High speed passenger rail is an outdated concept. Few people understand how labor intensive and insecure rail transport was and is. I can cite case after case of disgruntled rail employees and union sympathizers in the 1800s and early 1900s who wrecked trains and rail routes. In the sky, there is no easy access to a flying plane, and the average terrorist has to at least buy a ticket on his way to his heaven. On the ground, every inch of track is a potential weak point to terrorist threat.
Further, make no mistake, the claims of the high-speed rail folks are NOT aimed towards helping the average commuter. If you examine the various plans, they promote high speed transport along tourist corridors. The promoters have all the skills of lampreys homing in on their big fish, the over-funded government agencies and more gullible greenies, so that they can suck the money out of them. That is the real driving force of the high speed rail movement. Please don't fall for the hype of the promoters.
Passenger rail failed in the U.S. There were a number of factors involved in the demise, but the biggest was the effect of better roads and rubber tires. A lot of folks don't know that during the heyday of passenger rail, in many areas of the U.S. the roads were closed for the winter and spring mud seasons, and other passable roads were expensive turnpikes.
In the 1800s, people were literally hostage to the railroad timetables. If an area had two trains a day, a trip to the nearest city could often be a two or three day trip. That was a bad idea back then, and is totally impractical today.
During those Halcyon days of rail travel, many competing railroads actually scheduled trains to AVOID good interconnections. In one case in Essex Junction Vermont, an engineer was seen actively backing his train away from the station because he had mistakenly arrived in time for people to make connections with the competing line. I have cites if needed.
When good concrete was rediscovered in England, and Macadam figured out how to use a little bit of asphaltum to create a tarred road, the surface roads got a technological boost that made them a superior to the railroads for transporting people and goods.
Why did cities look at paved roads, rubber tires and autos with such favor? Automobiles and bicycles didn't coat towns with cinders like steam trains. Cleaning horse doo was costly, leaving it on the streets was not possible, since it was a health hazard, and the metal tires and horseshoes ground gravel and pebbles and paving stones into dust, which went everywhere. From 1900 to 1910, there was a revolution in transportation that was every bit a game changer as much as the introduction of the personal computer in the 1980s and subsequent interconnected communication of those computers. Both passenger rail and street sweepers became rarities, just as the typewriter and adding machines fell to the computer.
The railroad company executives were not stupid. A lot of folks who love rail don't know that when air travel was first commercialized, rail companies bought and owned passenger planes and were themselves moving their passengers to planes whenever practical. However, the government stepped in and declared it unfair competition, so any integrated rail/air system was squashed in the bud.
In short, railroads couldn't effectively compete for passengers against the superior systems of paved roads and airplanes, especially after WWII and the improved planes and beginnings of the interstate highway system. Given the changing technologies, most of the rail operators realized that their niche market and money was in freight anyway.
Those were the real days of the "great" railroading in the U.S. that people romanticize, primarily based on fantasy and reports from the few crack (and very expensive) trains like the 20th Century Limited.
It is true that rail passenger service worked in England, even while it was failing here. That is because, let's face it, England is densely populated and only about twice the size of Texas, with much of the population concentrated in the south of England. A compliant population, historically narrow roads unsuited for automobiles, and bad flying weather made railroads the preferred mode of transport there for many years.
Returning to the present day, another problem with rail, especially new rail lines, is that they form a barrier in both a physical and legal sense. Such barriers are not well tolerated by communities anymore, making any new construction for a comprehensive system expensive and problematic.
LA Times article on one high speed rail proposal
This is what high speed rail looks like:
Note the overhead wiring and required poles. Note the swath of protected embankment and trackage and imagine the cost of acquiring the property and disruption of any existing buildings and infrastructure along the right-of-way. Even "light" rail requires moving tons of equipment, whether one passenger is aboard or one hundred. Federal regulations developed over the years require strong frames to keep accidents from "telescoping" cars from the major impact forces involved in a wreck.
If you think the current highway situation is becoming intolerable, I agree with you. However, for passenger transportation, there are less expensive and better options than rail or even trolleys and busses.
The whole skyway concept was more or less abandoned when the various elevated railways went out of favor, due to noise, blocking of light from city streets, and materials cost. There is a whole new generation of technologies that make skyways technically FAR superior to rail for passengers, if only the high-speed-rail government teat-suckers can be pushed out of the way so that attention can be focused on these newer ideas.
What am I talking about? First, go to www.Shweeb.com and watch the video to see what one private company has been able to do with an elevated trackway and pedal power. Pretty neat stuff, and it looks like it might be fun, but it is obviously not for those in wheelchairs or a major transportation system.
Next, take a serious look at the skytran idea about 1/6th of the way down the page here:
http://www.news-world.us/pics/2010/04/14/urban-transportation-by-monorail/
(Don't get caught up in the maglev hooie and hype. Cost per mile of Maglev makes it a non-starter except in unique situations.)
Notice particularly how the Skytran system does NOT create a barrier or hazard to pedestrians and animals, is safe from most tampering, is not affected by snow or rain, can be made to be extremely quiet (enclosed wheels and propulsion, compared to the wheel noise of both roads and railroads) and, with modification, has some inherent flexibility. The changes I propose have been missing from ALL new transportation proposals...
1. allow people to own their own passenger capsules, and have them semi-permanently attach to company owned standardized tractive units. That eliminates the whole "Gross! Who used this car and what diseases did they have?" routine, as well as allowing customization of cargo and passenger carrying capabilities.
Retaining standardized tractive units owned by the guideway system operators allows for guideway instrumentation that would not allow defective units to even enter the guideway, removing 99.9% of delays from disabled vehicles or accidents. Anyone can put a clunker on a public road. On a guideway as I propose, high speed travel is SAFE and consistently high speed.
2. allow the capsules to contain batteries and have 12" wheels on the bottom, so that the capsules can be driven from the home to the overhead, attach to the overhead guideway then disengage at the destination for parking and short distance slow speed ground trips. That one change of design would make many people abandon their cars in favor of such a systematic approach to transportation.
As one example of how the modified personal pod might look for a commuter system examine the vehicle here: clever green vehicle
Now imagine this basic design, with a small skyhook to attach to the overhead monorail.
Again, the pod itself would be owned by the individual, along with the drive system for the ground. The skyhook and electrical motor and components would be owned by the skyway company and leased to the pod owners, so that all repair and maintenence would be within the complete control of the skyway company.
For people who could not afford a pod, basic rental units would be available, dispatched by an automated system.
On a rainy day, it is a lot more civilized to get into a vehicle at home in a garage, sit down, then get to the destination in the same chair, and walk out into a covered parking area. Driving, walking or biking to a train station, dealing with any baggage, having to stand and wait, then walk from the train car to a taxi or bike stand or rental place is both inefficient and a hassle, especially for people with disabilities.
In contrast, the overhead guideway system avoids your having to guide the car for most of a journey, eliminates any drunk driver crossing into your guideway and crashing into you, eliminates slowpoke drivers, and gives a nice view as a bonus.
To repeat, I love rail. I think it is even better than sliced bread for most freight operations. However, use of it for passengers is hopelessly outdated, and the tribulations endured by rail passengers border on embarrassing. Resurrecting passenger rail lines for an encore performance is an idea that is wasteful, silly, and doomed to failure. Even a cursory glance at the balance sheets of past passenger rail operations will show that it simply does not work in the U.S..
