Amtrak Initiates RFQ process for Texas High Speed Rail

[John Bredin]

I've had a couple of days to marinate on this. So here is my two cents. Elon is a technology guy. He has broad interests beyond cars, rockets, and boring tunnels. I think if anybody could help sell the idea of a Shinkansen to Trump, it's Elon at the moment. I think it would be wise for Train Daddy and a few other higher ups at Amtrak to start scheduling some so called three hour lunches with Elon and and the FRA to explain the possibilities. Initial meetings don't need to have every stake holder with an opinion present either. After spending a few weeks in thet beltway on non rail related stuff, I can assure you they are not interested in the noise of someone's romantic longing for the food and beverage options they had on trains in 1962. I don't think Amtrak is screwed for the next 4 years or beyond, it's just the salesmanship in justifying it's existence is going to have to be approached differently.

Elon hates trains, and has made that clear in various ways over the years. He came up with Hyperloop to sabotage or "steal the thunder" of California HSR. All his tunneling plans involve personal vehicles or capsules rather than trains, to the point that his one operating tunnel in Las Vegas uses chauffeured Teslas (can't even trust his own self-driving in a tunnel!) rather than the kinds of walk-on, roll-on-luggage cars an airport peoplemover uses.

 

[John Bredin]

This project should be killed and the focus should instead be restoring passenger service to the UP tracks the Dallas-Houston leg of the Texas Eagle used until 1995. In addition to restoration of LD service in the corridor, there should be a multi-frequency, higher-speed, state-supported corridor running with a 110 mph top speed. Even this service pattern would be better than what we have now for service in the DAL-HOU travel market (e.g. only automobile-based options) Doing it this way would dramatically cut the costs of the project and eliminate eminent domain issues associated with building new ROW that have slowed down the project to a trickle.

A new state-supported corridor in Texas ain't gonna happen absent a non-gerrymandered legislature. Meanwhile, money and effort has been expended on the HSR plan, including defending the eminent domain issue up to the Texas Supreme Court, where Texas Central won. Throwing that away now in hope that this Lege would vote a ha'penny for "multi-frequency, higher-speed, state-supported corridor running with a 110 mph top speed" seems unwise, with all due respect.

Not unlike the opponents of California HSR who emphasize misleadingly that no trains are running, when years of NIMBY fights have finally been won and many miles of massive infrastructure have already been built.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Yes, the Japanese are the big dogs but the rest of the statement strikes me as a bit over-baked.

I’ve experienced the TGV, ICE, HS1, etc. and talked to locals about their experiences and the one system that has consistently overshadowed the rest is the Shinkansen. The original is still the best and even today it’s not that close. Every country has their own situation that requires special workarounds but getting as close as possible to the Shinkansen experience is the ideal goal. The main difference with the US is that we separate every conveyance into isolated and disconnected silos rather than integrate each system into a greater whole and that makes traveling in the US as tedious and clumsy as possible. It’s a mess by design and always will be, CMV.

 

[George Harris]

I’ve experienced the TGV, ICE, HS1, etc. and talked to locals about their experiences and the one system that has consistently overshadowed the rest is the Shinkansen. The original is still the best and even today it’s not that close. Every country has their own situation that requires special workarounds but getting as close as possible to the Shinkansen experience is the ideal goal. The main difference with the US is that we separate every conveyance into isolated and disconnected silos rather than integrate each system into a greater whole and that makes traveling in the US as tedious and clumsy as possible. It’s a mess by design and always will be, CMV.

Thank you. You said it far better than I could. I have not had the fortune / misfortune of experiencing any of the European systems, but I did get to see up close and personal what the Europeans were proposing for Tiawan, and it was not that impressive when you raised the hood, so to speak. I did experience firsthand the Shinkansen in construction, testing, and operation in Taiwan, and riding multiple parts of the home country system in Japan. A week rail pass in Japan is close to Heaven for any train nut. One person I worked with during the planning stages for CAHSR took a week or so in Europe and came back highly under impressed with the TGV.

 

[Stevenz]

Thank you. You said it far better than I could. I have not had the fortune / misfortune of experiencing any of the European systems, but I did get to see up close and personal what the Europeans were proposing for Tiawan, and it was not that impressive when you raised the hood, so to speak. I did experience firsthand the Shinkansen in construction, testing, and operation in Taiwan, and riding multiple parts of the home country system in Japan. A week rail pass in Japan is close to Heaven for any train nut. One person I worked with during the planning stages for CAHSR took a week or so in Europe and came back highly under impressed with the TGV.

Sure. I don’t know anything about any of this but I’ve ridden European HSR and from a casual passenger’s perspective it’s not even on the same planet with anything in the US or is ever likely to be. If Japan is that much farther ahead, that doesn’t make the European system bad, it just means they’re second.

The most critical lesson the U.S. can learn from either of them is not technology it’s how to get things done, at least within a normal human lifetime, and making it work reliably. Those capabilities are no longer in the American DNA. (Remember the saying good ol’ American know-how? Now it’s about keeping things from happening.)