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posted by martyb on Saturday April 25 2015, @11:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the mach-0.49 dept.

Just days after setting a world speed record of 581 km/h, a Japan Railways Group maglev train set a new speed record of 603 km/h (375 mph):

In terms of actual travel, it will be some time before the actual speeds achieved this week translate into real train journeys. The first commercial maglev trains will run between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027, and will likely run at 500KPH [sic], taking 40 minutes to connect the two cities.

Until then Japanese passengers will have to make do with the existing 320KPH bullet trains that take twice as long.

Those Stateside may also have reason to celebrate: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to push the train technology in Washington DC later this month, proposing a high-speed link between America's capital and New York City.

Were that to happen it would reduce current travel time from about four hours to under an hour.

Some question the necessity of newer, faster trains:

One argument against Japan's plan to install new high-speed routes is the country's declining population. Bloomberg reported that the nation's population may fall to 117 million by 2027, down 10 million from the current population. By 2060, the population could be as few as 80 million according to current projections by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. The country simply does not have the demand, said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp. in Tokyo.

"[High-speed transportation is] good for growing, developing countries, but not for Japan that's decreasing in population," Mr. Merner told Bloomberg. "It's mis-allocation of resources. Demand for bullet trains will be limited."

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday April 26 2015, @12:40AM

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday April 26 2015, @12:40AM (#175205) Journal

    Ignoring, for the moment the argument about fast trains being something only needed by growing populations, (an argument I can't really fathom), I have to say I'd be perfectly fine with Japan's trains, or Germany's coming to North America.

    Its a tragedy the extent to which we allowed train travel wither in this country, all to the benefit of Airlines, only to have the Airline experience turn into security theater with delays exceeding the travel time.

    Still, a bullet train from NY to DC seems something of a waste, or at best catering to those with too much power already. Why does anyone need that route more than NY to Chicago or Chicago to Atlanta or LA? (Yeah, I know all the conspiracy theories: Big Corporations need to haul trainloads of money to bribe Senators.)

    I'd also like to know the energy expenditure required for a mag-lev from DC to LA compared to air travel for the same number of people.

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:03AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:03AM (#175209) Journal

      If Hyperloop Technologies [wikipedia.org] pans out, maglev trains may not be able to compete on cost.

      Here's an estimate of $191 million per kilometer [pbs.org] of maglev track compared to $24 million per kilometer for traditional high-speed rail.

      Since U.S. high speed rail always seems to be 2-3 decades away, there's a lot of time to prove the concept [popsci.com].

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      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:28AM

        by frojack (1554) on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:28AM (#175213) Journal

        But if Hyperloop goes freight, it will never serve any passengers. Freight never complains. Freight is what killed passenger trains.

        Also, people probably won't want to be spam-in-a-can(/a>. [wikipedia.org]
        They want to look out a window, and at least see where they are, and have an opportunity to take a pee.

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        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:53AM

          by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:53AM (#175242) Homepage

          "Spam in a can" is already an excellent description of today's air travel experience. Unless you've got a window seat, you're not going to see diddlysquat outside the plane -- and lots of those with window seats pull the blinds anyway. Turbulence and loud noise are par for the course -- and, depending on the weather, you may well be stuck in your seat the entire time.

          If high-speed rail (of whatever form) is cheap enough, it can be slower and / or less pleasant than air travel and still win. Or, fiddle those variable around. If it's faster than planes, it can be more expensive and / or less pleasant. If it's luxurious enough, it can be slower and / or more expensive.

          Most likely, it'll be at least almost as fast if not faster (especially considering a different security theatre setup), about as uncomfortable, and much cheaper.

          b&

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          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:09AM

            by frojack (1554) on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:09AM (#175250) Journal

            Agreed, fast rail would win over air, at least for short-to-medium distance. Never having seen a bullet train, I don't know if they have food service, or if you have to remain seated.

            The Spam in a can reference was about the infinite loop (pneumatic tube> idea.

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            • (Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:08AM

              by bob_super (1357) on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:08AM (#175289)

              In my experience, you can run around the whole train at 200mph and buy no-so-good food.

