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Eurostar lets travelers zip between cities in about as much time as it would take to get to and from the airports themselves. Eurostar maxes out at about 186 mph.
Sick of flying? It's well known in transportation circles that for distances of around 250 miles -- that's the distance from Dallas to Houston, or New York to Boston -- high-speed trains are the best option. From city center to city center, they're faster, more reliable and more environmentally friendly than either flying or driving. That's why European and Asian countries are frantically laying high-speed tracks to connect their population centers.
Slideshow: See the world's fastest rail pairs
We'll probably never see those kinds of trains in the United States. Although there are plenty of routes that have been identified as viable for high-speed rail such as Washington-New York-Boston, San Diego-Los Angeles-San Francisco, Dallas-Houston-Austin and Detroit-Chicago-St. Louis, short-term thinking and incompetence seem to rule the day here in the U.S.
Building high-speed train routes requires a long-term, multi-decade commitment which our current private industry funding structure, with its focus on short-term results, can't provide. And it looks like our government, while offering massive subsidies to keep private airlines afloat, is incompetent to build an alternative: see California's over-budget railway project between Bakersfield and Merced as an example. In theory, that's a high-speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco; in practice, it's a money hole in the middle of the state.
So let's travel and see how it's done right. These seven train routes have the fastest maximum speeds in the world. They all go somewhere you'd want to go. They're almost all faster than flying, if you count traveling to and from airports and going through security.
China
Route: Beijing-Shanghai
Distance & Speed: 809 miles in 4 hours, 48 minutes
Price: $88
China has laid a massive amount of high-speed rail recently, perhaps more than the country needs; the projects have been criticized as make-work to keep the country's economy steaming ahead. Chinese high-speed trains originally ran at up to 217 mph, but they were recently slowed to the international standard of 186 mph for safety reasons. The new Beijing-Shanghai line connects China's two most compelling cities with a brief stop in Nanjing.
Italy
Route: Milan-Florence
Distance & Speed: 189 miles in 1 hour, 45 minutes
Price: $72.88
Italy has laid several lines at the 186 mph standard; our pick connects two cities famous for art and culture. Italy's other "Eurostar" lines (not to be confused with the Channel Tunnel train, which we'll get to later) run from Turin to Naples, with a slower section between Florence and Rome. The classy "Frecciarosa" trains used on the highest-speed routes have a Ferrari-red nose.
Taiwan
Route: Taipei-Kaohsiung
Distance & Speed: 214 miles in 1 hour, 36 minutes
Price: $49.54
The relatively small island of Taiwan is bisected by a very fast train line, zipping along at the standard 186 mph maximum speed. The train makes half a dozen major cities easy day trips from Taipei.
Germany
Route: Cologne-Frankfurt
Distance & Speed: 117 miles in 1 hour, 2 minutes
Price: $60.51
Germany's fastest train shows why those 186 mph speeds are just maximum speeds. Trains make stops, so the overall speed is a bit slower -- in this case, about 110 miles per hour. Rather than just connecting Cologne with the Frankfurt airport, think of this line as part of Germany's impressive network; it's part of an easy trip to get from the Frankfurt airport to anywhere in eastern Germany, the Netherlands or France.
England to France
Route: London to Paris
Distance & Speed: 307 miles in 2 hours, 15 minutes
Price: $60
Eurostar completely transformed travel between the U.K., France and Belgium. London's airports tend to be either big and complex (Heathrow and Gatwick) or far out of town (Luton and Stansted); ditto for Paris'. Running through a tunnel Napoleon dreamed of, Eurostar lets travelers zip between the cities in about as much time as it would take to get to and from the airports themselves. Eurostar, like many other high-speed trains, maxes out at about 186 mph.
Spain
Route: Madrid-Barcelona
Distance & Speed: 384 miles in 2 hours, 30 minutes
Price: Highly variable pricing
I love this train. One of the fastest in the world at 192 mph, the Madrid-Barcelona run makes two tremendously compelling cities easy day trips from each other. On one end: Gaudi! On the other: the Prado! The new high-speed train also lets you avoid the annoying trip to and from Barcelona's airport, which is poorly connected by public transit to the rest of Barcelona.
