In the arguments against high speed rail allegedly being feasible due to our "size" (and our population density), what gets lost is that we have states and regions with much higher population densities than countries that have already figured out this high speed rail thing. Areas like Southern California, Ohio, Florida, and that Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Houston triangle-shaped area in Texas all have the population density.
However, it is true that a very large chunk of the country, mainly the non-coastal western half of the country, has extremely low population densities, way too low to support high speed rail (excluding parts of Texas). There's never going to be a New York to Los Angeles high speed rail line. Outside of Texas, there's never going to be any high speed rail from the Mississippi to the Pacific states (Vegas and Phoenix excluded). There's never going to be a "nationwide high speed rail network" a la Amtrak's nationwide standard speed service. Which is fine. We need to concentrate on the few city pairs and corridors where high speed rail makes sense and ignore it where it doesn't.
@@Geotpf transcontinental HSR doesn't really make sense anyways, even if we assume an utterly impossible dead straight route from sanfran to NYC which ignores geography and runs an express service screaming along at 300km/h unflinchingly, that's still a 14 hour journey, which people aren't going to prefer over flying anyways.. What *does* make sense for such a route is something like the existing Empire Builder which runs from seattle to chicago: a two-day sleeper train that trundles along and gives you some amazing views and good food. More concretely i think it would make sense to have 2 cross-country lines: Seattle-Twin Cities-Chicago-NYC, and SanFran-LA-Dallas-Atlanta-DC/NYC. These would be a 3-4 day trip and could be split into two sections in Saint Paul/Dallas, because i think you might want a bit of non-train time at that point.. This way people have *an option* other than flying or driving cross-country, the services would be very useful for more local trips, and you'd have a really quite unique set of vacation experiences!
It's really great to see someone covering HSR with optimism, let alone realistic optimimsm about the topic. A lot of cities definitely are the right distance and have enough population to justify an upgraded or purpose built HSR corridor. Time is yet to tell for when we get it, though.
People are acting like HSR in the US can't be done or is just now starting to exist, when the Acela has been doing this since 2000. Of course we can do high speed rail, we just need to actually get off our asses and make it happen.
@@oscardaone Always remember, the American people can control the government. Hard to believe that the mighty United States of America can put a man on the moon and yet can't achieve highspeed bullet train technology which is also, (fully electric). Highspeed bullet trains and maglev super train technology, the new american dream...
The Metroliner is kind of funny to me. It was popular amongst riders, and the schedules were good - it was a good service, that was held back by bad rolling stock. A great example of how good rail service is absolutely craved in the United States and has been for decades, but the infrastructure and the equipment simply lag behind, because the government wants to do it on the cheap while giving far too much funding to highways. Nowadays, we have the equipment, we just don't have the infrastructure. But that's on the precipice of changing. The next 30 years are going to come to define the future of rail in America, and it's been looking pretty impressive lately. Hopefully the momentum is maintained.
The two big ones now are the California HSR project and the start of the Brightline West project between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga. The Brightline West operation could extend to Los Angeles Union Station, but the cost of getting the right of way to expand the current Metrolink line to double track and installing overhead wiring could be almost as expensive to building from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas itself!
Once it's built and they have positive experience I bet it'll happen. If/When Brightline West is the first HSR in the US it'll definitely spark everyone else. It just needs to show people it's worth it.
I remember when I was a teen in 2008 in northern California I learned about the HSR project and was so hyped that I could just hop on a train and visit my family in the south. China announced their HSR project in the same year. To say its been disappointing is an understatement lmao
They were too ambitious with 220 MPH top speed and 160 MPH average. Something like 180-200 MPH top and 120 MPH average would've been both more affordable and still comparable to HSR in Europe and Japan.
In 2008, China's Ministry of Railways announced planned to build 25,000 kilometers (16,000 miles) of high-speed railways with trains that could reach speeds of 350 kilometers per hour (220 miles per hour). As of November 30, 2023, China's high-speed rail (HSR) network was 43,700 kilometers long, which is 28.1% of the country's total railroad network. This makes China's HSR system the largest in the world, more than three times the length of the European Union's HSR network. The Beijing to Hong Kong High Speed Railway, which is 2,440 kilometers long, is the world's longest HSR route. Running at (347 km/h). China's first high-speed railway opened in 2008 between Beijing and Tianjin, connecting the two cities in about 30 minutes. The line was built to support the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and helped to accelerate regional development. The Shenzhen Metro is AMAZING and moves over 2.2 billion people a year. Can't wait to go back. See video titled: *"This Chinese city converted Its subway stations into artworks".* As of 2023, the Shanghai Maglev is the world's fastest commercially operated train with a top speed of 431 km/h (268 mph). The Maglev uses magnetic levitation (maglev) to travel on an elevated track, which provides a smooth, friction-free ride. The Maglev connects Shanghai's Pudong airport to Longyang Road station in the city center, making the 30.5 km (19.0 mi) trip in less than 7.5 minutes. As of 2022, the number of high-speed carriages in operation nationwide in China was at 33,554. In the first six months of 2024, the China national railway system operated an average of 10,256 passenger train services a day, 882 more than in the same period last year, representing growth of 9.4 percent. @Devilishlybenevolent: You're right. The HSR northern CA project is just sad. Voters were promised that the California High-Speed Rail project would cost the state $33 billion and be completed by 2020. The cost has ballooned to $128 billion and counting, has not completed a single segment of the system and there is no expected completion date.
A few comments on Brightline West: You mentioned that we don‘t know how long the individual cars of the Brightline Novos will be, and while that‘s true, Siemens does state that for the Novo in general, cars will have a length of 28.75 meters or just over 94 feet. This would make them among the longest passenger cars in the world and is a continuation of a trend that started with the ICE 4 units that entered service around 6 years ago. I assume they will keep the length the same for their US offering. Then talking about stations on BLW: I find their placement extremely odd. They managed to put two stations perfectly around Victorville, whilst ignoring the actual city completely. If anyone wants to get to the train in Victorville their only choice is a lengthy drive which to me is a bad start, because then the incentive is there to just say “well, I’ll drive the rest too”. I also doubt Victorville would be a place where TOD would work so well. It seems like a pretty barren city and with the climate not exactly getting cooler, I wouldn’t wanna live in an actual desert dustbowl. Lastly, grades and alignment: I was hoping that BLW would remove itself from the highway median in sections where the highway curves too much or too tightly for high-speed running, but I guess I was wrong. I live near what is probably Germany’s most prestigious ever rail project, the Cologne-Frankfurt HSL, which also parallels a highway for its entire length, but it isn’t as glued to it. It was built to engineering extremes in both gradients and radii, and only the ICE 3 and 4 series are permitted to run on it. It’s sometimes nicknamed “the rollercoaster” for its alignment. It shows very well how high-speed lines can share transport corridors with highways and that high-speed trains can handle pretty extreme terrain without a significant loss of speed (whole line is built for 300 kph running), but it also shows the limitations of paralleling highways, in that the trains often have massive bridges to cross valleys, because the gradients the highway has are impossible for the railway to match. I hope BLW doesn’t cheap out completely on their mountainous section and does build a few strategic cuts and tunnels to keep trains faster than road traffic at all times. Really enjoy your essays, keep up the good work!
Anyone who understands the development aspects of Fortress/Brightline shouldn't find any of their station placements odd at all. What currently seems "barren" will become dense because of the station and Fortress can own all the cheap land around. Also, at 100-119 MPH average speed, sticking with the highway ROW isn't bad at all and saves billions on tunnels and private ROW purchases.
I live in california and its nice to see someone talk the CHSR project with realistic optimism. Ive been to 2 of the 3 public viewing of the new trains Caltrain is getting. They are really nice inside them and i so want to ride them. i also hope that CHSR picks Siemens for their trains. I have always thought and said to people who complain about the price is once its built you wont care about the price. There is so many projects that were expensive but once they are built nobody cares about the cost. The idea of brightline and CHSR working together sounds great. Having trains going from SF to LV sounds so great and improve both services alot. Also that little part about the crap ton of different transit agencys in SF i agree with. There is just too many. At least majority of them support Clipper cards so you just need one transit card for most of them.
Let's go! These look like great plans for the future. I live in Germany and I can tell you that riding an InterCity Express train at 186 mph = 300 km/h is quite cool. You just see the landscape flying past you and the train seems completely unbothered with the high speed. In reality this means, you can travel the distance of 370 miles between Berlin an München in under 4 hours. Which is basically impossible to do in a car, unless you are up to drive a sustained 100+ mph for the whole trip, there are no construction zones and you specifically choose an early Sunday morning for your journey to not get stuck in traffic. The ICE train on the other hand manages to keep under 4 hours even on busy summer weekends with lots of passengers. The biggest issue in Germany for new high speed rail lines is lack of space or NIMBYs. But Germany's population density is 10 times higher than the US' overall. So use those vast landscapes where no one lives anyway to build high speed tracks for express services between major cities in the US! In Germany we also have a special form of NIMBYs which are small town mayors and village elders who only allow the high speed rail line through their territory if the InterCity Express services get a stop at their barn. Which obviously destroys the concept of an inter _city_ and especially an _express_ service. And the aforementioned travel time of under 4 hours would not be possible if stopping at every small town on the way. Ohh and the Siemens Velaro trains are good. The fast ICE trains in Germany that go 300 km/h are all some kind of relatives of the Siemens Velaro. As you mentioned in the video, apart from the Velaro D for Deutschland (199 mph), there also is the Velaro E for España (217 mph) and the Velaro CN for China (up to 236 mph) for example. They are an established type of train and they are capable of the advertised speeds. PS: Normal commuter trains in Germany usually go 99 mph = 160 km/h. But there are a few instances where slightly faster trains are used for commuter trains especially in regions with newly built Category 1 high speed rail lines, like the following example (118 mph = 190 km/h): ua-cam.com/video/bdDbO4eL6jI/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared&t=343
US should do both. Invest in dedicated high speed rail corridors to major cities/capitals and upgrade existing infrastructure to 125mph for regional rail to smaller cities to create a great rail network again like we had b4 the interstate highway system. On top of that, invest in low floor trams, subways in cities & true regional rail (not commuter rail) for inter suburban travel.
