far the most detailed and comprehensive of the documents submitted. It's main interest is as a sanity check for the administration's HSR plans - if SNCF thing it's doable, it probably is, and if they think it will have such great payback, then it won't be a money pit...

So, no offence intended, I should know better than to imply that the Americans can't do everything better than everyone else with no experience - exact opposite of us Brits by the way, who always assume that everyone can do everything better than us, even if we invented it (well it's true of Railways, Soccer, Cricket...).

Paul

Thats just the American way......we say we can when we know damn well we cant. Why play 30 years of "catch-up" when the French have been running the TGV for the last 30 years and know how do things right the first time

Skip the middle man and get to it!

 

[SuperFudd]

Americans obviously know how to build railroads. Americans have not done much HSR because there has not been much need for it here. When there is, we will. It is not rocket science.

 

[aardvark1]

What money? California's broke!

You are correct, sir!.
-----------------------

California, fresh off its recent sale of $8.8 billion of short-term notes, plans to sell $4.5 billion of tax-exempt and taxable bonds this week, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The new bond-sale plan includes $2 billion of Build America bonds, which enable state and local governments to borrow at lower costs for capital projects, like public buildings, schools, roads and transportation infrastructure, and more.

California's sale of short-term notes late in September, which the Journal on Saturday said provided funding to tide the state over until revenue picks up, was well received by buyers, particularly small investors. Investors should be cautious about investing in the bonds, the Journal reported.

The state budget deficit is $7.4 billion for the next fiscal year; it may be double that a year later and run up to $38 billion by 2013, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer estimates, according to the paper.

The state's jobless rate was 12.2% in August, 2.5 percentage points above the national average at the time, and its rate of mortgage foreclosures is the third-highest in the U.S., the paper reported.

-------------------------------------------------

It would appear that HSR is not a high priority for California at this time.

Have fun,

 

[UP5521]

Hmm, I don't know if it is a good idea to invest in a high speed rail system right when we are in the middle of a bad economic crisis but I like how it sounds though!

 

[UP5521]

Americans obviously know how to build railroads. Americans have not done much HSR because there has not been much need for it here. When there is, we will. It is not rocket science.

I agree! we already have a high speed railroad, Amtrak's northeast corridor,investing in another railway system is a waste of money and that probaby will tie up freight traffic on every railroad if this was to happen and that means angry customers as well!

 

[RooRocz]

I agree! we already have a high speed railroad, Amtrak's northeast corridor,investing in another railway system is a waste of money and that probaby will tie up freight traffic on every railroad if this was to happen and that means angry customers as well!

1. The Northeast Corridor runs between Boston and Washington DC. It serves a very small portion of the nation.

2. It will run on separated ROW.

3. The plan will most likely include financing of a freight bypass through Chicago, speeding up transcontinental freight service through that city by several days.

 

[paulzmay]

Americans obviously know how to build railroads. Americans have not done much HSR because there has not been much need for it here. When there is, we will. It is not rocket science.

And the Brits invented them - it didn't stop the upgrade (not even a new line) of the West Coast Main line going massively over budget and failing to meet many of the initial technical aspirations.

And it is the nearest thing to rocket science without leaving the ground. I seem to remember being told that in the 1970s when the UK was developing Concorde (with the French) and also the APT (the first tilting train), that there were twice as many technological innovations in the APT. High speed train technology has moved on a very long way outside the USA. Many challenges have been met and solved - it's not just a matter of butting a bigger engine in...

Paul

 

[UP5521]

1. The Northeast Corridor runs between Boston and Washington DC. It serves a very small portion of the nation.

2. It will run on separated ROW.

3. The plan will most likely include financing of a freight bypass through Chicago, speeding up transcontinental freight service through that city by several days.

Well if this is going to happen someone may as well open their wallet and cough up alot of money and lots of it sure building railroads may have been cheaper in the old days but now, it is expensive and it is a major task that requires several years to complete,and france is already one step ahead of us and I think it is time for a upgrade of our railroad system!

 

[Klinger]

I agree! we already have a high speed railroad, Amtrak's northeast corridor,investing in another railway system is a waste of money and that probaby will tie up freight traffic on every railroad if this was to happen and that means angry customers as well!

I disagree with both you and superfudd. There is a need for more high speed rail. The skies are congested, the highways are overfilled, the airports have expanded as far as they can, and we still need more capacity

So what do you think we should do? Build more airports? Expand the highways to 10 lanes in each direction (which has happened in some areas now)? Put the planes closer together and risk collisions?

Or build competitive, competing, high speed rail corridors. I know what I would rather see. The idea of a 20 lane wide highway disgusts me. Certianly 3 lane wide high speed rail corridors would be more useful, and less impacting to the surrounding area

The NEC is not a very successful example of a good HSR corridor. It has to compete with communter and even freight in some places. it was built on existing Right of Way, so the corners are too sharp for true high speed running.Yes, its the best we have, but it is not an example we should follow

 

[UP5521]

I disagree with both you and superfudd. There is a need for more high speed rail. The skies are congested, the highways are overfilled, the airports have expanded as far as they can, and we still need more capacity

So what do you think we should do? Build more airports? Expand the highways to 10 lanes in each direction (which has happened in some areas now)? Put the planes closer together and risk collisions?

