re: China's bullet train that could go from NY to Chicago in 4.5 hours shows how behind US is

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YES it’s true. The Chinese do not manufacture their own jet engines. They cannot machine the parts. Pretty eye opening, eh? They have a cultural disease of some type that makes them incapable of innovation. They’re a nation of drone bees. They can stamp out bad copies of simple things, but they can’t do anything requiring precision well and they’re wholly incapable of coming up with anything on their own.

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I don't think it's a cultural disease, unless the culture changed. The Chinese used to be very Innovative they've given us tons and tons of inventions throughout history. I think this is a symptom of communism as the same pattern has been followed in every other communist Society throughout history

My wife was in the railroad industry for about ten years and heavily involves in trying to negotiate the shite show that is the new train system being installed on Oahu.

Now, that's a new train system with new, dedicated, tracks and it was still a frustrating shite show because ...

1) Money
2) Government bureacraucy.
3) International planning and engineering (Americans, Italians, Japanese and Australian) because of the component bid system (required by law).
4) International parts and service (see above but add China to that list for some of the electronics and rails)
5) State quota requirements for hiring unqualified locals for installation.
6) Negative press.

Now, that is for about 50 miles of track total that basically skirts H1 from Diamond Head to Pearl Harbor.

So imagine us trying to lay new track between major cities or across country and the shite show that would be in terms of cost, crossing state lines, eminent domain claims and laws, building new stations, crossing highways and backroads and setting up switch stations, by-passing speed laws through cities and towns and having switch stations that could handle the speed needs.

Imagine what would happen if that train hits an idiot drunk trying to cross a switch in the middle of the night ... because trains going 400 mph make a big mess when they go off the rails.

I mean it is just not going to happen above ground anytime soon and definitely not cross country.

Now, there has been some talk, for years, about running one down the East Coast from NYC to Miami. They even had a catchy name for it at one time which I cannot remember at the moment but it would be a straight line shot with branches at stations servicing cities west of the line ... but when they did a feasibility study on it back in the 90s they decided it was too populated and congested east of the Smokeys and Appalachians and too mountainous (expensive) to go through them ... not to mention the disruption to the national parks system and ecosystems trying to bring it either way.

So it's not going to happen in the U.S. anytime soon.

We're talking trillions of dollars before it ever starts jumping through the red tape hoops.

Why a train when you can just fly...

Bullet trains are a novelty

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Because if we ignore the economics for a moment and focus solely on passenger convenience and comfort, high speed trains are a vastly superior mode of passenger transportation for regional travel?

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They are? You think there aren't going to be security checks?

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two hours by plane


This seems like the best option. What am I missing?

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It's two hours in the air...they aren't factoring the 30 minutes on average you spend taxiing and the minimum 60 minutes you need to arrive in advance at the airport to deal with the worthless entity that is the TSA.

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Because if we ignore the economics for a moment and focus solely on passenger convenience and comfort, high speed trains are a vastly superior mode of passenger transportation for regional travel?

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But You don't get to ignore the economics.

The cost estimates for the high speed rail the wanted to build from LA to Vegas had the 1st 119 miles at 90 million a mile.

Even if it cost only 50 million a mile to go from Chicago to N.Y., call it 800 miles for easy math you're talking about 40 billion just for the line. By the time everything else gets added, BEFORE you consider how much grease you'll have to apply to politicians you're talking about over a half trillion to do it.

That's going to be some expensive tickets to pay for that.

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They are? You think there aren't going to be security checks?

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I can't speak to the future, but there aren't any to speak of now, unless you count a LEO walking past you with a drug dog. And my experience includes dozens of high speed rail trips in over a dozen countries on three continents, including leaving from Union Station in the bastion of personal liberty that is Washington, DC.

ETA: I haven't taken the Acela out of DC in several years, so if they have lost their minds in the time since, someone please let me know

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I'm a newby but behind what exactly ?

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Trains DUH...

This reminds me of someone starting a thread sort of about something similar...

Saying Japan has trains like this...



and the US has trains like this...



Idiot was comparing bullet passenger trains to freight trains...

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Read back a page of you'd like to include economics.

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Click an extra button....that's extra work man

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Because if we ignore the economics for a moment and focus solely on passenger convenience and comfort, high speed trains are a vastly superior mode of passenger transportation for regional travel?

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Are they though overall? I would have preferred a high speed train living in Knoxville before my wife moved down from Ohio, instead of driving for 7 (my hometown) or 9 (her hometown) hours each way. It would have been more convenient and the cost of one ticket is probably reasonable considering gas and wear and tear on a vehicle.

On the other hand as the travelers increase (spouse, kids, etc), the train travel’s convenience advantage would decrease and the cost disadvantage would increase.

So the convenience would be more related to another option, for the right circumstances, but I really don’t believe it would be worthwhile even if it was feasible.