Map Of Potential High-Speed Rail Built By The Stimulus

After much clamoring by energy hawks, who knows what it was that finally brought high-speed rail to the stimulus -- perhaps a little nudge from ol' Amtrak Joe? -- but it got in, to the tune of $8 billion.

And now the question is, where will the expansion be? Matthew Yglesias reports on possible new high speed rail expansion:

In a last-minute change, the total quantity of funds available was increased. But there's no special plan for Las Vegas. The money will be spread all across the country. As it happens, I think an LA-Vegas HSR line is a perfectly reasonable project. But in practice the areas that will get a leg up should be the Federal Railroad Administration's officially designated high-speed rail corridors. As it happens, LA-Vegas doesn't make the cut. But guess who does have such a corridor? Ohio!

RELATED:
::Obama Plots Huge High-Speed Rail Expansion In Stimulus Bill

Comments

[moneyman1]

High speed rail only makes sense if it is all electric. Time to do away with diesel powered passenger rail so we can cut the cord to foreign oil. Does anybody really believe that Texas will build an all electric
high speed rail corridor - if you do I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell to you. Furthermore does anybody think the new president will try to impose all electric powered trains on the nation ?? This guy has pledged to put science first but still talks about "clean coal". There is no such thing as clean coal. It is an oxymoron to even talk about it. We need baseload nuclear to replace dirty polluting coal everywhere and then we need to convert all rail, not just highspeed passenger service, to electric - why? Because the economic of electrical regeneration will help save wasted energy and improve the productivity of America's railroads. Electric locomotives are simpler, cheaper and many times more lonlived than either diesel or turbine drive units. Also we could eliminate unit coal trains from western coal states to the midwest - huge waste of fuel. Add gas powered topping cycle (also called combined cycle plants) to the fleet of electric generating plants nation wide and all the renewables we can muster ( solar, wind, stirling solar you name it) and we start to make a downpayment on climate change. Urge your senators and congressman to do the right thing, stop selling out to OIL/GAS

[shanefish]

In addition, coal would be more readily available to the steele plants, causing building prices to come down as well as stimulating the building industry. Coal won't go away, but the way and amount we use it needs to change. Excellent post BTW.

[njb444]

I wish that the two tracks on the west coast would connect. It would be awesome to be able to take a high-speed train ride from L.A. to Vancouver. Even the L.A. to SanFran track is a godsend, though.

[Mike Jackson]

HSR on a larger scale would open up so much individual farm land.....C­ould we not power offshutes of the rail into start up farms? Getting out of the inner city and into the country again..... East to West people....­photovolta­ic panels and wind.

[shanefish]

Wait, this sounds like forward thinking and must be stopped immediately!

[Richard DeArmond]

Yeah, it would be nice as I am a passenger train fan. The economics don't lend well to this wish There is very little population base between Eudgene and Sacramento. I am assuming and I hope that I am not wrong that Amtrak will continue the normal service perhaps modified somewhat. I'll have a s*** fit if they were to eliminate the regualr service.

Cheers, Richard

[Richard DeArmond]

I should have added to my previous posting: how likely is this to go through? Will the anti-envir­onmentalis­ts make a strong attempt to kill this project or at least whittle it down to the point of being hardly worth the effort? Those who love pollution (the oil interests) still have clout.

Cheers, Richard

[Dampflok]

After all this dreaming about HSR, you should realize that:

1. HSR is absurd in a short term stimulus package because it takes decades to do.

2. HSR is considered to be routes with a speed of 125 mph in Europe while the US FRA cheats by defining it as 90 mph.

3. True HSR can not have grade crossings.

4. Effective HSR must have dedicated corridor (no freight). This means new right-of-way on much of the map (see #1 above).

5. Effective HSR needs 125 to 175 mph speeds. Europe is up to 200 mph.

6. Most of the HS routes on the map follow existing corridors, most of which are freight corridors.

7. Some of the HS routes are politically placed. See corridor from Boston to Montreal which is very difficult as it goes across mountains.

8. Effective HSR needs secure right-of-way, dedicated track, no grade crossings, minimal and broad curves (in conjunction with tilting trains), minimal grades, special track signaling, positive train control, overhead electrification - no diesels due to high speed, concrete ties, continuous welded rail, etc. (see #1 again).

9. On the other hand, Amtrak is minimally funded in the stimulus.

10. Amtrak upgrades would require some features mentioned in #8 but could be carried out in existing rights-of-way relatively quickly, including in freight corridors. A few of these upgrades could even reach the US FRA speed definition of HSR.

[Myshkin57]

"1. HSR is absurd in a short term stimulus package because it takes decades to do."

It didn't take decades to put high speed rail in the Northeast corridor. We are not going to get maglev or any other space age tech. What we're going to get is a faster train that can run on the current rails with minor upgrades. 125 mph would be a great improvement over the current rails and fast enough to get a lot of people to take the train over at least medium distances.

You're right about running trains on freight rails being a problem, but they're gonna have to work around that because it'll take a lot more than the money provided in the stimulus to build a whole new set of rails.