Japan
Route: Tokyo-Aomori
Distance & Speed: 443 miles in 3 hours, 10 minutes
Price: $216.12
Another member of the 190 mph club, the Tohoku Shinkansen heads north from Tokyo through Sendai to Aomori, site of a gigantic summer carnival and where you can change trains for Sapporo. There isn't all that much to see in Aomori if you aren't there for the carnival, but it's a good place to break your journey and stretch your legs on the way to the northern island of Hokkaido.
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Leave a Comment:
Our ignoramus elected officials here in the US are not nearly smart enough to lead this country into the future. They are some of the stupidest people to ever walk on the ground. They are really to stupid to comprehend their own ignorance and people who elected them fall into the same catagory.
The author of this article talks out his ass without looking at the facts when he talks about high speed rail in the US. High speed rail in the US would be largely uneconomical. This is due to both the construction costs and the extensive regulatory hurdles to building it. The environmental impact studies that must be done just to get a route approved take many years and tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. This is because the environmentalists love filing lawsuits over everything. Then you have the issue of the local communities. They do not want the train running through their backyards. Even when a route does get approved the train will be forced to slow down to a crawl going through populated areas by the safety nuts and those pushing for noise abatement, particularly for nighttime runs. The much touted Acela that is capable of running at 150+ mph barely does 80 because of all the speed restrictions for safety, noise reduction, etc. imposed by regulations and the communities it passes through. The cost of the proposed line from LA to San Francisco is $98 billion. The fare that would be required to have building this line make sense is so high that no one would ever use it. For example, if you look to pay back the construction costs in 50 years (a long time) with 200,000 round trips a month (an extremely generous estimate) the fare would need to be $817 just to pay back the construction. You would need to add the operational costs of running the train on top of that. When you can fly round trip between LA and SF for about $120, it is doubtful anyone would use the train. To get the train fare down to the current airfare level, keeping the 50 year construction payback, you would need 1,361,111 riders a month (close to 45,000 riders a day, 365 days a year) and again that does not include the number of riders you would need to cover the actual operating costs, just the construction costs. To put it in perspective, this would work out to the equivalent of between 280 and 365 fully loaded round trip flights per day, (using 737-800, A320, or A319 which are most common on this route).
By ignoramus elected officials don't you mean ignoramus Republican/Tea Party politicians ? The Obama administration keeps trying to push high speed rail development but backward and corrupt GOP politicians keep blocking that and anything else that might remotely benefit the country.
JS in SD,
Include the privatization our socialist interstate highway system an then we'll talk supply and demand ; )
JS in SD,
While I agree with most part of your comments about over-regulation, the part about "When you can fly round trip between LA and SF for about $120" is the part that I would argue with.
There's no telling that airfares between LAX-SFO would remain that low as it is today. It can actually go down to $50 roundtrip if fuel prices fall (wishful thinking) or it can go up to $300 roundtrip if fuel prices rise. Cost of airfares have direct relation to fuel prices and said fuel prices are extremely volatile these days so you can't just assume that the plane ticket between LAX-SFO will remain constant at $120.
@JS in SD, the biggest problem with high-speed rail in the USA is outside of the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, DC, high-speed rail is useless due to the enormous expense of building such rail lines in the first place. Indeed, the expansion of the Shinkansen system in Japan nearly bankrupted that country....
We are falling behind by the day. Our roads and bridges need fixin, our hospitals and schools need fixin, our population needs educating, we need more trained and schooled workers, crime and corruption is out of hand, drugs and druggies are everywhere, we have a false economy, we spend more money in other countries than we spend here, we have way to many lawyers, bankers and preachers, we build way to many damn churches and not enough medical ficilities, we need rail and road spurs around big cities, the list goes on and the elected officials don't have a clue.
Wonder if we would have any hope of having such HS rails built in US in our life time. What a pity!