125 mph may be unrealistic for mixed traffic with low frequencies (2-6 rts). 90-11 1:22:30 0 mph would be a reasonable limit given needs for PTC and crossing circuit extension given curve cant for freight.
Yeah, this is first about mid range service, some high speed sleeper services could be at mid high, but only a well built maglev can do that as a day service and would have to be a sleeper maglev to run the cross continent route, but that would actually be competitive as a sleeper and would be the last thing developed. The first thing to do though is the city pairs and regions like Boston to Washington or the Desert Southwest, the Texas Triangle, the Deep South, the Midwest, the Cascades, and Via Rail mainline corridor. Maybe also San Antonio and Houston to Monterrey and maybe Mexico City. Also, The Tōkkaido Shinkansen itself was over budget and took decades to build. Also, the original version of the North East Corridor took almost 90 years and several new technologies to build.
Love how you referred to this as "ramblings" twice in the beginning and continued to put out a well-informed, well-edited, well-produced movie-length video Great stuff looking forward to more!
My dad would always rant to me about the poor design of NE corridor segments. Now I'm the one ranting. If only dad were here to see some fixes finally come into place.
fun fact: the size of the country benefits high speed rail. longer distance = higher speed = less time to get to a specific city. This will remove a lot of traffic from Interstates. I also believe that the airplane industries might actually benefit from it. without local flights being extremely common, they can better spend the money on trips to medium and long distance internal flights. from what information i gathered, short flights actually cost airplane corps a lot of money, so letting HSR take the burden would do wonders. Trains for short and medium distance, airplanes for long dsistance, interstate for short distance. on top of that, manufacturers might be forced to innovate to keep their planes in service, and make them comfortable.
Great video Steve. One sligght error. At 10:55, when you introduced Brightline West, you mention Rancho Cucamonga, in the Inland Empire Region, being west of L.A. Actually, it's east of L.A. :)
You wanted to know about the NIMBYism in Texas for the Texas Central program. Most of the NIMBYism came about from the transplants in Arlington, Texas. Who are the formerly Orange County Republican's from Orange County, California. These people abandoned California after the state legislature in 1990 in Sacramento, mandated that the former Orange County Republican's invest in their own transportation issues. Instead, they moved to Arlington, Texas and gave votes to the Texas Republican party. Hence, Greg Abbotts super majority. I'm actually glad that you seem more positive about areas wanting to invest in the two alternatives for high-speed rail. I live in California and I know that HSR has had significant problems of late, but if HSR can finish building the initial operating segment, hopefully that will show what HSR could be? A way for cities to not have to redline districts, which was found to be discriminatory.
It’s always Republicans. Republicans are Sith, especially OC and TX Rethugs. The only things those thugs want built are freeways, football stadiums and megachurches.
I was thinking the same thing, cause I know many in California say they wanna move to Texas...if they'll be happier let them go is what I think. I agree once we get one line going (Brightline West will definitely help) there will be proof of concept for people to rally around.
I was thinking the same thing, cause I know many in California say they wanna move to Texas...if they'll be happier let them go is what I think. I agree once we get one line going (Brightline West will definitely help) there will be proof of concept for people to rally around.
This might be the most comprehensive video about American HSR, talking about the two (actually three but one doesn't really count) definitions, the various projects (planned or otherwise) as well as their gimmicks. I think my favourite point is that there are much fewer HSL which are exclusively used by HST than some ought to make it to be. For example, it is common to state that the Shinkansen has no conventional trains but few mention that this is more the exception than then rule since Europe is much (even if it does make operation more difficult but it's also a matter of frequency), not to mention we (Europeans) also have first upgraded our tracks before building new ones when the Japanese did that right away (of course, they also were forced to build a new line given their standard gauge is too narrow to support higher speeds than 120 km/h IIRC). Also Cascadia UHST, lol. I know that speed records are bound to be broken but over 400 km/h in regular passenger service is quite ambitious with steel-on-steel technology but also standard gauge.
At least in Europe, the standard length for a passenger rail carriage as well as locomotives has been around 25 m for more than half a century. This enables neat train lengths of pretty close to 100, 150, 200, 300 or 400 m, nowadays also achieved by combining multiple units (eg, two 6-car units with each being 150 m long for a combined length of 300 m). The maximum length for passenger trains has been standardised to a bit more than 400 m. Having such a standard ensures that train length and platform length are matched throughout Europe. There are of course many smaller towns with shorter platforms but a standardisation for 200 and 300 m platforms also ensures that the same multiple unit trains fit on all platforms along a line. Recently, train carriages have been lengthened a bit in some new projects, using 7 instead of 8 carriages to reach the standard 200 m length (or a combined 400 m with two such units). This allows for deleting one train coupling and thus length that cannot be used productively. The Velaro Novo follows that trend of reaching 200 m with seven carriages.
The problem is less platform length, often controlled by terminal platform lengths, than by standard door openings for enclosed platforms for climate protection.
35:09 Southwest doesn't fly to DFW (yet), they fly from Houston Hobby to Dallas Love. Southwest primarily flies to smaller airports where they are the dominant carrier especially in Texas where the Wright Ammendment is a thing until next year. Correction: Southwest also has served Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport since 2020 but will be ceasing all flights to the airport on August 4th, 2024
True, though I largely just use the term DFW to refer to the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a whole, rather than just the airport. Probably should have made that clear.
California needs to start construction on San Jose to the central valley asap, just that connection might do wonders for relieving the Bay Area housing market and uplifting the valley. They just need to spend the money, $1 billion a year won't do it
To spend the money, the state needs to have the money. Which it currently doesn't. Right now, the state of California is worried about keeping the lights on. Spending a ton on CAHSR is going to be secondary.
@@Geotpf California has a $32 billion annual transportation budget. They spend 2.8 percent of this on HSR. If this Is a state transportation priority it should be funding as such, not as an afterthought
@@travelsofmunch1476 "If this is a state transportation priority it should be funding (sic) as such". That's the point, it's not a priority. It's a vanity project that is not needed, and will never have the patronage to justify the obscene cost. Much better ways to spend that money, and it would be even better to not spend that money at all, given how heavily indebted California is, and with a tax base that's fragile.
@@Geotpf Prop 13 essentially gutted CA's tax base. Freezing property tax increases sounds fine, until you discover it also freezes new housing development (as new builds will have to pay a tax bill for a 5 mil property rather than a 500k property), leading to the current homelessness crisis CA is grappling with at the moment
*ARLINGTON HAS ALMOST POPULATION OF 400K AND IT HAS NO PUBLIC TRANSPORT?! HOW COULD IT EXIST?!?! I KNOW TOWN CALLED SENICA OF 20K (NO 200K, I REALLY MEAN 20K) AND IT HAS 4 BUS LINES! COME ON ARLINGTON, WHO WOULD EVEN WANNA LIVE THERE?!*
@@Neville60001 bro, Arlington has its own skyline. Senica has commie blocks at most. Besides that Senica's buses reach all the way to surrounding villages. I feel like Texas is not even a real place but just fictional dystopia.
@@Neville60001a city of 400k is not anywhere near rural. Suburban character in many parts, but most definitely not rural. It’s dominated by suburban sprawl, car dominated, and richer than the surrounding area
WE need an extension to tampa from Orlando either from brightline or more Amtrak service because fighting I-4 traffic is insane and is only getting worse
Also when it comes to the ALC-42E's in Diesel and Electric mode they will be capable of 125mph. Also the MTA doesn't own entire section of the NEC from New Haven to New Rochelle. CDOT owns most of the line. The state of NY only owns like 8 miles. Which use to have a track speed of 90mph. Also I love the way you end your videos. Great stuff. Im a Amtrak engineer and the corridor is something very special. We need more High Speed Rail.
Yall put up with a loot of shit, especially the past few months. Been using trains so much the past year and I love it far more than flying ...even if taking Cap Limited to Chicago from DC too 17+ hours...still feel better by the end. (Not sure if I would have felt that if I had been stuck on poor 30 when it had that 6 hour delay out of Chicago last month)
i'm glad your pronounced Osaka correctly! One thing at about 10:45 you said Rancho Cucamonga was west of LA when it's in fact East of LA. Overall nice video, I watch a lot of train and city videos!
Awesome video. Just to give a little info on Metro North's role in the Northeast Corridor, I'm pretty sure they only own the portion of the tracks running from New Rochelle to the border between NY and CT. The Connecticut DOT owns the rest of the portion up to New Haven, with this disjunction (pun intended) contributing to Metro North's New Haven line being their worst in terms of delays, which in turn affects Amtrak Services along this route. Any grade separation plan would unfortunately require the two to cooperate, though here's hoping!
Yeah, that's always been a strange and strained relationship it seems, and I definitely want to talk about that when I go more in depth about the NEC in the future. It's definitely frustrating that an area that can very easily see massive schedule improvements for both parties through timetable coordination, grade separation of junctions (most obviously Shell Interlocking) and good maintenance renewal and repair falls apart just because of that lack of cooperation, but the potential is most certainly there for the taking, and sooner or later, the issue is gonna have to come to the fore between them. Hoping that's sooner for sure.
