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France’s new high-speed train design has Americans asking: Why can’t we have that? (grist.org)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Is it because you can’t have high speed rail in the 1800’s? I’ll bet it’s because you can’t have high speed rail in the 1800’s.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Canadian here, also asking why can’t we have this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

American here. We know exactly why we can't have this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No prior experience in building and operating high speed rail.
Track standards must be much higher.
Track must be completely secure from people and animals, and geology. This means high fences and shallow cuttings set far back from the running lines.
The line can only be crossed by bridges or tunnels. No level crossings.
Long distances pose issues in crew turnaround.
Track must be as straight and flat as possible. North America has space, but also has geography.
Reliable catenary power supply.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

Especially considering all of your major cities are in a straight line.

[+] [email protected] -10 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I'd imagine it's because the US is 18x bigger than France.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

If you compare the US to Europe as a whole, there isn't a whole lot of difference. Europe also has many different countries with far more autonomy than US states, yet somehow they are all connected with a far better rail system than the US.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

So it's an even better use case for high-speed rail, is what you're saying.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

America is the richest country on earth and has the third largest population. They can have high speed rail.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Maybe in metropolitan areas, but your high speed rail isn't going to be very high speed if it has to stop at 3 dozen small towns between two metropolitan areas.

Again, the US is huge. Take Texas for example, it can take upwards of 16 hours to drive from one side to another.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Enough of this bogus argument. It's incredibly dumb. Why? Because rail doesn't have to serve every podunk, desert town in west Texas (even though a railroad is why they exist in the first place!) to be useful. The Amtrak Acela route runs from one tiny hamlet called Washington, D.C., to a ghost town called Boston, stopping in between at some backwater nobody's ever heard of called New York. Why isn't that a high-speed rail line?

Or, as Ray pointed out in one of his City Nerd videos, the Great Lakes region is about the same size as Spain, and has more people living in it. Spain has a built-out HSR network. Why don't we? There's plenty of demand. Amtrak added the Borealis train last year because the Empire Builder was overbooked, and it immediately exceeded ridership projections.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Do you not understand how high-speed rail systems work, and how it tiers down from major hubs, to regional, to local, and how train transfers work? All of the trains in Japan aren’t Shinkansens. This is like suggesting that you should have point-to-point flights for literally every city - an obviously absurd and wasteful idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

It's true, the U.S is too large for cars. Everyone needs to have their own personal airplane and use it for all trips since the country is so large, this is the only solution that can adequately serve all trips and hence must be the exclusive option