Why Can’t America have High-Speed Bullet Trains?

Metallicman ^ | 25MAY19 | Editorial staff

[vannrox]

Sadly that is also the reason why we have cities like Detroit, and hell-holes like LA and Baltimore.

The Constitution defines the role of government to be very limited. All these other "projects" that are "for the public good" are supposed to be at the State level. If the State cannot be able to improve (or at least) maintain the standard of living for it's citizens, the the State governments have failed.

You cite concerns about cost and pricing. This is a laughable argument. Look at all the money Obama threw away. look at all the money that is going on to wars all over the globe. hey bub! YOU are the one paying for this.

My argument is simple;

1. Government has as their very first duty to their citizens. If they are unable to do so, then they have FAILED, and a new government must be put in it's place.

2. You can compare governments all over the world and all over history. Once you can compare, you can see the good, and the bad in each one.

What the article says, and as I promote, is the idea that America is UNABLE to build HSR because it no longer has that ABILITY. Further, the crime, and corruption has reached a level that the American government barely functions at all.

I argue that instead of saying "nah, we don't need that, we don't want that" as justification and rationalization of our sloth and inability, we should say...

"You know what, we can do that. We can make that. We will build that, and we can do so quickly." But, you know, and I know that the government as it functions today does not have that ability.

[morphing libertarian]

how do you have cross country interstate Hwys, fights and trains at the state level only?

[DakotaGator]

One shudders to consider it!

[DakotaGator]

A telling and important point lost on the mass transitphiles.

[morphing libertarian]

example: LA where ridership is down because of homeless grime and feces on trains

[morphing libertarian]

does it seem that about half those lines are too short for high speed?

[Zhang Fei]

[A few reasons for this. For one, the US the is a very large country. And our population is spread out. Most people do not live in big cities. China is a large country too, but they have very high population density. So the train is useful to a high percentage of the population. In the US, a cross-country train would have dozens of stops and wouldnt be close enough to impact enough people.]

---

China’s population density is just over half of Germany’s. It doesn’t have a high population density. China has high speed rail because of massive subsidies. The problem in China isn’t ghost cities, which are purchased by private investors. It’s massive white elephants the government has spent money on. And one of those white elephants is its high speed rail system. The Party, in effect, is wasting large amounts of money building unnecessary infrastructure with high operating costs in the same way as Japan did during its boom period. Except Japan had drawn level with the US, per capita output-wise, when it embarked on its white elephant spree. China’s output per capita is now ~1/7 of the US and the white elephants are already everywhere.

[catnipman]

“As well as Russia, and China”

russia and china don’t count: they’re dictatorships that can allocate resources however they want, regardless of whether it makes economic sense, and according to this article, Australia has only thought about building bullet trains, but never actually built anything that mattered:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Australia

the original posted article is the usual leftist propaganda and lies about high-speed rail ...

[catnipman]

oh, and here’s a great article about the impending economic disaster in China due to high-speed rail debt:

https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/how-chinas-railways-are-leading-to-high-speed-debt/88791

is that what you’d like to see happen in the U.S.?

[Ronniesque]

You must have missed the transporter accident in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” >:-)

[vannrox]

Yes that is a good article.

I don’t want anything bad to happen to the USA. Which is my point, and why I am so very frustrated by all the rah-rah ignorance. If you are driving a POS clunker, you don’t pretend that it is a Bentley do you?

America has some real to goodness problems.

The article is pointing out that the time has come, in America, that the level of corruption has reach a peak inefficiency. It is at a point where large capital projects are no longer possible in the USA. The government is that inefficient.

I don’t know what is going to happen in the future. I do not know.

What I do know is that America has a very serious spending problem, and it needs to be resolved soon. I argue that the money wasted on 8 wars could have been used to implement HSR all over the USA by now. But we didn’t do that. We threw them away... burned them in really third-world nations.

Meanwhile, here is China. They are not involved in massive wars all over the world. They are not giving money to third-world dictators. Instead, they are using that money domestically. One of the things that they are doing is the HSR. And it IS IMPRESSIVE.

Hey! In the big picture you can listen or not. Do or not. Your life is up to you. I’m just telling youse guys that America has a short... a very short... breathing room with Trump, and then the entire downward cycle will restart in all of it’s Obama glory.

[CJ Wolf]

What we need is high speed canals.

[Wuli]

here’s why:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3752371/posts

NO high speed rail in the world exists as a financially successful private enterprise. All of them are subsidized and must be subsidized. When the states that have done this go bankrupt, they will all be like the Concorde airliner.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

ROFL: https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/how-chinas-railways-are-leading-to-high-speed-debt/88791

On FR this morning. Confirms what I said about how the Chinese Communists have built high speed rail.

There may be a few places in the world where high speed rail makes economic sense. But apparently it’s not in China and it cetlrtainly is not in the US.

I admit that the government at most levels in the US is becoming Third-World-ineffective. But that is a result of lack of will and lack of citizenship here. Progressives for the last hundred years have been leading the US into helpless dependency, where citizenship is a bad word.

But the lack of high speed rail, built with tax money stolen at gunpoint from citizens is not, I submit, evidence of that.

[Dutch Boy]

You touched on things I hadn’t even thought about. The right of way to lay the track is bound to deprive many of their property rights.

I like trains. I have ridden on trains on 3 continents. I just don’t think the concept of a high speed train as they talk about will every be a good idea. If they every started with a route that went from a highly populated area to a vacation destination like Vegas, that might work. You could zip in and out easily. No need for a car once you are at the Vegas destination. That concept is at least rational.

On the other other hand, a high speed train in my area would be a complete boondoggle. Yet, the local democrats have been trying to get a high speed train for over a decade.

[chaosagent]

My wife and I just took two HSR trips in Europe in the last two weeks during a month-long vacation over there.

The Thalys HSR from Amsterdam Central to Paris Nord, and the Eurostar HSR from Paris to London through the Chunnel.

The Thalys was the nicest and fastest, and the cheapest since we booked several months in advance at only €35 each.

Though it stops 4 times along the way,

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
Rotterdam Central Station
Antwerp Central Station
Brussel Midi Station

it still hit speeds of over 311 km/h (193+ mph) along the longer sections. This speed is what their display showed, and was doubled-checked with my phone’s GPS Speedometer app.

Very smooth, with a lot of the trip in trenches and tunnels.

The Eurostar was a little rougher, with more side to side swaying, and not as fast, especially since it’s speed restricted in the Chunnel.

Very convenient, and considering security/check-in, etc., probably much faster than flying. The only problem for us was that all these train stations are HUGE, and from the time our driver let us off, we walked over two miles until we were standing where our car would stop.

On both trains we were assigned a car and a seat, and through bad luck, or enemy action, we were always that the far end of the train, and these are long trains.

And apparently, they don’t believe in any kind of luggage carts, or porters, because there were none to be found.

So here we are dragging two large rolling suitcases and two smaller carry-on size rollers also. Then we had to drag them up the steps onto the train. But since we were pretty much blocking the door, everyone pitched in to get us onboard.

We were warned both in printed signs and onboard announcements to keep our small carry-ons with us in the over-seat bins due to ‘luggage thieves’.

All in all, a nice experience, and we would do it again.

[trisham]

Agreed.

[Rurudyne]

Another One Rides the Bus, Wierd Al

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tZkouut-9RQ

[Rurudyne]

Oh, I don’t know, seems like getting groped by strange men might help ticket sales where San Francisco is involved....