Ugh! We need Texas Central for sure! I make that trip and it bugs the crap out of me that Southwest Airlines is one pushing propaganda out against it. They should be maybe joining in 🤷♂️
Corporations Lobbying Against HSR: "You can't defeat me!" State Governments: "I know, but he can." *Another Lobbying Corporation Busts Through the Wall*
0:47 i like your vlog. You should try riding Whoosh in indonesia, the first high speed train in southeast asia with a speed of 350/KMH. There are still many more trains in indonesia that you can make your youtube video. greetings from indonesia, Keep spirit and keep healty😊
Perhaps for next time, but look into the Front Range Passenger Rail corridor - a proposed 177 mile route from Pueblo, CO to Fort Colins, CO with possible expansion to Trinidad (and eventually NM) to the south and Wyoming to the north.
I like the rail lines across the Long Island Sound, High Speed, Freight Rail, Commuter Rail & maybe commercial and private vehicles. A bridge and/or tunnel a the narrowest point of the Sound. How many ferries cross the Long Island Sound every day????
The frederick douglass tunnel is planned to serve marc and amtrak trains, marc is supposedly going to electrify its penn line fleet by the time it's done.
An interesting look at high speed rail in the USA. There is definitely lots of areas in the USA that could benefit from HSR travel. As you said in the conclusion; it's all in the will of the people and politicians.
God okay, I live in Portland Oregon I would be so for 250 mph, Is it unrealistic? Yes. But is Cascadia also one of the most innovative regions in the entire world? Also yes. It would be wildly difficult to get 250 consistent, but we are optimistic people up here, and I believe we could get it done!
29:40 This looks like the old Claymont station, but the new one was opened before Septa heritage units, of which one is seen here. You show clips of the new Claymont station before
That's because it is the old Claymont station! There's a public pathway that leads from the new station to the parking lot of the old station on it's way to the neighborhood behind it. The old station platform itself is chained off, but the parking lot isn't, and I found the corner of the lot to be a decent spot to get a good angle of the curve going through the station, though the fence behind it did get annoying.
I am selfishly rooting for the first routing of the Illinois HSR plan. It’s closer to me than the other routes. But I gotta admit that, while Bloomington-Normal is growing, Illinois should probably link up Chicago and U of I with faster service. My real answer is to build both routings
Not to nitpick, but...Rancho Cucamonga is EAST of Los Angeles, not West. The only think west of Los Angeles is the Pacific Ocean. And Rancho Cucamonga is actually an ideal spot for the western terminus, as it's close enough to L.A. to make a difference, but not so close as to cause a lot of problems with the crowded L.A. area. And as said in the video, there is already rail service from Union Station in L.A. to Rancho Cucamonga - Metrolink. That being said - I would LOVE to see Brightline West completed in my lifetime, but...given the litigious nature of this state (California), I doubt it will be done while I am still alive.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Well, we ALL do it at one time or another....I can't COUNT the number of times I've jumped willingly on the stupid train....
West of Los Angeles is Thousand Oaks and Oxnard. It's okay, natives make this mistake too because they think of "North" in relation to the signage on the 101, even though the 101 runs east/west in LA.
@@NozomuYume First of all - never use the roads to determine direction - use a compass. I've been living in this area since 1968 (except the 4 years in the Navy), and I never use just the roads. The 101 heads north and just slightly west out of Los Angeles, then a more definite turn north west when it gets to the interchange of the 134/170 in North Hollywood. (the 134 heads east, and the 170 heads north). Thousand Oaks can be called "west", if you happen to be looking at it from say, Woodland Hills, at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. This still part of the City of Los Angeles. Oxnard, any way you look at it, is still north west. All this is related to the fact that the California coast is not straight north and south, but makes a curve south east at approximately Point Conception. It then starts to curve more south by eat until it arrives in San Diego and the U.S./Mexico border. Here's a trivia question to stump friends: Which city is further west - Los Angeles of San Francisco? The answer is San Francisco, due to the curve in California's coast.
Im for all this...i.e. NYC to Orlando would be the greatest...Dude, our roads and bridges are falling apart..don't you think that has to be fixed first before we go with HSR?
I know very little about trains. I lament the number of tracks abandoned and removed in my part of the world (Ontario, Canada in the TransCanada Highway corridor) because they have increased traffic, wear and tear, and accidents on the highway since goods and people still have to get to all the same places! The question I have to ask is how viable is HSR in areas with crazy temperature deltas between summer and winter?? We run from close to 40C (104F) to -40C (same in F)... Doesn't this make steel rails a huge problem with expansion and contraction? My understanding is that HSR is way more sensitive to things like expansion joints? That plus the issues that seem to occur with the pantographs during freezing rain or heavy snow... I believe these issues would apply in your country too at least from the Northeast through the Midwest where the climate is anything BUT moderate.
no because Sunrail runs a different set of tracks west of it, though there was a plan to have a commuter line using Brightline tracks, though either brightline itself or a new agency
@TheRandCrews SunRail has been running on the old conventional railroad [Csx/SCL] that Amtrak also is on? ... but Florida/I-4 has set aside land for passenger-rail ... Will /can Bright-line be using that I-4 median alongside SunRail? As long as Brightline stays off CSX ... right?
Hey Steve... Please help me understand why Texas Central wants Shinkansen rolling stock? I thought Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston were an axis of engineering: jets! oil! Mission Control!?!? Please advise.
It would be great if any of those investments went towards a rolling stock manufacturer, but none of it has yet. In terms of passenger equipment, there is only one rolling stock manufacturer left in the entire country, and that's Brookville Equipment based in Brookville, Pennsylvania, and the only passenger rolling stock they make is trolleys and streetcars. I would absolutely love it if venture capital firms or investors began to look towards backing either Brookville or new rolling stock ventures in the coming years to provide true domestic competition to the international firms that hold sway, but for the time being, they're the only game in town because American companies haven't invested in HSR equipment since Budd built the original Metroliners, and that was a saga of insanity that Budd kind of regretted until its collapse in the 1990s. So, it's not just a matter of learning how to build and run high speed lines, it's a matter of learning to build high speed trains. I have little doubt that since Hitachi is pretty much guaranteed to be building the trains for Texas Central due to their partnership with JR Central, that the trains themselves will be built at a factory in Texas, but in the long run, there needs to be investment in equipment makers based in America for such an industry to be sustainable in the long term. Texas can be a great place for it, as are a lot of places frankly. It's little surprise that international companies have set up their rolling stock factories in places like California, North Carolina (both Siemens), New York (Alstom and Kawasaki) and even Utah (Stadler), but due to an overall lack of investment in domestic ventures, it's become a missed opportunity until someone takes a crack at it, it's just that someone needs to sense the opportunity and some investors need to be bought into the idea, and the opportunities can abound, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly thanks for the intel! I think your remark about trains vs lines is reversed. Today's HSR trainsets seem to be tinfoil tubes with 2x3 seating, power units under, a cockpit at each end, all joined up by powered bogies. That can't be hard to build from scratch in the USA or even modifying what Brookline does already. I am puzzled that you believe the USA knows how to run HSR lines. Acela/Avelia and Brightline share ROW with freight. The only two lines with grade-separated track for exclusive HSR aren't in service yet. Texas Central is smart to work with a rail system whose annual service delay is ONE MINUTE. They've certainly got the money to sustain the level of investment required to ensure consistent on-time, airline-beating performance. Maybe *that* is what Texas is buying: they want Mission Control again!
Yes which is why we are trying to replace the first and will likely have to save time elsewhere to make up for the second because I don't know where you could put a new tunnel without breaking the bank.
Um it would be wonderful for those who travel between cities but I live in a city where we dont even have a bus service and only two cabs. Why? Because people will NOT give up their gas guzzling, air damaging cars. They only people who will use HSR is those who dont have cars. Or travel to cities outside of their state. Its a beautiful dream, but to be honest we need to focus more on making our cities more walker and bike rider friendly with stores and school within a 15 to 20 minute WALK from residential areas.
I have to ask: Has CAHSR ever figured out what to do about several cities along the route suing to get stops in their "fair cities"? The sheer number of additional stops being litigated will KILL the time from L.S. to San Francisco. It will make driving look time-saving, and the airlines will be having a field day.
From what I've seen, they pretty much have a lot of the stations for the network set in stone, but I definitely see the concerns there. The thing is though, there will be different services on the system, and they even published hypothetical timetables for both stopping services, limited stop trains and express trains, which is very common, and it's something that the Shinkansen, TGV and ICE systems do, with the intermediate stations essentially being four-tracked passing loops on the mostly double-track main line. It may hurt travel time in theory on such routes, but most travelers between LA and SF for instance would be taking the express trains, whereas people going to and from places like Kings/Tulare will be taking stopping services. And unlike the Northeast Regionals on the NEC, they won't run at different line speeds, so hold-ups won't be an issue.-
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Well, if they actually do it that way, then it'll work. Now ask me if the state government here in California is capable of doing this the right way....
@@antonbruce1241 They actually are, since that's the way the stations that they're building are designed. And operationally, the CAHSR service will be run by a division of Deutsche Bahn, so they at least made a decent choice of operator that actually knows how this stuff works.