              In Europe, anything below 600 miles has proven to be a sweet spot for HS rail, especially if the stations are downtown. Going to an airport, through security, then back into town at the end, usually requires the same 3 1/2 hours. A 300-mile trip becomes a no-brainer choice.
              Of course, if you're talking about LA, you'll need a car and another 2 hours if your final destination is more than 10 miles from the station.

              • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:04PM

                by isostatic (365) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:04PM (#175380) Journal

                But in LA the same applies to LAX.

                However I take issue with your sweet spot. There's high speed rail from London to Paris and Brussels. Many of my collegues still fly because it's easier to taxi 30 minutes to heathrow than 60 to St Pancras, and there's a ridiculous secirity check on eurostar anyway. You need to arrive at eat grow 40 minutes before your flight, so time to takeoff for the average person in Amersham or somewhere is the se for heathrow as for St Pancras. You'll be in a cab en route to your destination in Paris before the eurostar passes Calais.

                A couple of years ago I phoned a collegue after a trip to Brussels. We'd both left the office at the same time. He was in a massive queue getting off the train in London, I was sat on my sofa at home in manchester. That was the last time he got the train.

                • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:54PM

                  by TheRaven (270) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:54PM (#175396) Journal

                  There's high speed rail from London to Paris and Brussels. Many of my collegues still fly because it's easier to taxi 30 minutes to heathrow than 60 to St Pancras, and there's a ridiculous secirity check on eurostar anyway.

                  I find this very hard to believe, for Paris in particular. The security check on the Eurostar is very quick (laptops in bags, no limit on liquids, keep shoes on, just stick your bag in the x-ray machine and walk through the metal detector) and I've managed to catch the Eurostar a couple of times turning up at St Pancras 30 minutes before departure. I generally allow 45-60, but for a flight I'd want a minimum of 2 hours to feel comfortable. At the far end, the Eurostar gets you into the middle of Paris, whereas flights get you to Charles De Gaul, which is about an hour's train ride outside. On the flight, you have to take a tiny bag, or check your bag and wait for baggage reclaim, on the Eurostar you can take large bags with you and pick them up from the luggage rack as you get off.

                  If you're coming from outside London and can get a train to Kings Cross, it's very convenient. Coming from Cambridge, it's 45 minutes on the train into London, 45 minutes waiting, 2 hours on the train into Paris, and then you're usually a few stops on the metro from your destination. Brussels is the same. Getting to Stansted is more convenient (30 minutes on the train), but then you need to be there a good 2 hours before departure, but Heathrow is a good hour on the tube from Kings Cross. If you come into Paddington, St Pancras is about 10-20 minutes away on the tube. Heathrow is about the same distance on the Heathrow Express (although they run less frequently, so it can be closer to 40 if the trains don't line up correctly). That's ignoring the cost though. It's a lot more expensive to take the Heathrow Express.

                  --
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                  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 27 2015, @05:45AM

                    by isostatic (365) on Monday April 27 2015, @05:45AM (#175596) Journal

                    So it depends entirely on where you're coming from and going to. Some places are better served by airports, some by trains.

                    Eurostar is good if you're carte Blanche, you get a 25 minute bonus as checking shuts at t-10 rather than t-35. Otherwise ts just a matter of which is closer.

                    You (for some inexplicable reason), turn up 2 hours before a flight. This morning I'm flying easyjet manchester to Berlin. I arrived at the airport 0610, and at the gate at 0623. Boarding closes at 0630, and I expect to be in a taxi in Berlin at 0900UK. 660 miles.

                    This is on easyjet, and I'm regretting Turing up so early.

                    I fly mancheater to london, as its
                    Quicker
                    More comfortable
                    Often cheaper (was always cheaper when Vs were running the route)

                    Speed: airlines win by a long way. Time on london is similar (40 minutes from EUS and lhr), time at home is similar (8 mins airport plus 10 for security, so 0630 departure for 0700 liftoff, vs 15 for the train plus 5 minutes to get a ticket, so 0640 departure for 0700 liftoff)

                    Comfort: a quiet comfy waiting room if there's a delay vs standing on a Concourse. On board its simialr, but the plane is under half the time as the train.

