Backers of high-speed rail growing more optimistic

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ^ | Sunday, October 09, 2005 | Rich Exner

[Cobra64]

Yup. I wish I could go back to Swissland. What was interesting was that the Germans and the Swiss were not too conversent. Their dialects were confusing to both. I actually started to rewind of my twelve years of French and di some interpretive work. And I'm just a "dopey" American. BTW, I HATE the French. I learned to hate the French when Charles DeGaulle told Dean Rusk (sec for LBJ) to get all Americans out of France. Rusk told Chuckie DeGaulle to dig up 55,000 American soldiers' graves that died on French soil.

I could talk European politics for weeks.

Between my wife and I, we have worked in over 30 European countries. And we share our war/love/hate/ stories.

"Swissland" was the BEST.

[festus]

Imagine any private company in the world with a negative 50 percent profit margin!!

Better yet imagine the company then having congress tax the citizens and transfer the money to the company so they could be profitable. Queue the "evil greedy corporation" moonbat rant now.

[John Locke]

Thanks, I was about to make much the same point. I'm a great fan of rail travel, having done a lot of it in Europe and elsewhere (the "elsewhere" including Egypt - better, faster, and cleaner than Amtrak).

But the problem with the passenger train in the US is: what do you do when you get there? You need the car that you left in the parking lot. Assuming the train station has one, and that you don't mind paying a parking fee bigger than the train fare.

So you hire a car? Quick - how many train stations have a rental counter, and how many have a parking lot big enough to hold the rental cars. And now you're paying a car rental fee that again is more than the train fare.

That's the issue: public transport has to be a continuous web, otherwise the incentive is gone. And intercity passenger rail is the last piece that should be built, after the intra-city buses, jitneys, light rail, whatever.

If you want to make a start on fixing the US's absurd transit system, start by getting freight off the roads.

[babyface00]

If you want to make a start on fixing the US's absurd transit system, start by getting freight off the roads.

I couldn't agree more.

Freight is an immensely simpler prospect to deal with than passengers.

Maybe its time to consider a separate freight delivery system that is on a smaller scale (which I presume would be easier to implement).

I'm thinking like some fraction of a semi-trailer (1/4, 1/5...) as a standard size, and an inter-city delivery system that could move those standard containers at very high speed.

At the right scale, such a rail system could fit in the median of major interstates that already exist between cities, and could be partially buried in a concrete ditch or run through an above-ground concrete tube so as to be covered for weather-resistance in areas that see snow and to maintain safety to/from nearby interstate traffic.

That leaves trucks and trains to do what they do best, and takes traffic off the interstates for passenger vehicles.

Such a system could be used by USPS, UPS, Fedex and DHL, as well as trucking companies to augment their infrastructure, much like they already use airports.

[John Locke]

I'm thinking like some fraction of a semi-trailer (1/4, 1/5...) as a standard size, and an inter-city delivery system that could move those standard containers at very high speed.

Good thinking. Europe has been doing just that for 20 years, and it works. Half-size container from truck to rail to truck. For bulk goods, you're done. For consumer goods, the truck delivers to a "distripark" from which the retailers pick up their share in vans.

There's a plan to extend this entire system across the full width of Eurasia. Details here.