For example the ICE from Amsterdam Centraal to Frankfurt am Main HBF runs in The Netherlands as a limited stop service while marked as ICE so it stops from Amsterdam Centraal not at any station between Amsterdam Centraa,Utrecht Centraal and Arnhem Centraal so as Amsterdam Amstel and Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena where the Intercity trains from Enkhuizen and Alkmaar and Schiphol Airport/Dordrecht to Maastricht and Heerlen and Venlo and the many stopping services stop and Driebergen Zeist, Veenendaal De Klomp and Ede Wageningen where the Intercity to Nijmegen stop and from Arnhem to Köln HBF the ICE stops also not at the other stations and after Köln HBF it goes to Frankfurt am Main HBFvia the Schnellfahrstrecke Köln-Rhein/Main and sometimes stops at Siegburg/Bonn and it stops at Frankfurt am Main Flughafen Fernbahnhof@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly
CAHSR has now basically defeated all the lawsuits levelled against it. Some are still finishing up some paperwork, but almost all of those lawsuits were essentially frivolous astroturf and have been either dismissed or defeated outright.
awesome video, especially the statements at the end... for a couple of years, pretty much ever since I have started playing Train Sim World and my interest in trains has skyrocketed, I have been saying that if only US WILLED it, if the US put its "mind" to it on federal/nationwide level, it could build/create an even better passenger rail network than China... maybe not in length (communism has the "advantage" that they can p*ss at environment and property rights, plus they can just direct tons of people into the projects, thus making the construction super-fast; one thing though they DO well is that once they reached a standard in rolling stock and construction elements, they have started mass-producing those, speeding the construction even more), but in quality :) ... I mean, the US has proven time and time again, that if they put their minds to it, they can be the best in pretty much anything, so why not be the envy of the world in rail again?
Great great video and attempt at setting the record straight! But still too much Brightline bootlicking and too much anti-rail propaganda bashing of CAHSR. A lot of inaccuracies or even outright anti-rail propaganda have sadly made their way into this video. The video is not bad overall. It really isn't. But we as a community need to learn how to filter the propaganda "issues" from the real ones if we want this country to actually get good at building a ton of high speed rail quickly. Here are a few inaccuracies, 1. There is only one HSR standard in the US: >125 mph. This is literally in the "Definitions" section of the relevant Federal law. Yes, that same law and the FRA allow investment of HSR-earmarked funds into 110 mph corridors, but with the understanding that they can one day be upgraded to at least 125 mph. 2. Brightline West is not Category 1 HSR. In fact, it kind of doesn't qualify by the international standard for HSR status at all. According to their own top speeds from the EIR documents, under 10% of the route will be at >=155mph HSR speeds. Everything else is single-tracked and under even 125 mph for the highway median sections. Yes, all the way. Google their EIR. The map is literally in the documents that they filed under penalty of perjury, and all that. No, they can't magically go faster than what they got permissions for via the EIR. That's not how government planning documents work. 3. The seats on the Brightline, VIA, and the Amtrak Siemens Venture trains are all the same. The anti-government part of the foamer community made up whole-cloth some magical fantom difference alongside a bunch of other idiotic anti-Amtrak conspiracies related to the Chargers and Ventures. Yes, the seats have different materials for the upholstery, but the padding and the seat design is the same "parts bin" design that Siemens uses everywhere. Small details are different (vinyl color, materials, handles, tray table shape, etc.), but the structure and padding are identical. Siemens is by far the most famously anti-custom rolling stock manufacturer in the world. They just don't do custom. Their clients have to beg them just to get slightly different color vinyl on those seats. And the fact that the seats are identical has been confirmed both by the people who rode all three Venture versions (myself included) and Siemens themselves. Oh, and the seats are basically identical to the Viaggo Comfort seats on Railjet as well. Like I said, Siemens doesn't do custom. 4. CAHSR did not end up with a bunch of mostly land acquisition delays because Caltrans is anti-rail. They are, just like any DOT on this continent (including those in Canada and Mexico), but they simply weren't running that show. There was a heavy anti-rail political campaign that as an explicit public goal wanted to kill the project with delays and resulting cost overruns. This is all public knowledge. The Republican politicians in California's Central Valley wanted to kill "Obama's train" and achieved a fair bit of success in engineering delays and cost overruns, nearly succeeding. And a few years ago when Newsom put the kibosh on those attempts by refusing to kill the project, they just moved the trolling campaign to Texas Central and killed that project off almost immediately. 5. The CAHSR costs per mile that everyone is circulating include both a ton of litigation costs and planning for future extensions. The actual cost per mile of the actual construction, design, and planning is less than half. IN very rough terms, so far CAHSR has about 90 miles of guideway completed for about $12 billion dollars under $10 billion of which is actual construction in the Central Valley (excluding Caltrain and LA Area projects). That puts the cost per mile at under $100 million. Yes, higher than in the lower cost countries, but perfectly on par with similar labor cost economies in Europe and Asia. Actually, that's pretty damned good for a first-in-the-nation type of project. There's a ton more, but I just don't have the time to analyze everything. This is a complicated topic and there's a ton of literal propaganda swirling around these projects that tries to get them cancelled for political reasons.
Regarding Brightline West, I have no idea how the Velaro Novo had any chance with that ugly front nose. And yes, I wanted them to go with the Avelia Liberty as that train is much better to look at.
Disantis thinks rail travel should be a private entity's responsibility, but he just signed $970 billion of public funding for roadway improvements the next five years. Please someone explain that logic to me
There were two reasons for that: one, I talked about it in my Corridor ID video, and two, given the proposed top speed of 110 miles per hour, it really doesn't qualify as high speed rail by the established metrics I'm using. Maybe they can get it to 125, but that is still not what they're planning for it as it stands. All of the effort there is getting the old CSX S-line reconnected and brought up to Class 6 standards for 110 mph operations, but for true HSR, even by UIC Catagory 2 standards means going further than they current are.
Love your videos and I mostly agree with you but I have a few nites. I think you're making a mistake with those private ventures especially as, like you said, you did this before and it was great but ended badly as passenger trains are not profitable and real estate driesnout in the end. It's not that private companies have no place but giving public funds to private companies without any commitments from them is wrong. I'm talking on, at least, minimum service obligations, so they won't close upmshop when it's inconvenient, like Brightline did for 18 months during the pandemic while true oublic transport continued to serve the public. They should also be obligated to use the same systems as you worked hard to homologise the network and you don't want to find yourselves like Europe. As for brightline west, and in general high speed definishion, top speed is not important if the it is nit sustained for the majority of the line. Most definishions disregard this but the US tax code regarding tax exemptions for private activity bonds (PAB) does define HSR as lne that can sustain speeds of at least 155 mph for the majority of the rout, which is what any definishion should include. As for the cost of BLW, you cannot compare a high speed line built in the median of a highway where only a few segments will reach true high speeds thatbhas no special allignments, bridges and tunnels to allow that and will mostly be single track and does not go into city centers to projects that did all that. Apart from all that I'm starting to think like one of the other commenters, maybe starting with HSR is not tje right way to go. It is importand and the US should invest in them but maybe start with ensuring cities have good local public transit networks? In the end most rides people take are the shorter ones where they live and the vast majority of passengers use loccal transit and not intercity. It will be a shame if someone jumps on the HSR to quickly get to a different city just to find out he has no way to get from the station to his destination in that city. I believe you shoud do both but this won't happen so maybe start with local and regional networks first.
lets go we're so back
In the arguments against high speed rail allegedly being feasible due to our "size" (and our population density), what gets lost is that we have states and regions with much higher population densities than countries that have already figured out this high speed rail thing. Areas like Southern California, Ohio, Florida, and that Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Houston triangle-shaped area in Texas all have the population density.
However, it is true that a very large chunk of the country, mainly the non-coastal western half of the country, has extremely low population densities, way too low to support high speed rail (excluding parts of Texas).
There's never going to be a New York to Los Angeles high speed rail line. Outside of Texas, there's never going to be any high speed rail from the Mississippi to the Pacific states (Vegas and Phoenix excluded).
There's never going to be a "nationwide high speed rail network" a la Amtrak's nationwide standard speed service.
Which is fine. We need to concentrate on the few city pairs and corridors where high speed rail makes sense and ignore it where it doesn't.
ye we're the third largest country by population and most of that is in the east, I think we can benefit from hsr lol
@@Geotpf transcontinental HSR doesn't really make sense anyways, even if we assume an utterly impossible dead straight route from sanfran to NYC which ignores geography and runs an express service screaming along at 300km/h unflinchingly, that's still a 14 hour journey, which people aren't going to prefer over flying anyways..
What *does* make sense for such a route is something like the existing Empire Builder which runs from seattle to chicago: a two-day sleeper train that trundles along and gives you some amazing views and good food.
More concretely i think it would make sense to have 2 cross-country lines: Seattle-Twin Cities-Chicago-NYC, and SanFran-LA-Dallas-Atlanta-DC/NYC.
These would be a 3-4 day trip and could be split into two sections in Saint Paul/Dallas, because i think you might want a bit of non-train time at that point..
This way people have *an option* other than flying or driving cross-country, the services would be very useful for more local trips, and you'd have a really quite unique set of vacation experiences!
Pretty much the whole middle of the country
@@Geotpfwe not talking about the west
It's really great to see someone covering HSR with optimism, let alone realistic optimimsm about the topic. A lot of cities definitely are the right distance and have enough population to justify an upgraded or purpose built HSR corridor. Time is yet to tell for when we get it, though.
Correct! Yes, please.
We can make the Acela travel as fast as it's supposed to.
People are acting like HSR in the US can't be done or is just now starting to exist, when the Acela has been doing this since 2000. Of course we can do high speed rail, we just need to actually get off our asses and make it happen.
There’s politics behind what’s holding it back.
we need to stop funding other countries and focus on ourselves.
@@uresfffff222 FR
@@oscardaone Always remember, the American people can control the government. Hard to believe that the mighty United States of America can put a man on the moon and yet can't achieve highspeed bullet train technology which is also, (fully electric). Highspeed bullet trains and maglev super train technology, the new american dream...
Thats awesome that we might finally get some high speed rail in the usa!!!!
Stop waging wars first
Technically we already have high speed rail in the Northeast.