[VegasPhil]

My goodness gracious, you are absolutely right. And you make soo many points too. It's obvious there are just too many negatives for anything to ever come out of all this.

I guess we probably won't be able to defeat the British or build a nation from cost to coast or cure many illnesses or put a man in space or even go to the moon. Lets just all sit down and be negative.

[shanefish]

Did you miss the fact that most of his arguements boil down to only two problems? His only valid arguements are that it will take a long time and that it will be difficult. If America burried its head in the sand everytime we encountered something that was hard, we'd still be living at Plymouth Rock. His 10 points could be dwindled down to one...life is hard. Deal with it and move forward.

[Jocalo]

The stimulus doesn't just come from the completed project, it comes from those "decades" of work. Long term projects=Long term jobs

[pascaljim]

11. HSR needs straight as an arrow routing for speed.

[Richard DeArmond]

I find the plan for high-speed rail rather interesting. My first question is is it to be electric? Stupid to go for diesel which has a limited top speed as well as environmentally unfriendly and disgusting. I think that there are some missing links in this plan. First agree that there should be an LA-LV link. It also seems stupid to me that Text is not directly linked to Chicago via HS. And why not An Antonio-Houston? And why not Cleveland - Buffalo? And is the southern half of Florida not to be connected to Jacksonville? Or is this map merely indicative and not to be taken as accurate? Whatever, these links should be included.

[khamak]

The map is based primarily on existing rail lines and then those that can be converted to high speed rail and serve the most demographically dense and accessable (basically to get the most bang for the buck). Where there are breaks, there are still the slower speed lines. Eventually as population centers focus on these rail lines and as auto and air travel gets more expensive more high speed rail lines will be be more viable.

The 8 billion is just a drop in the bucket and does not cover the all lines shown on the map but it is a good start.

[George Whizz]

Why isn't Two Dot, Montana on this map?

[Anciano]

Las Vegas is nowheresville. There isn't enough water to sustain Las Vegas. There is no useful industry there. Las Vegas is unsustanable. Don't waste a rail line on it. Or, let the casinos pay for it if they are so hot to ttract more suckers to come gamble.

[Soule23]

Casino lobby=campaign $

[Eris23Skidoo]

I'd love to see Boise connected to this!

[dcswampfox]

There needs to be a rail line from El Paso up to Albuquerque to Santa Fe, to Denver, west to Salt Lake City, down to Phoenix, down to Tucson and back to El Paso. Phoenix should then be connected to LA.

[notquitewhite]

To live within the limitation of available water, the poulation of the southwest will have to reduce population and/or dramatically change water use.

[AirForceWx1701]

Not a bad route; I say a cross-country route LA-Phoenix­-Tucson-La­s Cruces-Ros­well-Clovi­s [Cannon AFB is to become a major base]-Lubbock [Texas Tech]-Abil­ene-Dallas­-Shrevepor­t-Baton Rouge-New Orleans-Bi­loxi-Mobil­e-Pensacol­a-Tallahas­see-Jackso­nville-Orl­ando--all broken into individual corridors, with maybe a through car or two based on demand. Feeder lines would include a north-south El Paso-Denver route, the current Amtrak Texas Eagle, Heartland Flyer, Crescent [New Orleans and Mobile sections], and City of New Orleans, and a revived Floridian from Chicago to the Florida East Coast.

[ElBruce]

Dammit, I really wanted some Oregon-to-Cali action in there. Oh well, that's pretty good as is.

[notquitewhite]

I think that crossing the Klamath/Modoc region would be a huge engineering challenge.­..

[genia]

I just want to say.....I love EuRail...L­OVE it.
Loved backpacking through Europe....­a cheap rail pass got you from London to Spain and back.
So happy that we are ...finally­....focusi­ng on this.
Makes me want to pick up a Sharpie and help them plan some tracks.

[megacephalus]

Two problems that need to be resolved before 'high speed' to Euro or world standards will work in US:

1.) right-of-way ownership needs to be nationaliz­ed... it was all given away once-upon-a-time by Feds

(the same as Interstate highways and airports and Air Traffic Control systems)

2.) Passenger service must have right of way over freight.

- in the New Haven to NYC it must have priority over commuter rail and 'Rapid Transit' or new parallel tracks (see 1. above)

[Ryan Cariño]

As a Houstonian I hate to admit that Houston needs to connect with the DFW. The line would benefit the whole region.

[skatscan]

I like to see them do somthing about the Vegas, Phoenix, and New Mexico area. It would seem that area would be ideal for a new system.

[Doug Flight]

This should start right away...We need to develop,enhance,and rebuild our transportation infrastructure to surpass global mass transit standards.­Creating jobs is the short term positive..­.The long term positives speak for themselves.
Combine these efforts with the "rebuilding" of our energy infrastructure including power grids. (wind,solar)
Combine these efforts with the "rebuilding" of our communications infrastructure (fiber opttics)
Combine these efforts with the "rebuilding" of our education systems.