                    Baggage: normally everyrhing I take fits in hand baggage - two weeks out East earlier this month, a 19" computer, a smaller alix one, a couple of small routers, half a dozen cables etc.

                    If I'm taking a lot of stuff (11 boxes to TLV is my personal record, although a friend just took 27 to Italy), the plane carries it all without a problem, and perhaps an extra 40 minutes on the trip for a large number of boxes, 25 for a single case.

                    But that's because my route is from near man airport to Ealing. If I lived in the centre of stockport or wilmslow and worked near euston it might be better to get the train. Same goes in Europe. I did travel Brussels to Paris by train last year, because I was going from near the station to near the station. I flew back from orly to the UK though, and was on board at the same time as a collegue who'd gone to eurostar.

                    Perhaps the U.S. is different. I've only take two internal us floghts, hardly any queues at either.

                    • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday April 27 2015, @08:33AM

                      by TheRaven (270) on Monday April 27 2015, @08:33AM (#175620) Journal

                      You (for some inexplicable reason), turn up 2 hours before a flight. This morning I'm flying easyjet manchester to Berlin. I arrived at the airport 0610, and at the gate at 0623. Boarding closes at 0630, and I expect to be in a taxi in Berlin at 0900UK. 660 miles.

                      For a fairly good reason: I've had one-hour delays in traffic trying to get to the airport, and I've had delays of over an hour in check-in queues before. All of my colleagues who fly regularly can tell similar stories. Now that I've been flying frequently, the check-in queues are less of an issue as I can skip them in the priority lane. Most of the time it's 10-20 minutes between arrival and clearing security, but it has been a lot longer occasionally.

                      I've also found that if there's a problem with your flight (weather-related delays are pretty common when flying to/from the US. Not as common within the EU, though the heavy winds two years ago delayed all flights by at least a couple of hours) then being there earlier gives you more options (a couple of times I've ended up being put on a slightly earlier - and much more expensive - flight with a different airline, at the airline's expense when it looked like the first flight would be delayed enough that I'd miss the connection and ended up arriving 2-3 hours earlier than expected).

                      Most of the people I know who fly regularly aim to arrive either 2 or 3 hours before departure, depending on their level of paranoia. If you're checking a bag, then you must be at the head of the check-in line one hour before departure with most airlines, so 2 hours doesn't leave very much slack.

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                      • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:26AM

                        by isostatic (365) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:26AM (#175975) Journal

                        Well I live 40 minutes walk from the airport, so traffic has never been a problem. I have had one hour delays in a taxi to the station before though - I don't turn up an hour early for my train just in case though. I've had 20 minute queues to buy tickets too. Everything you ascribe to flying, with the exception of security, applies equally to trains - especially long distance ones like TGV, ICE, Eurostar.

                        I fly regularly, and there's no way I'm wasting an extra 100 hours a year turning up an extra hour before takeoff. Checking a bag (again, why?), means turning up at my local airport about T-40. The idiots that turn up there at 8AM for the 11AM flight (rather than the 9AM flight) can block the queues - BA are very bad with the priority lane - but a quick word with someone and you get whisked to the front of the queue.

                        I'm in Berlin at the moment, 5 minute walk from Freidrichstrasse station. it's 8AM, if I wanted to go to say Frankfurt main station, 300 miles, it would take 10 minutes to get to the high speed station, 10 minutes wait for the next train, then 4h12 to Frankfurt on ICE, arriving 1230ish.

                        If instead I jumped in the taxi waiting outside, it would take 18 minutes to Tegal, arriving 0830, plenty of time (at Tegal) to get the 0915 to Frankfurt, arriving 1030, so at airport station at 1030 and at Frankfurt high speed station before 1100.

                        If you didn't like the idea of an excessive 45 minutes at Tegal (where security is dedicated to the flight, so it won't leave while you're in the queue), there's a 0945 flight too that gets you to Frankfurt at 1130, still an hour before the train.