@@ninyaninjabrifsanovichthes45, it's not 'fast enough' as European and Southeast Asian rail for most people, though.
Looks like rail is making a comeback in the U.S. It's about time, folks!
Probably one of the best videos ive ever seen from a channel this small
The Metroliner is kind of funny to me. It was popular amongst riders, and the schedules were good - it was a good service, that was held back by bad rolling stock. A great example of how good rail service is absolutely craved in the United States and has been for decades, but the infrastructure and the equipment simply lag behind, because the government wants to do it on the cheap while giving far too much funding to highways. Nowadays, we have the equipment, we just don't have the infrastructure. But that's on the precipice of changing. The next 30 years are going to come to define the future of rail in America, and it's been looking pretty impressive lately. Hopefully the momentum is maintained.
"Hopefully the momentum is maintained"
Agreed.
You know, how. 11/5.
The two big ones now are the California HSR project and the start of the Brightline West project between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga. The Brightline West operation could extend to Los Angeles Union Station, but the cost of getting the right of way to expand the current Metrolink line to double track and installing overhead wiring could be almost as expensive to building from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas itself!
Once it's built and they have positive experience I bet it'll happen. If/When Brightline West is the first HSR in the US it'll definitely spark everyone else. It just needs to show people it's worth it.
I remember when I was a teen in 2008 in northern California I learned about the HSR project and was so hyped that I could just hop on a train and visit my family in the south. China announced their HSR project in the same year.
To say its been disappointing is an understatement lmao
They were too ambitious with 220 MPH top speed and 160 MPH average. Something like 180-200 MPH top and 120 MPH average would've been both more affordable and still comparable to HSR in Europe and Japan.
China's hsr is a sham. Just last week it had to run at 35km/h because the road nearby had a sinkhole. Do not look to China on how to do things right.
@@pootispiker2866 Are you special? It makes sense that out of precaution you slow down the speed. You must be American 🤣
@@Devilishlybenevolent Make one remark about China, you get super defensive about it. You don't even have to tell me who you are lmao
In 2008, China's Ministry of Railways announced planned to build 25,000 kilometers (16,000 miles) of high-speed railways with trains that could reach speeds of 350 kilometers per hour (220 miles per hour). As of November 30, 2023, China's high-speed rail (HSR) network was 43,700 kilometers long, which is 28.1% of the country's total railroad network. This makes China's HSR system the largest in the world, more than three times the length of the European Union's HSR network. The Beijing to Hong Kong High Speed Railway, which is 2,440 kilometers long, is the world's longest HSR route. Running at (347 km/h). China's first high-speed railway opened in 2008 between Beijing and Tianjin, connecting the two cities in about 30 minutes. The line was built to support the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and helped to accelerate regional development.
The Shenzhen Metro is AMAZING and moves over 2.2 billion people a year. Can't wait to go back. See video titled: *"This Chinese city converted Its subway stations into artworks".*
As of 2023, the Shanghai Maglev is the world's fastest commercially operated train with a top speed of 431 km/h (268 mph). The Maglev uses magnetic levitation (maglev) to travel on an elevated track, which provides a smooth, friction-free ride. The Maglev connects Shanghai's Pudong airport to Longyang Road station in the city center, making the 30.5 km (19.0 mi) trip in less than 7.5 minutes.
As of 2022, the number of high-speed carriages in operation nationwide in China was at 33,554.
In the first six months of 2024, the China national railway system operated an average of 10,256 passenger train services a day, 882 more than in the same period last year, representing growth of 9.4 percent.
@Devilishlybenevolent: You're right. The HSR northern CA project is just sad. Voters were promised that the California High-Speed Rail project would cost the state $33 billion and be completed by 2020. The cost has ballooned to $128 billion and counting, has not completed a single segment of the system and there is no expected completion date.
A few comments on Brightline West:
You mentioned that we don‘t know how long the individual cars of the Brightline Novos will be, and while that‘s true, Siemens does state that for the Novo in general, cars will have a length of 28.75 meters or just over 94 feet. This would make them among the longest passenger cars in the world and is a continuation of a trend that started with the ICE 4 units that entered service around 6 years ago. I assume they will keep the length the same for their US offering.
Then talking about stations on BLW: I find their placement extremely odd. They managed to put two stations perfectly around Victorville, whilst ignoring the actual city completely. If anyone wants to get to the train in Victorville their only choice is a lengthy drive which to me is a bad start, because then the incentive is there to just say “well, I’ll drive the rest too”. I also doubt Victorville would be a place where TOD would work so well. It seems like a pretty barren city and with the climate not exactly getting cooler, I wouldn’t wanna live in an actual desert dustbowl.
Lastly, grades and alignment: I was hoping that BLW would remove itself from the highway median in sections where the highway curves too much or too tightly for high-speed running, but I guess I was wrong. I live near what is probably Germany’s most prestigious ever rail project, the Cologne-Frankfurt HSL, which also parallels a highway for its entire length, but it isn’t as glued to it. It was built to engineering extremes in both gradients and radii, and only the ICE 3 and 4 series are permitted to run on it. It’s sometimes nicknamed “the rollercoaster” for its alignment. It shows very well how high-speed lines can share transport corridors with highways and that high-speed trains can handle pretty extreme terrain without a significant loss of speed (whole line is built for 300 kph running), but it also shows the limitations of paralleling highways, in that the trains often have massive bridges to cross valleys, because the gradients the highway has are impossible for the railway to match. I hope BLW doesn’t cheap out completely on their mountainous section and does build a few strategic cuts and tunnels to keep trains faster than road traffic at all times.
Really enjoy your essays, keep up the good work!
Anyone who understands the development aspects of Fortress/Brightline shouldn't find any of their station placements odd at all. What currently seems "barren" will become dense because of the station and Fortress can own all the cheap land around.
Also, at 100-119 MPH average speed, sticking with the highway ROW isn't bad at all and saves billions on tunnels and private ROW purchases.
I live in california and its nice to see someone talk the CHSR project with realistic optimism. Ive been to 2 of the 3 public viewing of the new trains Caltrain is getting. They are really nice inside them and i so want to ride them. i also hope that CHSR picks Siemens for their trains. I have always thought and said to people who complain about the price is once its built you wont care about the price. There is so many projects that were expensive but once they are built nobody cares about the cost. The idea of brightline and CHSR working together sounds great. Having trains going from SF to LV sounds so great and improve both services alot.
Also that little part about the crap ton of different transit agencys in SF i agree with. There is just too many. At least majority of them support Clipper cards so you just need one transit card for most of them.
they did pick siemens look in the newest update
Let's go! These look like great plans for the future.
I live in Germany and I can tell you that riding an InterCity Express train at 186 mph = 300 km/h is quite cool. You just see the landscape flying past you and the train seems completely unbothered with the high speed. In reality this means, you can travel the distance of 370 miles between Berlin an München in under 4 hours. Which is basically impossible to do in a car, unless you are up to drive a sustained 100+ mph for the whole trip, there are no construction zones and you specifically choose an early Sunday morning for your journey to not get stuck in traffic. The ICE train on the other hand manages to keep under 4 hours even on busy summer weekends with lots of passengers.
The biggest issue in Germany for new high speed rail lines is lack of space or NIMBYs. But Germany's population density is 10 times higher than the US' overall. So use those vast landscapes where no one lives anyway to build high speed tracks for express services between major cities in the US!
In Germany we also have a special form of NIMBYs which are small town mayors and village elders who only allow the high speed rail line through their territory if the InterCity Express services get a stop at their barn. Which obviously destroys the concept of an inter _city_ and especially an _express_ service. And the aforementioned travel time of under 4 hours would not be possible if stopping at every small town on the way.
Ohh and the Siemens Velaro trains are good. The fast ICE trains in Germany that go 300 km/h are all some kind of relatives of the Siemens Velaro. As you mentioned in the video, apart from the Velaro D for Deutschland (199 mph), there also is the Velaro E for España (217 mph) and the Velaro CN for China (up to 236 mph) for example. They are an established type of train and they are capable of the advertised speeds.
PS:
Normal commuter trains in Germany usually go 99 mph = 160 km/h. But there are a few instances where slightly faster trains are used for commuter trains especially in regions with newly built Category 1 high speed rail lines, like the following example (118 mph = 190 km/h):
ua-cam.com/video/bdDbO4eL6jI/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared&t=343
US should do both. Invest in dedicated high speed rail corridors to major cities/capitals and upgrade existing infrastructure to 125mph for regional rail to smaller cities to create a great rail network again like we had b4 the interstate highway system. On top of that, invest in low floor trams, subways in cities & true regional rail (not commuter rail) for inter suburban travel.
125 mph may be unrealistic for mixed traffic with low frequencies (2-6 rts). 90-11 1:22:30 0 mph would be a reasonable limit given needs for PTC and crossing circuit extension given curve cant for freight.
Yeah, this is first about mid range service, some high speed sleeper services could be at mid high, but only a well built maglev can do that as a day service and would have to be a sleeper maglev to run the cross continent route, but that would actually be competitive as a sleeper and would be the last thing developed. The first thing to do though is the city pairs and regions like Boston to Washington or the Desert Southwest, the Texas Triangle, the Deep South, the Midwest, the Cascades, and Via Rail mainline corridor. Maybe also San Antonio and Houston to Monterrey and maybe Mexico City.
Also, The Tōkkaido Shinkansen itself was over budget and took decades to build. Also, the original version of the North East Corridor took almost 90 years and several new technologies to build.
Love how you referred to this as "ramblings" twice in the beginning and continued to put out a well-informed, well-edited, well-produced movie-length video
Great stuff looking forward to more!
