George Harris
Engineer
Compared to what?
750 million dollar Sunset
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jis
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I think a blanket statement about rail of this nature is not sustainable upon analysis. If it is restricted to high speed passenger rail, I think the statement becomes much more sustainable.
mfastx
Service Attendant
Sorry, should have been more specific. This country is so backwards when it comes to passenger rail, compared with other developed nations.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Like Mexico, Canada, and Brazil?
mfastx
Service Attendant
LOL seriously? Most, if not all, of Europe, and East Asia have way more developed passenger rail systems than the US. BTW, Brazil is getting high speed rail also, probably before any more US lines are built.
Are you really trying to say that most developed nations don't have better passenger rail systems than the US? Why did you even post that? We'll be lucky to get ANY new high speed rail running in this country, especially if Republicans take control of congress.
G
George Harris
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I'd wait until the dirt starts moving and the concrete starts getting poured before counting Brazil in the High Speed country list. The US does not have a patent on making big plans that come to nothing.
There is a lot more to East Asia than South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China. Also, the HSR in China is simply an extension of a significant railroad building operation that has been going on in China for the last 20 years or so, and their system is still very small compared to the population and size of country. They are very good at bragging on themselves, and we are very good at swallowing what they say without analysis.
Europe: Yes, maybe. Don't forget, they are taxed through the nose so this stuff can happen.
Funny, how no one has mentioned the huge volume of pasengers and passenger trains that operate in India, either.
had8ley
Engineer
Are there any plans in the oven for HSR in Dubai that you know of? They have done everything else, including those tall buildings, just thought it might be HSR time.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Europe? Sure. China? Sure. But to suggest that the U.S. is in last place among what you term "developed" nations, in which I would include Brazil (no significant inter-city rail of any kind currently operated), Mexico (All real rail transportation- tourist trains don't count!- dissolved a decade ago), and Canada (A skeletal system even more skeletal than Amtrak is). Developed does not mean wealthy, it means having a functioning technical and industrial base- and all of them do. Amtrak, combined with our various regional services, are superior to any of them.
Sure, we're behind. But not behind everybody. Sweeping statements like that make the stating person sound like a bloody fool, irrespective of how close to reality they may be.
In California, Chicago, the Pacific Northwest, and the BosWash megalopolis, we have functional corridor transportation systems, complete with supporting regional rail and intra-city public transit. That is more than ANY of the other countries on that list have. Canada might be argued as having a corridor between the areas surrounding Montreal and Toronto, but a half dozen round trips a day between two of the biggest cities in that country does not to me a functioning transit system make.
Think of it this way: Canada has 6 round trips between Toronto and Montreal each day. We have half that... between Savannah and New York, a comparable distance to Montreal-Halifax... which Canada can't even serve every day. We have seven between New York and Richmond. Dozens between New York and Washington.
I advocate for better rail service in this country. I give my time and energy to it, I read statements into the public record, and rally for increasing the number of members of the coalition I work with. I am the first person to tell you we need more trains. But I am the last to tell you we don't have a fairly decent rail system already.
China can do better than us? Or course China can do better than us. During the thirty some-odd years we have been eating at our industrial base, destroying our own economy, and generally being a bunch of children bickering amongst ourselves... China has turned themselves from a backward country into the worlds industrial powerhouse. Sure they make screw-ups. But we make so much effort not to ever screw up or step on our NIMBY neighbors toes, that we never get anywhere. They know where they are going- forward. We sit around debating not only which direction is forward, but whether we really want to be there.
We're not the back end of the world. Its just that Chinese happen to be the vanguard. And India isn't too far behind. We just don't have the confidence in our selves to recognize we aren't the best. 7
mfastx
Service Attendant
I agree with most of your post, but this sentence depends on what your definition of "fairly decent" is. I would catagorize our naitonal rail system as "okay," but I don't know about fairly decent. If we, as a country, are having so much trouble increasing a rail line serving many major cities to a daily service, we have a LOT of work to do. We have excellent rail service along the NEC, as good as any other country IMO. But if the majority of the country is served by trains that don't even own the tracks they ride on, it's not goint to be a very reliable, or good, service.
For example, Houston to New Orleans should not be a nine hour train trip. That is ridiculous. Yes, I am overly critical of our rail system, but it's because I CARE. Our rail system will never improve if people think it's already good enough.
BTW, I never said that the US was "last" place. I simply stated that the US is behind MOST developed nations in terms of our rail system. I believe that is a fair assesment.
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