Railway Carriage Charm: Has High-Speed Rail's Moment Arrived?

Several days ago I made the trip from DC to New York and back via Amtrak's Acela Express, my mode of choice for the last decade or so.  It's less expensive than the air shuttles, much more comfortable, much less stressful, and almost as time-efficient.  Heck, it's more time-efficient if I'm working en route, since it's much easier to work on the train than on the plane or in the airport waiting lounge.  Like the air shuttles, the express train leaves hourly (and there are also slightly slower trains leaving in between the Acela's departures.)

I head straight for the train's "Quiet Car" to avoid the distraction of compulsive bozos yammering away on their cell phones, settle in with work or good reading material, and I'm in the heart of Manhattan in a little over two and a half hours.  The refreshments on board are good, too.

Last weekend, it could not have been more convenient:  I walked off the train, out of New York's Penn Station, across the street from Penn Station to my hotel, and then back across the street later for a concert at the WaMu Theatre in Madison Square Garden.

It's the way to go.  But that sort of comfort, efficiency and convenience via rail travel has largely been available only on the East Coast, in the Washington-to-Boston Corridor.  With very few exceptions, city-to-city travel in the US by rail is, if available at all, generally slow and inconvenient outside of the Northeast.  Visitors from other countries are shocked, given the large number of trips that are within a 100-400-mile distance but for which travelers are generally forced to go by air or personal car.

But president Obama is out to change that, and bring high-speed rail to more Americans.  Writing in Sunday's Washington Post, Dan Eggen reports:

"The Northern Lights Express is little more than an idea -- a proposal for a 110-mph passenger train between Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., that has crept along in fits and starts for years.

"But the slow ride may soon be over. The project is one of dozens nationwide that are likely to benefit from President Obama's initiative to fund high-speed and intercity passenger rail programs, including $8 billion in stimulus money and $5 billion more over the next five years in the administration's proposed transportation budget.

"The money represents the first major step toward establishing a genuine high-speed train network in the United States and has sparked a stampede among states, advocacy groups and lobbyists who are not accustomed to this level of funding . . ."

   

Possible routes include San Diego-Los Angeles-San Francisco-Sacramento; Brimingham-Atlanta-Charlotte-Raleigh-DC; Chicago-Milwaukee-Minneapolis-Duluth; and quite a few others (see map above for potential routes identified by the US Department of Transportation in 2005).

This is not a new idea for the president, who stressed it during his campaign.  In his remarks to the US Conference of Mayors (recounted here last year), Obama noted that engineers in China were developing a 300-mph train.  "I don't want to see the fastest train in the world built halfway around the world in Shanghai," Obama said. "I want to see it built right here in the United States of America."

As many readers may know, convenient intercity rail is one of the great pleasures of traveling in Europe.  If you're lucky, maybe you've ridden France's TGV, which I believe still holds a record for the world's fastest train, or even Japan's famous "Bullet Train," the Shinkansen.  Now, high-speed rail in the US may not match the very fastest service in Europe or Asia, given our aging rail infrastructure.  But bringing Acela-comparable service to more US cities would not only be much more efficient environmentally than flying or driving, it would also reduce stress for travelers.

A couple of weeks ago, after the Senate passed the stimulus legislation, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell derided the new law as "a dramatic move in the direction of indeed turning America into Western Europe."  Hmmmm.  As Hendrik Hertzberg dryly alluded in the New Yorker, "greater income equality, better health, and fewer prisons" might not be so bad.  If you ask me, neither would high-speed, intercity rail - or better mass transit, more walkable cities, and about half the carbon emissions per capita of the US, not to mention the wine and shorter work week.  Sign me up.

The inspiration for today's title came from these lyrics.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment.  For more posts, see his blog's home page.

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Comments

[Mike Skehan]

Is building High-Speed Rail (HSR) really worth it?
Well, according to our new Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, he’s quoted as saying “Yes, I do, Profoundly.” He goes on to call it a transformational initiative, on par with building the great interstate highway and airline systems, we enjoy. http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2009/03/is-highspeed-rail-worth-it.phpp)
The NE corridor gets it, VP Biden gets it, and so does the Pacific Northwest.
Washington and Oregon, through our own DOT’s have been deploying HSR along the Cascade Corridor between Eugene, OR and Canada since 1999. Tilt trains, capable of 125 mph, have been gradually defining a market share and offering an alternative to driving or flying. Results so far are impressive – trains carry many more travelers between Seattle and Portland than do airlines, using half the fuel and producing half the pollution per passenger mile at a lower cost. This is an amazing statistic, considering our fast trains are still limited to just 79 mph for lack of federally mandated safety, signal and track improvements.
We look forward to working with Sec. LaHood to offer America an additional option for travel, while reducing our needs for imported oil and polluting our atmosphere less.
Mike Skehan, All Aboard Washington

[newshawk14]

I would say that the US has the greatest backlog of fast rail and light rail projects of any country.
I would just like the majority of the cars to be manufactured in the US, and we probably need to
let Canada participate, who I believe is active in this area. If we need to subsidize the start up of
this capability, it is a great means of job creation that benefits our country. At one time we
probably made the finest rail cars in the world, I think it is time we did so again.

[leduck]

we don't just need high speed rail to link big cities
we need inner city light rail
a real system like europe or japan
but in order to make it work..., we need to start reversing urban sprawl
and re-design cities around feet
we need a lot more windmills and thermal solar plants too
we don't have a lot of time because terminal decline is around the corner

but i am happy trains are no longer being ignored

[UbiVeritas]

If you want to live like a European, move to Europe.

[leduck]

within 5 or 10 years, you'll wish you were living in Europe

[mlaiuppa]

I still don't understand. Why can't I travel by rail from San Diego to Vancouver? Why can't I travel from San Diego to New York? Or Miami.

(Well, I know why. Big oil and the Big three destroyed our rail system. What I don't understand is the hesitation or obstruction to building it back even better than it was.)

[leduck]

greed and stupidity

[TakeSake]

At 16 cars long with almost 100 passengers per car a Shinkansen carries 1500 people. That would replace 7 flights of a mid-sized airplane. For a 1 hour flight, bookended with an hour at each airport, the train is close in total time. It's much more efficient, comfortable, and if the entire Japanese system were implemented it would be to-the-minute reliable and safe.

A couple of stories:
A few years ago a Shinkansen was late to the station by one minute. There was an investigation. It turned out that the driver left his cap somewhere. I believe he was fired for the indiscretion.

A few years ago there was an incident where concrete broke off a tunnel and hit a Shinkansen as it passed through. It become something of a national scandal. Bridge and tunnel inspection procedures were overhauled to prevent such problems in the future.