                        This is from city centre to city centre, in Germany, which isn't exactly a backwater when it comes to high speed trains, for a journey of 270 miles as the crow flies.

                        For Paris to Frankfurt, operated by the flagship TGV, 290 miles. I don't do Paris much, but lets assume leaving from the Eiffel tower, heading to frankfurt station.

                        Google says
                        8:24 AM–12:58 PM
                        (Walk, RER, Metro, Train from l'Est at 0910)

                        Google says currently (rush hour), it's 34m to CDG, 28 to ORY.

                        So 0824, arrive airport 0900, ready to board the 1000 AF1618, arriving FRA at 11:25, so in central Frankfurt at 1200, an hour faster than the TGV. And that's the fastest TGV on that route. If you're sat there at 0900 at l'Est it would still be faster to fly (arr CDG 0930, 1040 LH1029, arr FRA 11:55, in town at 1230, half an hour before the TGV gets there.

                        These are proper Euro train routes, of 300 miles, with the challenge built to favour the train based on departure time and location, and the OP claimed

                        In Europe, anything below 600 miles has proven to be a sweet spot for HS rail,

                        I disagree, for typical 300 mile journeys the plane is still faster.

                        • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:59PM

                          by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:59PM (#176038) Journal

                          I have had one hour delays in a taxi to the station before though - I don't turn up an hour early for my train just in case though.

                          The difference is, if you miss a train, there's usually another one along to the same destination within an hour and you can usually get on it at no (or a very small) cost. For flights, there often either isn't another one the same day, or there's a large rebooking fee.

                          Checking a bag (again, why?),

                          Because you're going for more than a couple of days and have more luggage than will fit in overhead bins?

                          means turning up at my local airport about T-40.

                          Which airline? Most of them that I've used require checked baggage to be handed in one hour before departure.

                          --
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                          • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:28PM

                            by isostatic (365) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:28PM (#176265) Journal

                            I went to Singapore and Sydney earlier this month, 12 days. I took a small laptop bag containing 2 laptops, 2 power cables, a couple of network cables, USB/serial cable, phone charger, 2 aus-uk power adaptors, some bose headphones, pens, etc, and a larger bag - 56cm x 45cm x 25cm - containing
                            * clothes for 13 days
                            * toothpaste/brush/razor/small travel toiletries just in case
                            * An alix PC (http://www.pcengines.ch/alix3d3.htm)
                            * A Steatite PC (http://www.steatite-embedded.co.uk/industrial-1u-pc-with-core-i7-haswell-cpu-230mm-deep.html)
                            * More network cables
                            * IEC power cable
                            * a small mikrtoik 951n and power
                            * 25 cage nuts, 25 cage screws

                            But if you pack heavily fine, BA bag drop at Manchester closes at T-30, so arriving at T-35 is fine. At Heathrow T5 I believe it's T-45 that it closes. KLM in europe is 40 minutes. Norweigan 45 minutes.

                            In any case arriving more than an hour before checkin seems extreme, even on budget airlines.

                            When I do check stuff in, its far too much to take on the train in any case. For instance taking 2x36KG Supermicro servers from London to Manchester.

                            As for taking a later train - flexible train tickets, Berlin to Frankfurt is €246 on train, €250 on plane. Planes go every hour.

          • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday April 26 2015, @04:55PM

            by isostatic (365) on Sunday April 26 2015, @04:55PM (#175377) Journal

            I flew back from Sydney last week, I had a nice quiet suite for the first leg, brief glass of champagne before take off, snoozed a couple of times, played some cities: skyline, and the 8 hours were over pretty quick. Then had a window/aisle bed for the overnight leg, then a window seat with more legroom than my car for the final hop over the North sea.

            Tomorrows 90 minute flight to Berlin will be
            Taxi 0600
            Airpott 0610
            Secirity cleared 0615
            At gate 0620
            Boarding 0625

            I'll then read my book with just as much room as I have on the train to London, except this is quicker, cheaper, and easier.

