Why the railroads we have are good enough

The United States does not need and cannot afford a coast-to-coast, border-to-border high-speed rail system.

“Warren Meyer makes the case against high speed rail, at Coyote Blog:

 "The US rail system is optimized for freight, vs. European and Japanese systems that are optimized for passengers. It is hard to do both well with the same network. The US situation is actually better, much better, for energy conservation.

“The average Amtrak passenger car apparently weighs about 65 tons (my guess is a high speed rail car weighs more). The capacity of a coach is 70-80 passengers, which at an average adult weight of 140 pounds yields a maximum passenger weight per car of 5.6 tons. This means that just 8% of the fuel in a passenger train is being used to move people, the rest goes into moving the train itself.

“Now consider a freight train. The typical car weight 25-30 tons empty and can carry between 70 and 120 tons of cargo. This means that 70-80% of the fuel in a freight train is being used to move the cargo.

“People who insist we have a national high speed rail network are a lot like anti-gun people, they misunderstand what little they know. Paying passengers largely abandoned passenger rail service sixty years ago, and it was unprofitable before then, outside the dedicated tracks serving the densely populated DC-Boston corridor with its twelve million passengers a year riding about 2,200 trains a day. Most "high speed rail" elsewhere amounts to glorified trolleys running from a city to suburban towns.

“We have a rail network configured for freight trains topping out at seventy miles an hour, so a high speed passenger system would have to be built from the ground up, including bridges, tunnels and separation from roads and highways. When contemplating this, remember, major destinations in Europe are only a few hundred miles apart. A straight line about 1,500 miles long gets you from London to Moscow. In the US it only gets you from Boston to mid-Kansas.

“We made our choice when government built the interstate highway system and municipal airports while the railroads financed themselves, paid taxes and adhered to punitive regulations and labor laws, all with government mandated rate schedules. DC came to its senses at the last minute and realized the railroads were indispensable, collapsing and irreplaceable. The almost supernatural efficiency of steel wheels on steel rails saved them.

“I've driven long distances and camped out by the tracks to witness the biggest free show on earth. I've ridden European high speed rail too. It's impressive, classy and rightly envied. Passengers get a serene, rock steady ride while the scenery goes by like it's coming out of a fire hose, as does the money to pay for it. And by the way, the 'eminent domain' to get the necessary straightaways is all but incontestable in Europe, we'd employ every attorney in the country for decades before a mile of track was laid.”

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