Land of the free...So?

[quote name='Msut77']Over the long haul the time saved adds up, some high speed rail systems haul freight as well.[/QUOTE]

Ah, damn.

I thought I would be first to point out those CSX propaganda commercials about how freight trains would remove millions of trucks from our dilapidated highways.

Has anybody linked this page from those damn, dirty liberals?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintam...line-the-interstate-rail-defense-network/635/
 
[quote name='HowStern']Recoup the cost of the plane? What about the fuel? That is only going to go up in price. I'm not sure but it seems the airline industry isn't doing so hot.[/QUOTE]
Great, you want to add in the variables of employees, energy cost, engineers, and such go right ahead. All of these cause higher ticket prices, both for trains and planes. Sure oil is running out, but we've still got around 40 years of it left. If we we're to use alternative sources, like nuclear breeder plants, for electricity, we could use coal to make synthetic oil. (Which is actually what the Nazis used during the latter part of WW2.) Alternatively we could use Hydrogen to fuel planes, if needed.
California is estimating their 800 mile bullet train system to cost anywhere from $10 billion and then later $32 billion for maintenance and if they add extensions.
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Right now they are saying it is a 45 billion dollar project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/us/03train.html?_r=1
The country is roughly 3000 miles wide. NY to LA straight shot you are probably looking at a price tag of about $60 billion if you don't branch off. At Max possibly your $100 billion estimate isn't too far off.
But to be honest, being from Boston,I've seen the estimate of the big dig go from a couplemillion to much more.

The thing is you will see higher levels of ridership than regular trains and have money saved on fuel. And freight as has been mentioned. It will pay for itself a lot quicker than the Iraq war will.
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Even if everyone who goes from NYC to LA each year, (or the other way around) were to ride your train instead, you would have to charge much higher fares than air travel in order to recoup your initial investment. More people aren't just going to magically want to go from NYC to LA just because they can travel fast on a bullet train. Using the line for freight would add to the start-up cost significantly. (More tracks, trains, engineers, employees, etc.)
 
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[quote name='fullmetalfan720']Great, you want to add in the variables of employees, energy cost, engineers, and such go right ahead. All of these cause higher ticket prices, both for trains and planes. Sure oil is running out, but we've still got around 40 years of it left. If we we're to use alternative sources, like nuclear breeder plants, for electricity, we could use coal to make synthetic oil. (Which is actually what the Nazis used during the latter part of WW2.) Alternatively we could use Hydrogen to fuel planes, if needed.
Right now they are saying it is a 45 billion dollar project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/us/03train.html?_r=1
Even if everyone who goes from NYC to LA each year, (or the other way around) were to ride your train instead, you would have to charge much higher fares than air travel in order to recoup your initial investment. More people aren't just going to magically want to go from NYC to LA just because they can travel fast on a bullet train. Using the line for freight would add to the start-up cost significantly. (More tracks, trains, engineers, employees, etc.)[/QUOTE]

You wouldn't need to add tracks for freight. Currently we use the same tracks for passengers and freight. It could stay that way.

This is old technology. We could have implemented it years ago and had it almost paid off by now. Your brilliant alternative, however, is to wait 40 years for our oil to disappear so that we are forced to find a new experimental way to fuel planes, requiring us to build new planes, nuclear breeder plants and buy the land and pay labor costs to build said projects and use MORE fuel to get all the supplies for said projects to said projects construction sites? Really? That sounds way less expensive..
 
Well, the point in my OP was that we were too slow to adopt this technology. It's too late now. We should have already had it. The trains we use now are just about the same ones as a hundred years ago. Our fastest train, Acela, only hits speeds other countries were getting 40 years ago. But, no, we keep sucking at oil's tits, buying hummers and SUVs to drive our kids to soccer practice.
 
[quote name='HowStern']You wouldn't need to add tracks for freight. Currently we use the same tracks for passengers and freight. It could stay that way.[/quote]
See, but when you have freight, you need to accommodate different stops for the cargo.
This is old technology. We could have implemented it years ago and had it almost paid off by now. Your brilliant alternative, however, is to wait 40 years for our oil to disappear so that we are forced to find a new experimental way to fuel planes, requiring us to build new planes, nuclear breeder plants and buy the land and pay labor costs to build said projects and use MORE fuel to get all the supplies for said projects to said projects construction sites? Really? That sounds way less expensive..
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My plan is to create things that we NEED, not want. We don't NEED trillion dollar high speed trains all around America. What will we power them with? More coal and natural gas? That sounds exactly like what you don't want? Or will we try those alternatives (solar, wind, geothermal) that really don't work too well, and cost more than other sources of power? What we need in this country is a cheap type of energy. We already have that in nuclear power. We could power this entire country for billions of years from nuclear breeder reactors. This is also the cheapest type of energy. We don't need a train system that costs trillions that goes 2-3 times as fast as normal trains. If something needs to move fast across the country, we have planes that go faster than almost every bullet train. If we were to replace coal plants with nuclear breeder reactors, we could use that coal to make petrol. This would significantly extend our petrol reserves, until technology can progress enough to give us a better fuel. We don't need to spend trillions to get 150-200 mph trains, when we can just use standard trains that get to around 90 mph. You know, trains that actually run regularly in Japan only go to around 150-200 mph. Having those trains in America isn't going to pay for itself, and isn't going to revolutionize the country.
 
The point is we should have already had them. We are sort of past the point of no return now.

They run on a very small amount of energy to run at a little under 300mph BTW.(French TVGs can go almost 400mph but I don't think they run on electricity alone? I'll admit I'm no expert. This is almost as fast as an airplane I know though.). Powering them would be little problem if we conquer renewable energy.

How well wind farms work is debatable. So is the price:use ratio of solar power. But one thing I'm certain of is that putting up the amount of nuclear plants we'd need to replace gasoline as a primary energy source seems like a pretty risky idea. As much as I love STALKER: SoC and Fallout...
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']Right now is the perfect time to start multi-billion dollar projects that are tax-payer funded. Group them in with the rest. The more the merrier.[/QUOTE]

The only time thrust is correct is when he is trying to be fail.
 
[quote name='HowStern']Well, the point in my OP was that we were too slow to adopt this technology. It's too late now. We should have already had it. The trains we use now are just about the same ones as a hundred years ago. Our fastest train, Acela, only hits speeds other countries were getting 40 years ago. But, no, we keep sucking at oil's tits, buying hummers and SUVs to drive our kids to soccer practice.[/QUOTE]

Most likely our society won't be as carcentric as it is now in 30 some odd years.

National Geographic just had an article on what life would be like with the mass adoption of electric cars, great for getting around town and a little inconvenient for going really long distances like a cross country road trip.

High speed rail could fill that gap and the difference is roughly equivalent from the jump from propeller to jet planes.
 
Yeah fatherofcaitlyn pointed something out recently in another topic about how even though solar panels take about 25-30 years to see a return on, they last 80 years. So, there's 50 years of profit. We power the high speed rail with those and we tart savng from fuel costs.

It's weird some people oppose doing this BEFORE fuel goes up in price. Instead of waiting and forcing more families to buy oil or food.
 
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