            I've then got a week off and a week in the UK before a flying dormitory back to Singapore. Pre flight dinner and drink, slag get up to hate, step on board, coat taken, watch a top gear (still got a backlog), then out to sleep for a few hours.

            I don't recognise this "sardine" environment. This year, Secirity takes 5 minutes, at MAN, HEL, SIN, SYD, FRA, TXL. Even LAX was only 10 minutes, PHL was 2. RIO was poor, I'll give you that. Perhaps the key is to avoid the Western Hemisphere? I've waited 5 minutes at SEA before, but that was the Sunday afternoon after thanksgiving.

      • (Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:59AM

        by K_benzoate (5036) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:59AM (#175281)

        Hyperloop is a security nightmare. If someone gets a destructive device onboard you can imagine the chaos. You're in a partial vacuum, so an explosion would be especially destabilizing for the entire infrastructure. So you'd have to get security right, which we can't even do for airplanes in the real world. Even if you could, now the whole experience is as invasive and delayed as air travel, negating most of the benefits of trains.

        So many good ideas become unworkable when you have to account for humans actively trying to sabotage them. And the shit-stirrers of humanity enjoy a natural advantage of pushing on an open door; it's easier to ruin things than to create them. Starting fires is easier than putting them out.

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        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday April 27 2015, @03:54PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Monday April 27 2015, @03:54PM (#175754) Journal

          Hyperloop is a security nightmare. If someone gets a destructive device onboard you can imagine the chaos. You're in a partial vacuum, so an explosion would be especially destabilizing for the entire infrastructure. So you'd have to get security right, which we can't even do for airplanes in the real world. Even if you could, now the whole experience is as invasive and delayed as air travel, negating most of the benefits of trains.

          On an aircraft you're in a pressurized tube *and* you're a few thousand feet in the air...

          A bomb on a Hyperloop would certainly do some damage to the infrastructure...but it would probably be a lot safer for the passengers.

      • (Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday April 27 2015, @07:29AM

        by mojo chan (266) on Monday April 27 2015, @07:29AM (#175607)

        The difference is that the Japanese have working maglev technology now (which is projected to hit 900km/h within a couple of decades of starting - they always ramp up the speed slowly so they can concentrate on keeping it safe) and hyperloops are not even at the prototype proving stage yet. Building one is going to take decades.

        There is always something better just around the corner. If you are always waiting for new, theoretical technologies you will never get any.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @01:38AM (#175214)

      ... the argument about fast trains being something only needed by growing populations, ...

      Maybe the Japanese think it will work the other way -- shorter time on the train, more time at home to make babies!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:35AM (#175234)

        How will that fix the problem of Japanese men preferring to have sexual intercourse with pillows and dolls, rather than real women?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:02AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:02AM (#175245)

          It's the women that control the childbirth. If they aren't getting knocked up or turkey bastered, they aren't trying to have kids.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:23AM (#175229)

      The reason America doesn't have trains like this is because too much goddamn time and effort is wasted on situations like the Michael Brown incident. Let's face it, he was a criminal who robbed a grocery store, attacked the cashier, disrupted traffic by walking down the middle of a goddamn street, and then violently attacked a police officer. For somebody who clearly was up to no good, America and its media sure put a lot of focus on a situation that really didn't matter. All of the resources put toward this Michael Brown nonsense should have been diverted to improving America's rail transit system. That would have brought real benefit.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:13AM (#175224)

    Why can't Obama bring us fast trains like this?

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:20AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:20AM (#175228) Journal

      http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/07/us/delays-persist-for-us-high-speed-rail.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]

      While Republican opposition and community protests have slowed the projects here, transportation policy experts and members of both parties also place blame for the failures on missteps by the Obama administration — which in July asked Congress for nearly $10 billion more for high-speed initiatives.

      Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, all led by Republican governors, canceled high-speed rail projects and returned federal funds after deeming the projects too expensive and unnecessary.

      Mr. LaHood said California seemed the most likely candidate for success with high-speed rail, even though plans for a 520-mile train route between Los Angeles and San Francisco have been mired in controversy.