What the stupidity of CA HS rail is that they tried to build a rail going to nowhere first, rather than start building HS rail links between heaving traffic cities. Stupid government officials cause the cost overrun. HS rail can only live and make profitable when it's linking major cities where the traffic is heavy.
Building new rail lines when the city is already developed costs more money.
What are you going to do to people who already have homes or businesses there? Tell them to shut up, pack their belongings and leave because bulldozers are coming to tear them down? That strategy may work in Communist China but it doesn't work here in the US.
The major issue in the US is that the routes proposed, they want to USE EXISTING RAIL LINES instead of building new lines dedicated to just high speed rail. The Chicago to Detroit idea would run right by my house, and guess what, the lines they want to use already are used by Amtrak and several freight lines already(a train comes through my town every 15 minutes on average), plus the junction is already maxed out beyond capacity and would need substantial upgrades to handle high speed rail. If they are going to build a reliable HSR network in the US, they should build new rail lines that are dedicated to just HSR and nothing else. Look at the so called HSR on the east coast, it can get up to 150MPH, but rarely exceeds 80 MPH because its SHARING RAIL LINES.
If the US is serious about HSR, follow the interstate highway's that already crosses the country, and use the medians that most of those interstates have.
A good idea, but the difficult thing about HSR is that it needs to follow a straight path for most of its track. You're talking about several hundred tons of steel, six to eight rail cars long, running at 190 mph. The curves and turns on the Interstate are built ideal for cars traveling at 60 mph; they were not built with the idea that the curves and turns could handle 190 mph trains.
Every dark cloud has a silver lining. Our lack of progress on conventional High-Speed Rail (HSR) allows us to be open to a truly 21st-century technology. This is using individually-targeted vehicles on a nationwide Magnetic-Levitation (MagLev) network to achieve door-to-door speeds that rival those of jetliners for trips of up to 2,500 miles.
The current HSR projects use long trains with steel wheels on steel rails, a 200-year-old technology. Long trains are used because, in the old days, it was cheaper and safer to have fewer, but bigger, vehicles on the rails. However, long trains have to stop at intermediate points, which slows them down. Also, if the train isn't coming from where you're coming from, or going where you're going to, you have to make arrangements for other transportation.
With automated control, we could have individual vehicles that go pretty much from a point within ten miles of where you're starting, to a point within ten miles of where you're going to. It can take you and your vehicle at 300 mph (not 300kph=186mph) on the MagLev Rail Network -- you have to drive the first and last ten miles yourself, on regular roads. I call this "LeviCar".
The MagLev Rail Network would also a freight service that can handle anything from a 4-foot cube to a 53-foot truck container. It would have its own depots on the Rail Network, and would help support the passenger service. I call this "RoboTrail", and you can read about LeviCar and RoboTrail at http://www.LeviCar.com. Together, they constitute an On-Demand High-Speed Rail (OD-HSR) system.
The superconducting MagLev technology was developed, in the good-old U.S. of A., by Danby and Powell about 40 years ago. If we use it, we'll have a transportation system that will be the envy of the world -- a rail system that displaces not only conventional rail, but also a lot of air and road travel. No longer will we have to berate ourselves for lagging behind everyone else.
Our economy is in the toilet and our Treasury is bankrupt. There is no money for anything. Just pray that your idea would be materialized in, say..... 30 years.
There are several variations on your idea that have been proposed over the last 50 years, see the links for "dual mode" and "personal rapid transit" at:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/
The problem with superconducting magnets is the required cryogenic cooling uses too much energy, especially in smaller sizes. But magnetic levitation can be achieved more efficiently with high strength permanent magnets, see:
https://www.llnl.gov/str/Post.html
and a PRT proposal using this "inductrac" levitation at:
http://www.skytran.us/
Dream on.
The money's still here, all we have to do is take it back from the hyper-rich who have been robbing us of decent pay for honest work and outsourcing everything to slave laborers. We need to resume the 92% millionaire tax of the Eisenhower administration.
The intermediate points issue can be solved by running different services.