Resurgence in rail in the United States? It’s showtime my guys
Cry in stupid FRA long distance routes
My dad would always rant to me about the poor design of NE corridor segments. Now I'm the one ranting. If only dad were here to see some fixes finally come into place.
They can't even keep the wires up.
fun fact: the size of the country benefits high speed rail. longer distance = higher speed = less time to get to a specific city. This will remove a lot of traffic from Interstates.
I also believe that the airplane industries might actually benefit from it. without local flights being extremely common, they can better spend the money on trips to medium and long distance internal flights. from what information i gathered, short flights actually cost airplane corps a lot of money, so letting HSR take the burden would do wonders. Trains for short and medium distance, airplanes for long dsistance, interstate for short distance. on top of that, manufacturers might be forced to innovate to keep their planes in service, and make them comfortable.
Thanks for a long, in-detail video about this topic.
Been following since the beggining, you're soon to be one the best transit oriented UA-cam commentary channels out there!
Great video Steve. One sligght error. At 10:55, when you introduced Brightline West, you mention Rancho Cucamonga, in the Inland Empire Region, being west of L.A. Actually, it's east of L.A. :)
How did I screw that up... that's awkward of me...
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly ... 😀
You wanted to know about the NIMBYism in Texas for the Texas Central program. Most of the NIMBYism came about from the transplants in Arlington, Texas. Who are the formerly Orange County Republican's from Orange County, California. These people abandoned California after the state legislature in 1990 in Sacramento, mandated that the former Orange County Republican's invest in their own transportation issues. Instead, they moved to Arlington, Texas and gave votes to the Texas Republican party. Hence, Greg Abbotts super majority.
I'm actually glad that you seem more positive about areas wanting to invest in the two alternatives for high-speed rail. I live in California and I know that HSR has had significant problems of late, but if HSR can finish building the initial operating segment, hopefully that will show what HSR could be?
A way for cities to not have to redline districts, which was found to be discriminatory.
It’s always Republicans.
Republicans are Sith, especially OC and TX Rethugs. The only things those thugs want built are freeways, football stadiums and megachurches.
I was thinking the same thing, cause I know many in California say they wanna move to Texas...if they'll be happier let them go is what I think.
I agree once we get one line going (Brightline West will definitely help) there will be proof of concept for people to rally around.
I was thinking the same thing, cause I know many in California say they wanna move to Texas...if they'll be happier let them go is what I think.
I agree once we get one line going (Brightline West will definitely help) there will be proof of concept for people to rally around.
The point at 33:03 is important. I've ridden from Firenze to Roma and Italy won't be great without it. I had no idea it took that long.
The US needs "more rail" and "higher speed rail" more than it needs "high speed rail".
USA: 🥲
That you only have 1660 Subscribers is a Crime. Real great video with great infos and pictures.
HSR LETS GO BABY!
Where? Las Vegas?
@@tonyburzio4107 EVERYWHERE HSR 2030s 2040s 2050s 2060s LETS GO
This might be the most comprehensive video about American HSR, talking about the two (actually three but one doesn't really count) definitions, the various projects (planned or otherwise) as well as their gimmicks.
I think my favourite point is that there are much fewer HSL which are exclusively used by HST than some ought to make it to be. For example, it is common to state that the Shinkansen has no conventional trains but few mention that this is more the exception than then rule since Europe is much (even if it does make operation more difficult but it's also a matter of frequency), not to mention we (Europeans) also have first upgraded our tracks before building new ones when the Japanese did that right away (of course, they also were forced to build a new line given their standard gauge is too narrow to support higher speeds than 120 km/h IIRC).
Also Cascadia UHST, lol. I know that speed records are bound to be broken but over 400 km/h in regular passenger service is quite ambitious with steel-on-steel technology but also standard gauge.
At least in Europe, the standard length for a passenger rail carriage as well as locomotives has been around 25 m for more than half a century. This enables neat train lengths of pretty close to 100, 150, 200, 300 or 400 m, nowadays also achieved by combining multiple units (eg, two 6-car units with each being 150 m long for a combined length of 300 m).
The maximum length for passenger trains has been standardised to a bit more than 400 m. Having such a standard ensures that train length and platform length are matched throughout Europe. There are of course many smaller towns with shorter platforms but a standardisation for 200 and 300 m platforms also ensures that the same multiple unit trains fit on all platforms along a line.
Recently, train carriages have been lengthened a bit in some new projects, using 7 instead of 8 carriages to reach the standard 200 m length (or a combined 400 m with two such units). This allows for deleting one train coupling and thus length that cannot be used productively. The Velaro Novo follows that trend of reaching 200 m with seven carriages.
The problem is less platform length, often controlled by terminal platform lengths, than by standard door openings for enclosed platforms for climate protection.
35:09 Southwest doesn't fly to DFW (yet), they fly from Houston Hobby to Dallas Love. Southwest primarily flies to smaller airports where they are the dominant carrier especially in Texas where the Wright Ammendment is a thing until next year.
Correction: Southwest also has served Houston Bush Intercontinental Airport since 2020 but will be ceasing all flights to the airport on August 4th, 2024
True, though I largely just use the term DFW to refer to the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a whole, rather than just the airport. Probably should have made that clear.
Welcome back, Steve!
Excellent report.
Bring the PA Turnpike full circle- build PAHSR!
California needs to start construction on San Jose to the central valley asap, just that connection might do wonders for relieving the Bay Area housing market and uplifting the valley. They just need to spend the money, $1 billion a year won't do it
To spend the money, the state needs to have the money.
Which it currently doesn't.
Right now, the state of California is worried about keeping the lights on. Spending a ton on CAHSR is going to be secondary.
@@Geotpf California has a $32 billion annual transportation budget. They spend 2.8 percent of this on HSR. If this Is a state transportation priority it should be funding as such, not as an afterthought
@@travelsofmunch1476 "If this is a state transportation priority it should be funding (sic) as such". That's the point, it's not a priority. It's a vanity project that is not needed, and will never have the patronage to justify the obscene cost. Much better ways to spend that money, and it would be even better to not spend that money at all, given how heavily indebted California is, and with a tax base that's fragile.
@@Geotpf Prop 13 essentially gutted CA's tax base. Freezing property tax increases sounds fine, until you discover it also freezes new housing development (as new builds will have to pay a tax bill for a 5 mil property rather than a 500k property), leading to the current homelessness crisis CA is grappling with at the moment
*ARLINGTON HAS ALMOST POPULATION OF 400K AND IT HAS NO PUBLIC TRANSPORT?! HOW COULD IT EXIST?!?! I KNOW TOWN CALLED SENICA OF 20K (NO 200K, I REALLY MEAN 20K) AND IT HAS 4 BUS LINES! COME ON ARLINGTON, WHO WOULD EVEN WANNA LIVE THERE?!*
Republicans.
Stupid laws that allow it ban federal funds from large cities without public transportation
Perhaps because (maybe) Arlington is (partly) rural?
@@Neville60001 bro, Arlington has its own skyline. Senica has commie blocks at most. Besides that Senica's buses reach all the way to surrounding villages. I feel like Texas is not even a real place but just fictional dystopia.
@@Neville60001a city of 400k is not anywhere near rural. Suburban character in many parts, but most definitely not rural. It’s dominated by suburban sprawl, car dominated, and richer than the surrounding area
27:23 I actually worked on those, they were built in Salt Lake City, Utah.
WE need an extension to tampa from Orlando either from brightline or more Amtrak service because fighting I-4 traffic is insane and is only getting worse
So brightline
Also when it comes to the ALC-42E's in Diesel and Electric mode they will be capable of 125mph.
Also the MTA doesn't own entire section of the NEC from New Haven to New Rochelle. CDOT owns most of the line. The state of NY only owns like 8 miles. Which use to have a track speed of 90mph.
Also I love the way you end your videos. Great stuff. Im a Amtrak engineer and the corridor is something very special. We need more High Speed Rail.
The diesel ALC-42s can already do 125 mph. The issue with not reaching max speed is an infrastructure concern more than the train itself.
Yall put up with a loot of shit, especially the past few months. Been using trains so much the past year and I love it far more than flying ...even if taking Cap Limited to Chicago from DC too 17+ hours...still feel better by the end. (Not sure if I would have felt that if I had been stuck on poor 30 when it had that 6 hour delay out of Chicago last month)
i'm glad your pronounced Osaka correctly! One thing at about 10:45 you said Rancho Cucamonga was west of LA when it's in fact East of LA. Overall nice video, I watch a lot of train and city videos!
Awesome video. Just to give a little info on Metro North's role in the Northeast Corridor, I'm pretty sure they only own the portion of the tracks running from New Rochelle to the border between NY and CT. The Connecticut DOT owns the rest of the portion up to New Haven, with this disjunction (pun intended) contributing to Metro North's New Haven line being their worst in terms of delays, which in turn affects Amtrak Services along this route. Any grade separation plan would unfortunately require the two to cooperate, though here's hoping!
Yeah, that's always been a strange and strained relationship it seems, and I definitely want to talk about that when I go more in depth about the NEC in the future. It's definitely frustrating that an area that can very easily see massive schedule improvements for both parties through timetable coordination, grade separation of junctions (most obviously Shell Interlocking) and good maintenance renewal and repair falls apart just because of that lack of cooperation, but the potential is most certainly there for the taking, and sooner or later, the issue is gonna have to come to the fore between them. Hoping that's sooner for sure.
MORE HIGH SPEED RAIL IN USA! Ignore the stupid naysayers and haters!
Ugh! We need Texas Central for sure! I make that trip and it bugs the crap out of me that Southwest Airlines is one pushing propaganda out against it. They should be maybe joining in 🤷♂️
Corporations Lobbying Against HSR: "You can't defeat me!"