      Despite strong backing from Gov. Jerry Brown, a court ruling had tied up state bond funding for the $68 billion project. An appeals court on July 31 threw out that ruling, which had been based on a lawsuit. But opponents are still increasing calls to kill the project, and polls show waning public support for it.

      Still, California has begun construction of the tracks and put out bids for a vendor to build the trains. And the new rail project will get an infusion of funds from the state’s cap-and-trade program, which requires business to pay for excess pollution.

      http://time.com/3100248/high-speed-rail-barack-obama/ [time.com]

      First of all, while Congress has appropriated $10.5 billion (not $11 billion) for high-speed rail, only $2.4 billion (definitely not $11 billion) of it has been spent to date, much of it on planning, design and other pre-construction work. The big construction spending has just started, and will continue through September 2017. Yet the Times and other critics are judging the program as if it had already blown through all its cash. The new meme on the right is that Obama has poured $11 billion into high-speed rail with nothing to show for it. In fact, less than one-fourth of the money has gone out the door. Just because funds have been appropriated and even “obligated” does not mean they’ve been spent, much less “poured.”

      So where did the Administration send the money? The big winners in the initial state-by-state competition were Florida and California, which had ambitious plans for new bullet trains. But after Rick Scott, a Tea Party Republican, was elected governor of Florida in 2010, he killed the Sunshine State’s Tampa-to-Orlando-to-Miami train and sent $2.4 billion back to Washington. That meant the far more daunting and less shovel-ready San Francisco-to-Los Angeles line would be America’s only new bullet-train project. After years of legal and political warfare, California is just now preparing to start laying track in the Central Valley.

      The rest of the high-speed money is going to lower-speed projects where Amtrak trains share tracks with lumbering freight trains. But that doesn’t mean they’re bad projects. “They’re not as sexy, and maybe they don’t look like much, but they’re providing tangible benefits,” Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo said in an interview. Bridge and tunnel repairs, projects to upgrade and straighten tracks, sidings and double-tracking to help passenger trains pass freight cars, and other incremental improvements can all make rail travel more attractive.

      And it’s happening. By 2017, the program will reduce trip times from Chicago to St. Louis by nearly an hour through upgrades that will increase top speeds from 79 to 110 miles per hour; Chicago to Detroit will get a similar boost. The Department of Transportation says it has already sliced off a half-hour between Springfield, Mass., and St. Albans, Vt., while completing projects to reduce delays around San Jose, San Diego, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City. It has extended Amtrak service for the first time to Brunswick, Maine, anchoring a thriving downtown revitalization program, and it’s bringing trains to the Illinois towns of Geneseo and Moline for the first time since 1978. It has renovated stations in St. Paul, Minn., and Portland, Ore, and it’s expanding service between Raleigh and Charlotte, where ridership has nearly tripled since 2005.

      Once Republicans took over the House, Congress stopped appropriating money for high-speed rail. Period. There was never any chance that bullet trains would be whizzing all over America by now, but the reason there’s no realistic prospect of that happening anytime soon has nothing to do with executive incompetence and everything to do with politics. And while I love the New York Times—even when it publishes ludicrous essays slagging my hometown—its validation of the “mostly nowhere” nonsense will help make sure America’s passenger rail system remains a global joke.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:28AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:28AM (#175233)

        Instead of blaming the Republicans, maybe you should just admit that Obama failed in this case.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:07AM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:07AM (#175247) Journal

          What is Obama supposed to do, claim the land in the name of D.C. and lay down the tracks himself?

          The Republicans decided to snub the cash. Maybe that was a good decision. But it doesn't get new trains deployed.

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    • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:01AM

      by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:01AM (#176010) Journal

      Why can't Obama bring us fast trains like this?

      Where is the authority to build such trains delegated to the US federal government? Said government was brought into existence by a charter which is a list of delegated powers given to it ultimately by and from the authority of a single individual human voter.

      The job of the US federal government is to secure the unalienable rights of human individuals; it is not allowed to be your nanny or sugar-daddy.