The Shinkansen that runs between Tokyo and Osaka runs on three different services.
The most fastest Nozomi "express" service links the two cities in 2.5 hours by only stopping at two stations along the way.
Hikari "limited" has a bit more stops along the way so it takes about 3 hours to get between Tokyo and Osaka.
Kodama makes stops at all stations along the way so it takes a full 4 hours to get there.
Using an example with driving from LA to Las Vegas, it's faster if you just drive straight to Vegas instead of taking break at Barstow. But some people do want a break at Barstow. So YMMV, choose either to pay more for the express service which gets you there faster with no or few stops along the way, or get a limited or full stop service for a bit cheaper if you don't mind taking the extra stops along the way.
Ken --
Having local, limited, and express services alleviates the problem, but does not "solve" it. The proposed LeviCar system would get you, and your vehicle, to a depot within ten miles (in built-up areas) of your final destination, from which you could drive on regular, mostly pre-existing, roads, to where you're going.
To explain my choice of the word "depot": A "station" is where a train stops -- the whole train, delaying everyone using it. A "depot" (from the French word for "deposit") is where the vehicle is "deposited" -- deposited on the MagLev rail at the starting depot, and deposited on the regular road at the destination depot.
Clark_Nova said: "We need to resume the 92% millionaire tax of the Eisenhower administration."
Ah, because something was done in the past we should do it now? How about child labor, sweatshops, robber barons, lead paint, slavery, etc.? They were all associated with the "glorious past."
Or do you have selective judgment, where something from the past fits your agenda?
Our country has many stupid idiots, ranging from Wall Street Bankers ripping off our 401K to Badgdad street where our soldiers killing innocent women and children. Trillion of dollars had been mismanaged or more appropriately, pocketed into the our rich war profiteers and Wall street con-artists.
We don't have smart geniuses to build High Speed Train in this country but we do have many smart idiots who know so much about Iraq, Iraq, Saudi, China. Many of these smart idiots have no ides how to build high speed train in our own backyard. What a joke?
Dr. Zev, results count because results service the needs of today. The US is falling behind other countries in terms of health care, life expectancy, economic class divide, information infrastructure, education, and transportation systems. The US must transition to improved systems to maintain productivity or we may never develop the resources to pay for a future of pie-in-the-sky technology you dream of. An analogy would be to not waste money on telephone network today because someone foresees of a future with the Internet. The US must implement the technology that it can afford today as a stepping stone to tomorrow.
Garrick, by your analogy, construction of the MagLev Rail Network is analogous to construction of the internet, while construction of a steel-wheel-on-rail network would be analogous to construction of an old-fashioned telephone network.
The MagLev network can start small -- with the first practical line covering about 100 miles between NYC and Philadelphia across New Jersey, with off-ramps and on-ramps every eighteen miles. As it is shown to be practical, it can generate revenue to help finance its own expansion, as well as attract investment for the same purpose. As it grows, it will take over more and more of the country's transportation needs. Eventually, like the internet, we'll wonder how we used to survive without it.
I see China is roaring ahead with their Maglev train system. I am pessimistic because unfortunately, our politicians routinely rely on pandering for votes by decrying "big government socialism" regarding any project that benefits the common good. This is always the case if the government is involved where private profit potential is underutilized. I am certainly for anything that reduces our dependence on autos and foreign oil. But it seems to me much of the country seeks comfort by voting to move the country backwards. My pessimism is because there seems to be a romanticism to stop progress and return the country to a culture consisting of "basic values" from Middle Ages feudalism. I hope I am wrong about us.
Garrick S said: "I see China is roaring ahead with their Maglev train system."
It's easy to roar ahead with all kinds of things in a dictatorship.
Take a look at China's Three Gorges Dam project, which forcibly displaced 1.3 million people, wiped out many historic and ecological wonders, and, according to most Western experts, will be a colossal failure due to downstream silt causing flooding. Even the current leadership in PRC is starting to criticize TGD in public.