State Governments: "I know, but he can."
*Another Lobbying Corporation Busts Through the Wall*
Maglev military lobby
6:36 thank you this map pisses me off so much with its ignorance and poor planning. also my hatred for front range HSR
12:53 the train is on the beats 🎉🎉🎉
0:47 i like your vlog. You should try riding Whoosh in indonesia, the first high speed train in southeast asia with a speed of 350/KMH. There are still many more trains in indonesia that you can make your youtube video. greetings from indonesia, Keep spirit and keep healty😊
Perhaps for next time, but look into the Front Range Passenger Rail corridor - a proposed 177 mile route from Pueblo, CO to Fort Colins, CO with possible expansion to Trinidad (and eventually NM) to the south and Wyoming to the north.
I like the rail lines across the Long Island Sound, High Speed, Freight Rail, Commuter Rail & maybe commercial and private vehicles. A bridge and/or tunnel a the narrowest point of the Sound.
How many ferries cross the Long Island Sound every day????
That Chicago to St. Louis line would be perfect for Cardinals and Cubs fans... 😏
The frederick douglass tunnel is planned to serve marc and amtrak trains, marc is supposedly going to electrify its penn line fleet by the time it's done.
An interesting look at high speed rail in the USA. There is definitely lots of areas in the USA that could benefit from HSR travel. As you said in the conclusion; it's all in the will of the people and politicians.
Please make a video about CTrail lol
Never been so encouraged and so frustrated by with a rail service in my life
0:49 Finally, someone who doesn't butcher the pronunciation of "tokaido shinkansen"
Get the high-speed corridors in place first & running , and then you can increase the trains later with improvements...
God okay, I live in Portland Oregon
I would be so for 250 mph, Is it unrealistic? Yes. But is Cascadia also one of the most innovative regions in the entire world? Also yes.
It would be wildly difficult to get 250 consistent, but we are optimistic people up here, and I believe we could get it done!
Definitely pulling for you on that front! Hopefully that speed can be reached, since I know it's been done elsewhere.
Not as maglev
45:20 - In Arlington Texas, is the place named "Entertainment District", better known as "Six Flags"?
Imagine if we had never invested in our interstate system!! Imagine if we don’t invest in rail travel! Time to make this happen
29:40 This looks like the old Claymont station, but the new one was opened before Septa heritage units, of which one is seen here. You show clips of the new Claymont station before
That's because it is the old Claymont station! There's a public pathway that leads from the new station to the parking lot of the old station on it's way to the neighborhood behind it. The old station platform itself is chained off, but the parking lot isn't, and I found the corner of the lot to be a decent spot to get a good angle of the curve going through the station, though the fence behind it did get annoying.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly That’s sweet! I might consider going there
W video as always
Exciting, should be fun to see how things change in the next 10 yrs...i think it'll change our country.
As far as I know, the velaro novo is a modernized and modified version of the ice 4.
Want Acela to be high speed? Upgrade catenary add more track for local trains. Then add bypass line in LI. And bridge/tunnel
I am selfishly rooting for the first routing of the Illinois HSR plan. It’s closer to me than the other routes.
But I gotta admit that, while Bloomington-Normal is growing, Illinois should probably link up Chicago and U of I with faster service. My real answer is to build both routings
Excellent documentary! I’m currently subscribed to Northeast Maglev. Curious if you follow or know their status.
Not to nitpick, but...Rancho Cucamonga is EAST of Los Angeles, not West. The only think west of Los Angeles is the Pacific Ocean. And Rancho Cucamonga is actually an ideal spot for the western terminus, as it's close enough to L.A. to make a difference, but not so close as to cause a lot of problems with the crowded L.A. area. And as said in the video, there is already rail service from Union Station in L.A. to Rancho Cucamonga - Metrolink.
That being said - I would LOVE to see Brightline West completed in my lifetime, but...given the litigious nature of this state (California), I doubt it will be done while I am still alive.
Yeah, that was a mistake on my part, I knew it and didn't catch it until I uploaded. Awkward.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Well, we ALL do it at one time or another....I can't COUNT the number of times I've jumped willingly on the stupid train....
Brightline should however force Metrolink to upgrade and Electrify the San Bernardino line and Route into LA Union station
West of Los Angeles is Thousand Oaks and Oxnard. It's okay, natives make this mistake too because they think of "North" in relation to the signage on the 101, even though the 101 runs east/west in LA.
@@NozomuYume First of all - never use the roads to determine direction - use a compass. I've been living in this area since 1968 (except the 4 years in the Navy), and I never use just the roads.
The 101 heads north and just slightly west out of Los Angeles, then a more definite turn north west when it gets to the interchange of the 134/170 in North Hollywood. (the 134 heads east, and the 170 heads north).
Thousand Oaks can be called "west", if you happen to be looking at it from say, Woodland Hills, at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. This still part of the City of Los Angeles. Oxnard, any way you look at it, is still north west.
All this is related to the fact that the California coast is not straight north and south, but makes a curve south east at approximately Point Conception. It then starts to curve more south by eat until it arrives in San Diego and the U.S./Mexico border.
Here's a trivia question to stump friends: Which city is further west - Los Angeles of San Francisco? The answer is San Francisco, due to the curve in California's coast.
You have to talk about why it didn't materialise. It's due to state capture by the car industry
Im for all this...i.e. NYC to Orlando would be the greatest...Dude, our roads and bridges are falling apart..don't you think that has to be fixed first before we go with HSR?
I know very little about trains. I lament the number of tracks abandoned and removed in my part of the world (Ontario, Canada in the TransCanada Highway corridor) because they have increased traffic, wear and tear, and accidents on the highway since goods and people still have to get to all the same places!
The question I have to ask is how viable is HSR in areas with crazy temperature deltas between summer and winter??
We run from close to 40C (104F) to -40C (same in F)...
Doesn't this make steel rails a huge problem with expansion and contraction? My understanding is that HSR is way more sensitive to things like expansion joints?
That plus the issues that seem to occur with the pantographs during freezing rain or heavy snow...
I believe these issues would apply in your country too at least from the Northeast through the Midwest where the climate is anything BUT moderate.
41:33 - Brightline will replace SunRail?
no because Sunrail runs a different set of tracks west of it, though there was a plan to have a commuter line using Brightline tracks, though either brightline itself or a new agency
@TheRandCrews
SunRail has been running on the old conventional railroad [Csx/SCL] that Amtrak also is on? ... but Florida/I-4 has set aside land for passenger-rail ... Will /can Bright-line be using that I-4 median alongside SunRail? As long as Brightline stays off CSX ... right?
They need to expand the monorail to the future Bightline West Station. This will benefit both system.
Hey Steve... Please help me understand why Texas Central wants Shinkansen rolling stock? I thought Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston were an axis of engineering: jets! oil! Mission Control!?!? Please advise.
It would be great if any of those investments went towards a rolling stock manufacturer, but none of it has yet. In terms of passenger equipment, there is only one rolling stock manufacturer left in the entire country, and that's Brookville Equipment based in Brookville, Pennsylvania, and the only passenger rolling stock they make is trolleys and streetcars.
I would absolutely love it if venture capital firms or investors began to look towards backing either Brookville or new rolling stock ventures in the coming years to provide true domestic competition to the international firms that hold sway, but for the time being, they're the only game in town because American companies haven't invested in HSR equipment since Budd built the original Metroliners, and that was a saga of insanity that Budd kind of regretted until its collapse in the 1990s.
So, it's not just a matter of learning how to build and run high speed lines, it's a matter of learning to build high speed trains. I have little doubt that since Hitachi is pretty much guaranteed to be building the trains for Texas Central due to their partnership with JR Central, that the trains themselves will be built at a factory in Texas, but in the long run, there needs to be investment in equipment makers based in America for such an industry to be sustainable in the long term. Texas can be a great place for it, as are a lot of places frankly. It's little surprise that international companies have set up their rolling stock factories in places like California, North Carolina (both Siemens), New York (Alstom and Kawasaki) and even Utah (Stadler), but due to an overall lack of investment in domestic ventures, it's become a missed opportunity until someone takes a crack at it, it's just that someone needs to sense the opportunity and some investors need to be bought into the idea, and the opportunities can abound, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly thanks for the intel! I think your remark about trains vs lines is reversed. Today's HSR trainsets seem to be tinfoil tubes with 2x3 seating, power units under, a cockpit at each end, all joined up by powered bogies. That can't be hard to build from scratch in the USA or even modifying what Brookline does already. I am puzzled that you believe the USA knows how to run HSR lines. Acela/Avelia and Brightline share ROW with freight. The only two lines with grade-separated track for exclusive HSR aren't in service yet. Texas Central is smart to work with a rail system whose annual service delay is ONE MINUTE. They've certainly got the money to sustain the level of investment required to ensure consistent on-time, airline-beating performance. Maybe *that* is what Texas is buying: they want Mission Control again!
110 or 25, even up to 55, it’s still faster rail to me.
The way Amtrak railway cars rock is disturbing
❤❤❤
1. Siemens Velaro for Brightline will be widther than the German ice (30/50cm)
Soooo the B&P tunnels have a top speed of 30mph. And Union tunnels have a top speed of 45mph.
Yes which is why we are trying to replace the first and will likely have to save time elsewhere to make up for the second because I don't know where you could put a new tunnel without breaking the bank.
Is this the fastest train around the township?
Um it would be wonderful for those who travel between cities but I live in a city where we dont even have a bus service and only two cabs. Why? Because people will NOT give up their gas guzzling, air damaging cars. They only people who will use HSR is those who dont have cars. Or travel to cities outside of their state. Its a beautiful dream, but to be honest we need to focus more on making our cities more walker and bike rider friendly with stores and school within a 15 to 20 minute WALK from residential areas.