Or build competitive, competing, high speed rail corridors. I know what I would rather see. The idea of a 20 lane wide highway disgusts me. Certianly 3 lane wide high speed rail corridors would be more useful, and less impacting to the surrounding area

The NEC is not a very successful example of a good HSR corridor. It has to compete with communter and even freight in some places. it was built on existing Right of Way, so the corners are too sharp for true high speed running.Yes, its the best we have, but it is not an example we should follow

you have a excellent point there! a 20 lane road sickens me as well and you reffered to the sky being clogged, and not to mention the NEC corridor is not successful because of the following factors:

1.commuter trains
2.speed restrictions
3.sharpness of curves
which I don't understand why put all of that money into something that is not going to work right.

 

[UP5521]

I would choose building the rail corridor vs. roads and airports, both of which are completely conggested,which makes some people late for work and school or those looking to go on vacation,why both of them were the reason that railroads lost passenger revenue/service, something has to be done to solve all of the conggestion problems on our roadways and airways and as for the NEC line that Amtrak currently runs, I still see problems that needs to be worked on!

 

[bl4882]

The more I read the initial post in this thread the more it starts to sound like a pigeon drop. Can someone explain, with particularity, why it is that with all the greedy capitalists in the money worshiping United States, not one has seen it feasible to raise the capital to build an HSR system and operate it, making this hypothetical capitalist the limitless riches the project promises? If SNCF wants to buy the real estate and build and maintain the system, fine. But I suspect the actual cost will be at least one order of magnitude greater than is now implied and the difference will not come from SNCF.

I agree with SuperFudd. When it is needed it will be economically feasible and the private sector will build HSR and people will ride it. It will not be necessary to send out men with guns - tax collectors - to extort the money from the people.

Bernie

 

[NTrainR160]

Maybe I`m a bit naive, but can someone explain why America is lagging behind on decent passenger railtransportation. I live in one of the smallest countries in Europe and even we have our own HSL. Europe is riddled with good functioning highspeedlines and semi-HSL`s, extending from South-Spain all the way up to Northeastern-Germany. Even the Russians are building a HSL. And we are working with different countries, each with different Signalling and Electrosystems, hell we even got different trackgauges (Iberian-, Standard- and Russian gauge). Still we managed to overcome these problems to work together and made agreements to use universal systems. We even have electro locomotives which can work on 4 seperate electrification networks (1500DC, 3000DC, 16KV AC & 25KV AC) and over 10 different tracksafety systems enabling them to haul freighttrains from The Netherland to the Russian Border or the south of Italy with a single Engine crossing 5 or 6 borders.

The US on the other has next to nothing compared to this, the only semi-decent connecting is the NEC. I took a train from Atlanta GA to Birmingham AL. It took forever, only went ones a day and even the cabby took me almost from my hotel to the nearest MARTA station and had to ask where the the AMTRAK station was. To my big surprise the station was no bigger then a very small local station would be overhere and that for a city with a population in the millions. You guys have one big national passenger company, AMTRAK which goes almost nowhere and one federal government. That should eliminate many problems compared to Europe. Even more so, the skies above the US are filled to the brim, so expension there is not very likely and you can only make a highway so many lanes wide. A passenger only railtrack system, maybe government owned, seperate from the often poor maintained single track and congested slow moving freight trackage. Now AMTRAK is a "guest" on the the rails of the big ones UP,BNSF,NS and the likes. More then ones even a ill treated guest. Passenger service is main priority overhere, in the US the otherway around.

Just my 2 cents.

Well... we have acela?:hehe:

 

[paulzmay]

The more I read the initial post in this thread the more it starts to sound like a pigeon drop. Can someone explain, with particularity, why it is that with all the greedy capitalists in the money worshiping United States, not one has seen it feasible to raise the capital to build an HSR system and operate it, making this hypothetical capitalist the limitless riches the project promises? If SNCF wants to buy the real estate and build and maintain the system, fine. But I suspect the actual cost will be at least one order of magnitude greater than is now implied and the difference will not come from SNCF.

I agree with SuperFudd. When it is needed it will be economically feasible and the private sector will build HSR and people will ride it. It will not be necessary to send out men with guns - tax collectors - to extort the money from the people.

Bernie

That'll be the same as the privately funded roads and airports then? They all had massive government investment in infrastructure (to the detriment of the once great American rail network).