See the Time article about the problems with Three Gorges Dam: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1671000,00.html
Spanky, I see you used my comment for a diversion to your pet-peeve. These are completely different and independent projects with different goals, different environmental consequences. You are comparing apples to chickens.
Travelling that fast by rail is stupid and dangerous. I would much rather have us make travelling vacuum tubes like in the movie 'The Polar Express' and quickly get from point A to point B in that fashion. More practical as immune to weather, etc.
The Japanese were able to build HSR that has had zero fatalities since 1964 and they even proved it to the world how safe it is when their safety systems kicked in to withstand a Mw 9.0 earthquake earlier this year.
Now how many countries in the world are there that can build a HSR system that can withstand a Mw 9.0 earthquake? What, a Mw 9.0 earthquake not a strong enough earthquake to base on data and results for ya?
But we do still have the worlds highest paid corporate executive class.
I mean,.. that's gotta count for something.. right???
"short-term thinking and incompetence seem to rule the day here in the U.S. "
My tea-republican Governor here in Ohio, refused the money offered for high speed train development.
We lost the jobs, thanks to him.
Boston's "Big Dig" cost about SIX times as much money as originally forecast.
When you watch other states going bankrupt because of astronomical cost overruns for HSR, you'll be singing another tune.
Since the big dig was a highway and bridge project ..... not sure what it has to do with high speed train..... ?
And it was a wasteful idea to begin with.
High speed rail was voted on and approved by the people in both Florida and California. The governor refused to implement the will of the people in Florida! The naysayers are trying to over-rule the will of the people in California. Don't we have a democracy?? The vocal screaming naysayers tried to stop the construction of a new Central Railway Station in Stuttgart, Germany. A new mayor was elected, and one of his many promises was to halt the station construction. The pro-station people demanded an election, and the new station was approved by a large majority. The fact is that most educated thinking people will opt for high-speed rail! There are a few bus-minded people out there, a distinct minority, plus many vocal protestors, who profit from selling and repairing cars and buses, and building more roads to pave over our nation. We probably need elections throughout the nation which would approve high-speed rail.
A 300 MPH high-speed, precision, heavy duty, continuous-weld, fenced, double-track rail line should be built from New York to Los Angeles VIA Chicago initially, as promptly as possible, with immediate follow-on extensions to San Diego and Boston. The NY-LA running time would be around 10 hours, or 12 hours from Boston to San Diego. As in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China and Europe, people would fill the trains and flights would be cancelled or greatly reduced. Following this, the remainder of the nation, from Seattle to Miami, would demand high-speed rail. The fact is that rail is the most safe, fuel efficient, least polluting and comfortable method of transport known to man.
The naysayers need to stop screaming about the cost of new rail lines and start screaming about taxes being used to build airports and roads. These facilities are presently provided virtually free for buses, cars, polluting trucks, and planes. If the government can provide the right-of-way for these forms of transport, then it can also provide for a non-polluting rail right-of-way that will use far less fuel! The highly vocal naysayers are in the minority, and we need a national election to put an end to their noise!
So you think that HSR doesn't pollute? From where do you think they get the electricity to run them?
I've been on the Madrid to Barcelona train and it is a relaxing, enjoyable trip. There was no hassle at the train station and boarding was a short line. The seats and aisles are plush, more comfortable and larger than any airplane. Windows are large and great for viewing the countryside. The ride itself is smooth and doesn't feel like the train is moving so fast. Once under way, passengers are allowed to walk around and we walked back to the dinning car to buy food and drink. If in Spain, I'd recommend this as a way to travel.
HSR is a just a scam. It's a technology that represents the past, not the future. It's also a way for progressives to try to emulate their heroes in Europe.
HSR ties the country into fixed routes and schedules and is not flexible at all. We can't afford existing long-haul and local rail lines.
HSR is basically a way to buy votes and to give rebates to contributors to the Democrats Party.
We'll have to find alternative ways to power things besides fossil fuels. When that happens, we'd be stuck with HSR, which will be a dinosaur. Instead of spending money on old thinking like HSR, we need to be figuring out how to replace fossil fuels. It's inevitable that we do that because we WILL run out of oil.