I have to ask: Has CAHSR ever figured out what to do about several cities along the route suing to get stops in their "fair cities"? The sheer number of additional stops being litigated will KILL the time from L.S. to San Francisco. It will make driving look time-saving, and the airlines will be having a field day.
From what I've seen, they pretty much have a lot of the stations for the network set in stone, but I definitely see the concerns there. The thing is though, there will be different services on the system, and they even published hypothetical timetables for both stopping services, limited stop trains and express trains, which is very common, and it's something that the Shinkansen, TGV and ICE systems do, with the intermediate stations essentially being four-tracked passing loops on the mostly double-track main line. It may hurt travel time in theory on such routes, but most travelers between LA and SF for instance would be taking the express trains, whereas people going to and from places like Kings/Tulare will be taking stopping services. And unlike the Northeast Regionals on the NEC, they won't run at different line speeds, so hold-ups won't be an issue.-
@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly Well, if they actually do it that way, then it'll work. Now ask me if the state government here in California is capable of doing this the right way....
@@antonbruce1241 They actually are, since that's the way the stations that they're building are designed. And operationally, the CAHSR service will be run by a division of Deutsche Bahn, so they at least made a decent choice of operator that actually knows how this stuff works.
For example the ICE from Amsterdam Centraal to Frankfurt am Main HBF runs in The Netherlands as a limited stop service while marked as ICE so it stops from Amsterdam Centraal not at any station between Amsterdam Centraa,Utrecht Centraal and Arnhem Centraal so as Amsterdam Amstel and Amsterdam Bijlmer Arena where the Intercity trains from Enkhuizen and Alkmaar and Schiphol Airport/Dordrecht to Maastricht and Heerlen and Venlo and the many stopping services stop and Driebergen Zeist, Veenendaal De Klomp and Ede Wageningen where the Intercity to Nijmegen stop and from Arnhem to Köln HBF the ICE stops also not at the other stations and after Köln HBF it goes to Frankfurt am Main HBFvia the Schnellfahrstrecke Köln-Rhein/Main and sometimes stops at Siegburg/Bonn and it stops at Frankfurt am Main Flughafen Fernbahnhof@@SteveGettingAroundPhilly
CAHSR has now basically defeated all the lawsuits levelled against it. Some are still finishing up some paperwork, but almost all of those lawsuits were essentially frivolous astroturf and have been either dismissed or defeated outright.
We are so back
awesome video, especially the statements at the end... for a couple of years, pretty much ever since I have started playing Train Sim World and my interest in trains has skyrocketed, I have been saying that if only US WILLED it, if the US put its "mind" to it on federal/nationwide level, it could build/create an even better passenger rail network than China... maybe not in length (communism has the "advantage" that they can p*ss at environment and property rights, plus they can just direct tons of people into the projects, thus making the construction super-fast; one thing though they DO well is that once they reached a standard in rolling stock and construction elements, they have started mass-producing those, speeding the construction even more), but in quality :) ... I mean, the US has proven time and time again, that if they put their minds to it, they can be the best in pretty much anything, so why not be the envy of the world in rail again?
Great great video and attempt at setting the record straight! But still too much Brightline bootlicking and too much anti-rail propaganda bashing of CAHSR. A lot of inaccuracies or even outright anti-rail propaganda have sadly made their way into this video. The video is not bad overall. It really isn't. But we as a community need to learn how to filter the propaganda "issues" from the real ones if we want this country to actually get good at building a ton of high speed rail quickly.
Here are a few inaccuracies,
1. There is only one HSR standard in the US: >125 mph. This is literally in the "Definitions" section of the relevant Federal law. Yes, that same law and the FRA allow investment of HSR-earmarked funds into 110 mph corridors, but with the understanding that they can one day be upgraded to at least 125 mph.
2. Brightline West is not Category 1 HSR. In fact, it kind of doesn't qualify by the international standard for HSR status at all. According to their own top speeds from the EIR documents, under 10% of the route will be at >=155mph HSR speeds. Everything else is single-tracked and under even 125 mph for the highway median sections. Yes, all the way. Google their EIR. The map is literally in the documents that they filed under penalty of perjury, and all that. No, they can't magically go faster than what they got permissions for via the EIR. That's not how government planning documents work.
3. The seats on the Brightline, VIA, and the Amtrak Siemens Venture trains are all the same. The anti-government part of the foamer community made up whole-cloth some magical fantom difference alongside a bunch of other idiotic anti-Amtrak conspiracies related to the Chargers and Ventures. Yes, the seats have different materials for the upholstery, but the padding and the seat design is the same "parts bin" design that Siemens uses everywhere. Small details are different (vinyl color, materials, handles, tray table shape, etc.), but the structure and padding are identical. Siemens is by far the most famously anti-custom rolling stock manufacturer in the world. They just don't do custom. Their clients have to beg them just to get slightly different color vinyl on those seats. And the fact that the seats are identical has been confirmed both by the people who rode all three Venture versions (myself included) and Siemens themselves. Oh, and the seats are basically identical to the Viaggo Comfort seats on Railjet as well. Like I said, Siemens doesn't do custom.
4. CAHSR did not end up with a bunch of mostly land acquisition delays because Caltrans is anti-rail. They are, just like any DOT on this continent (including those in Canada and Mexico), but they simply weren't running that show. There was a heavy anti-rail political campaign that as an explicit public goal wanted to kill the project with delays and resulting cost overruns. This is all public knowledge. The Republican politicians in California's Central Valley wanted to kill "Obama's train" and achieved a fair bit of success in engineering delays and cost overruns, nearly succeeding. And a few years ago when Newsom put the kibosh on those attempts by refusing to kill the project, they just moved the trolling campaign to Texas Central and killed that project off almost immediately.
5. The CAHSR costs per mile that everyone is circulating include both a ton of litigation costs and planning for future extensions. The actual cost per mile of the actual construction, design, and planning is less than half. IN very rough terms, so far CAHSR has about 90 miles of guideway completed for about $12 billion dollars under $10 billion of which is actual construction in the Central Valley (excluding Caltrain and LA Area projects). That puts the cost per mile at under $100 million. Yes, higher than in the lower cost countries, but perfectly on par with similar labor cost economies in Europe and Asia. Actually, that's pretty damned good for a first-in-the-nation type of project.
There's a ton more, but I just don't have the time to analyze everything. This is a complicated topic and there's a ton of literal propaganda swirling around these projects that tries to get them cancelled for political reasons.
The high speed lines in China are built to allow more freight on their legacy lines as they don’t have as much overall tracks as the USA
Should have your channel called "Train Nerd" or make a spinoff channel by that name.
55:09 online lol
To put it mildly, we had to wait until certain generations were no longer with us before this would ever take off.
Oh really?
i still remain skeptical, and there's no fault on mine
fking finally we get high speed
Regarding Brightline West, I have no idea how the Velaro Novo had any chance with that ugly front nose. And yes, I wanted them to go with the Avelia Liberty as that train is much better to look at.
High speed rail would be great, but just any decent passenger service would be an improvement.
If one goes by the UIC definition does not yet have HSR.
I really hope the North Atlantic Rail is built
'MERRRICCAAA
Disantis thinks rail travel should be a private entity's responsibility, but he just signed $970 billion of public funding for roadway improvements the next five years. Please someone explain that logic to me
46:51
i dont think $400 for 1st class tickets is that obscene. i suspect the mean ticket price on blw will be a lot less
You also ignored the SEHSR RALEIGH TO RiCHMOND TO DC
There were two reasons for that: one, I talked about it in my Corridor ID video, and two, given the proposed top speed of 110 miles per hour, it really doesn't qualify as high speed rail by the established metrics I'm using. Maybe they can get it to 125, but that is still not what they're planning for it as it stands. All of the effort there is getting the old CSX S-line reconnected and brought up to Class 6 standards for 110 mph operations, but for true HSR, even by UIC Catagory 2 standards means going further than they current are.
I don't think it will change anything. It is just there in the hope they can make some money: It is going to be prohibitively expensive.
Go birds
Lightning
Love your videos and I mostly agree with you but I have a few nites.
I think you're making a mistake with those private ventures especially as, like you said, you did this before and it was great but ended badly as passenger trains are not profitable and real estate driesnout in the end.
It's not that private companies have no place but giving public funds to private companies without any commitments from them is wrong. I'm talking on, at least, minimum service obligations, so they won't close upmshop when it's inconvenient, like Brightline did for 18 months during the pandemic while true oublic transport continued to serve the public. They should also be obligated to use the same systems as you worked hard to homologise the network and you don't want to find yourselves like Europe.
As for brightline west, and in general high speed definishion, top speed is not important if the it is nit sustained for the majority of the line. Most definishions disregard this but the US tax code regarding tax exemptions for private activity bonds (PAB) does define HSR as lne that can sustain speeds of at least 155 mph for the majority of the rout, which is what any definishion should include.
As for the cost of BLW, you cannot compare a high speed line built in the median of a highway where only a few segments will reach true high speeds thatbhas no special allignments, bridges and tunnels to allow that and will mostly be single track and does not go into city centers to projects that did all that.
Apart from all that I'm starting to think like one of the other commenters, maybe starting with HSR is not tje right way to go. It is importand and the US should invest in them but maybe start with ensuring cities have good local public transit networks? In the end most rides people take are the shorter ones where they live and the vast majority of passengers use loccal transit and not intercity. It will be a shame if someone jumps on the HSR to quickly get to a different city just to find out he has no way to get from the station to his destination in that city. I believe you shoud do both but this won't happen so maybe start with local and regional networks first.