These are BIG projects - probably simply too big and too long term for the private sector to countenance in any country. When was the last time you saw a private company make an investment of this size with a 20 year payback? Most of the benefits of HSR are not in the revenue generated at the farebox, so it's only reasonable that the government pays at least some of the cost. The reason that this hasn't happened in the USA, but has elsewhere is largely down to the deep-seated American distrust of 'Big Government'. Big projects simply don't happen if the private sector has to do it all itself (and this is true in all sectors - not just rail).

The SNCF report (as I understand it) would involve government putting up much of the investment cost, but unlike Amtrack, the operations would be profitable (as they are on HSR elsewhere in the world). Who bears the cost of overruns is down to whoever drafts the contracts. No builder will accept the risk of wearing such costs without charging more up-front. I suspect, in fact, that SNCF will be fairly close on with their costs, as they have built so much HSR infrastructure already, and have so much operating experience.

Paul

 

[Klinger]

The more I read the initial post in this thread the more it starts to sound like a pigeon drop. Can someone explain, with particularity, why it is that with all the greedy capitalists in the money worshiping United States, not one has seen it feasible to raise the capital to build an HSR system and operate it, making this hypothetical capitalist the limitless riches the project promises? If SNCF wants to buy the real estate and build and maintain the system, fine. But I suspect the actual cost will be at least one order of magnitude greater than is now implied and the difference will not come from SNCF.

I agree with SuperFudd. When it is needed it will be economically feasible and the private sector will build HSR and people will ride it. It will not be necessary to send out men with guns - tax collectors - to extort the money from the people.

Bernie

Overall America is rather conservative. The people with the money are more interested in stuffing it in their pockets, legally or illegally, then spending it on projects that could actually help the country. Look at Enron, they "made" billions selling nothing, and had the whole well being of the company based on stock prices alone for more then 10 years. They made money by selling product at a fixed "future" price.

When that future price came out to be lower, the lost money. The top guys got away with their pockets filled, everyone else lost $30 Billion

sorry, not trying to get all political. But I believe its a valid point. Projects like this in the long term (perhaps 50 years for a wild guess) would eventually pay off, and eventually help the crumbling infastructure of the United States. Our highways are too small and falling apart, we are running out of sky, and room to build airports. If we build HSR right now, in 50 years when I am a cynical grumpy 70 year old, the country as a whole will be better off. Thats what I care about. But we have to spend money, which even some people in this very thread have said they do not support. But without money right now, this project, like all the other Amtrak expansion projects, will fizzle out and die!

So what route are we going to take. Business as usual? Or take a bit of a gamble and try something new that could potentially make things better for all of us.

 

[Truemac]

do you have any idea how much the very thought of a 20-lane highway scares me? we barely have a few 8-lane highways, and we can't drive on those.

I think America's main problem is that their government hasn't quite seen the true benefits of an efficient HSR line. I dunno, maybe if enough people sent in government letters, you know like how they tell you to do it in school, the government might lean more towards the idea of a HSR line.

I would type more, but it's 5 in the morning. Make of the above what you will.

 

[tonyvdb]

Hi speed rail in North America is a tough sell, the biggest hurtle is distance between cities. Up here in Canada there has been talk of HSR for years they even built a maglev test track outside my home city in the early 70s to try and sell the idea. There again has been serious talk of building a 300km per hour line between Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta but that would mean that it would have to carry several hundred passengers a day and I seriously dont think that many would use it. The line would be 300km long and would cost billions to build.
Using Europe as an example is like comparing a water melon to a golf ball The distance between stops is much shorter in most cases and the population per area is much greater. The Netherlands fits 12 times in the province of Alberta alone and is half of Canada's entire population.

 

[PerRock]

Hi speed rail in North America is a tough sell, the biggest hurtle is distance between cities. Up here in Canada there has been talk of HSR for years they even built a maglev test track outside my home city in the early 70s to try and sell the idea. There again has been serious talk of building a 300km per hour line between Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta but that would mean that it would have to carry several hundred passengers a day and I seriously dont think that many would use it. The line would be 300km long and would cost billions to build.
Using Europe as an example is like comparing a water melon to a golf ball The distance between stops is much shorter in most cases and the population per area is much greater. The Netherlands fits 12 times in the province of Alberta alone and is half of Canada's entire population.

Very true; which is why they are not thinking about transcontinental HSR; but more hub based HSR. Something like making Toronto the "hub" and having HSR lines 'spawn' out of it to Windsor/Detrout (Connecting to our HSR in Detroit; if we get it), Ottawa, Montral, and Quebec City.

In the US I think the Hub system would work very well; if the price is low enough. A number if the hub jumps for airlines can be quite cheap.

peter

 

[NTrainR160]

Well high speed rail would kinda be a good idea in America. But connection to airports isn't the job for them, they already have their own transport. Cross country HSR would be very expensive, setting up catenary and special rails. Also Building new lines just for HSTs will put more money on the line. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, I'm just saying we don't really need it at the time or soon.

 

[SuperFudd]

Yep. If we needed it we would have done it already.