MagLev On-Demand High-Speed Rail won't be a dinosaur for over a century. It is very energy-efficient, and uses much less electricity than today's electric railroads, which, in turn, use a lot less energy than cars, trucks and airplanes. Even if the electricity comes form burning coal, it will burn a lot less, meaning less pollution.
It is On-Demand, with no schedules, and depots within ten miles, by road, from any point in a built-up area. And, you get to travel in your own car on the HSR, so you have it at the other end to complete your trip.
See www.LeviCar.com.
Big Al Las Vegas
You can't be serious. Also, the Democrats "lead" by Obama have a death lock on incompetence. Do you really believe Democrats have done anything to advance rail travel in the United States? Really?
Spanky2
Good comments. Also I would like to know why we cannot buy hydrogen powered cars in the United States. They are everywhere in South America, and hundreds of US municipalities use hydrogen powered vehicles for Ambulances, Trash pickup vehicles, etc. It is obviously proved technology. Hydrogen is the most commonly found element in the world. The only "exhaust" is water vapor. Hydrogen powered vehicles would solve a huge amount of issues in the United States.
But then if we start to make Americans realize the benefits of hydrogen, how will the C-level execs at ExxonMobil and Chevron survive? They'll have to take a huge million dollar paycut from their existing billion dollar paychecks and now would have to settle for a two month vacation in the Bahamas instead of the three months they used to get yachting in the Maldives! They'll have to now start flying first class on commercial airplanes now instead of their LearJets! You have to start thinking about how much it'll hurt them you selfish bastards!
Won't someone PLEASE think of the oil company executives?
LOL
That said, I believe we should have HSR from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York. Also, Boston to Miami with stops in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C, Raleigh North Carolina, Atlanta Georgia, and Jacksonville Florida. The west coast should have a similar line from San Diego to Seattle with stops in Los Angeles, San Jose / Oakland, Portland Oregon, and Tacoma Washington. There is no excuse for why these lines are not being forcefully demanded by politicians and the US population. The savings in road construction costs, gas, and vehicle wear would be tremendous.
HSR doesn't work for longer distances where air travel handles better. It's just dumb to link LA to NY with HSR rail when planes get there faster.
But for short distances like say, Portland to Seattle, you end up ensuring to pad:
Air travel just gets stupid to spend 3 hours preparing to fly a 20 minute flight, you might as well just hop on a train which will start moving towards Seattle the moment you sit your butt on the seat of the train and start spending the 3 hours on the train doing something constructive like reading a book or working on a laptop.
The golden equation is:
[time spent at the airport] > [the time the plane actually flies through the air] = good HSR candidate. (i.e. New York to Boston, etc.)
[time spent at the airport] < [the time the plane flies through the air] = air travel is better (i.e. LAX to Miami or so)
“Flying is always an unpleasant experience. You wait an hour for every ten minutes you actually spend getting anywhere.”
— Andrew Aitken Rooney, American newswriter/television commentator (1919 January 14 – 2011 November 5)
See LeviCar's Page of Motivational Quotes
Ken --
You are not considering the time it takes to get to the airport or train station. With LeviCar On-Demand HSR. you might have to drive up to ten miles to your local MagLev depot, and then ten to twenty minutes to have your vehicle deposited on the MagLev Rail's on-ramp. At the other end, you're faced with a few minutes getting off the MagLev rail's off-ramp and onto the road, plus another drive of up to ten miles. But, the rest of the trip is non-stop at 300 mph. You'd probably have faster door-to-door speeds for distances of up to 2,500 miles, and it would not be that much slower going coast-to-coast (3,000 miles).
The LeviCar / RoboTrail system will be decentralized. Instead of a few big airports or train stations, there will be MagLev depots at many locations. In built-up areas (urban/suburban) they'll be no more than about 18 miles apart, so that you'd never have to drive more than about ten miles on the road at either end. You'd double these distances for rural areas. Sparsely-populated wilderness area might have distances to the nearest depot of 50 to 100 miles or more.
Here is an article I wrote over seven years ago in EVWorld. Here is the beginning of the article:
At what fuel cost? If it's going to cost me half of my annual paycheck, forget it. I'm fine with traveling around the city with a bicycle/scooter/motorcycle/car getting onto a HSR train/plane, and renting a bicycle/scooter/motorcycle/car when I get there.
In MagLev mode, the "fuel" will be electricity, as mentioned in my previous comment (14.1). Because of its great efficiency, not much electricity will be needed.
For tooling around on ordinary roads, the fuel might be electricity, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, or whatever. Because the cars will be modular with replaceable drive trains, you could run it off of electricity from Hydro-Quebec in the northeast, then remove the drive train and use the MagLev network to go to Oklahoma, where you'd mount it on a new drive train and run it off of locally-produced natural gas there.
I rode the trains in Japan and Europe. Those countries have counted on public transportation for decades and it works for them. The United States started off with a grand idea when Eisenhower copied the Germans with our interstate system. Gas was cheap and cars were big. We were the envy of the world. Not anymore. The biggest problem is most Americans wouldn't ride a public high speed train. They are too proud of their $60-70K SUVs and fancy cars. After arriving at the destination you may be stuck in finding another means to get where you are going. Dallas built DART years ago. To this day there are no trains to DFW airport. Can you imagine an airport the size of DFW and no trains to the cities of Dallas or Fort Worth. Ridiculous.
We can just fall back to riding scooters and motorcycles like third world countries you know.
LOL
I have studied train travel in Europe and it is definitely not cheaper than air travel. The pricing stated in this article are the cheapest fare possible for children and students. I was surprised to find that the pricing for round trip eurostar or on the high speed intra country in France were around $300 to $400 round trip for even 300 mile trips. I am surprised it was stated $60 for a trip from London to Paris. That is one way for a child or a student only. Us adults get to pay around $180 I believe each way. The high speed train system works well in dense countries, the US not being one of them. Our density per square mile is a lot less therefore rail becoming very expensive per person per mile traveled. The other problem is our distances are very great between population centers except for NY, Boston, Washington. But air travel in those corridors is already very low around $40 to $60 each way anyway so where is the incentive. Plus there are very low cost bussing systems between these three cities. The rest of the country is far less populated and spending all that money of an awesome high speed rail would just be for fun. I don't buy the argument here as the author has definitely not researched what goes into designing, building, maintaining a high speed rail system. I as a taxpayer would rather spend the money on better quality roads with safety systems that spending money on a hole in the ground of rail travel.
You may be thinking of last-minute fares, which are higher than advance purchase fares. The standard 21-day advance purchase, adult Eurostar fare from London to Paris is $60. You can check that on Eurostar's site. I just did, using a sample date of Jan. 25.
You're right that our country has great distances "from sea to shining sea," but we have several examples of corridors where cities are at the ideal distance for high-speed rail. The "Texas Triangle" of Houston, Dallas and Austin are all at roughly the same distance as between New York and Boston. The triangle of Miami, Orlando and Tampa is actually smaller. Los Angeles and San Diego are also closer than New York and Boston.
The standard fare on the Delta shuttle between New York and DC is $235 each way, by the way, though you can sometimes find lower fares from JFK. (I'm flying JFK-DCA for $160 round-trip soon, which is roughly competitive with Amtrak fares.)
"Us adults get to pay around $180 I believe each way"
You believe wrong. I took it about 3 months ago for $100 return.
As long as congress is in the pocket of the Airline Industry, we won't have high speed rail. Remember when the bus industry bought up all the trolleys and mothballed them?
Its not about competition in the USA, its about maintaining a Monopoly.
It seems to me that the only real long term plan in the USA is to exploit the illegals, plunder the dwindling wealth of the middle class and drive this country into extinction while the rich just keep getting richer and the corporations run amok with congresses blessing.
Common sense governance for the benefit of the majority went out the window a long time ago. The political system is broken and witout real, tangible changes with a quickness we are doomed.