except in the very dense eastern corridor. Face it, Amtrak has lost billions year after year on their long distance service because they can't charge enough to make a profit. The last time I looked, Amtrak tickets cost as much or more than airline tickets for similar trips, so who other than railroad buffs and those afraid of flying would take a train instead of a plane?
Installing the necessary infrastructure for high speed train service would cost many billion dollars. Buying, operating, and maintain high speed trains is not cheap. If you've ever driven across the US as I have many times, you'll remember that there's a hell of a lot of empty space in America. By way of comparison, France is roughy 4/5ths the size of Texax (~211,000 square miles [545,630 sq km]verses 260,000 square miles) with a population of 60 million, according to the <a href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fr.html>CIA World Fact Book. By way of comparison, the US has an area of 9,629,091 sq km and a population of a bit over 290 million. Even subtracting Alaska and Hawaii, the US about 15 times the size of France with a population less than 6 times as great, meaning the population density is much lower.
Current Events » in reply to Building a high speed network makes even more sense if you've got a big-ass country to get around in.
Relatively low population density makes high speed trains unviable in the US...
The whole thread (45 posts)
- The View From The Summit of the Petroleum Curve
- Difference between discovery curves and production curves
- The article doesn't really say that
- only from the headline on down (n/t)
- Only if you don't read it. Don't forget:the NYT is lying to you (n/t)
- Everyone is lying to me, it comes from the top.
- No, just the NYT. SA has vast proven reserves untouched.
- Of course, as always, drilling for new reserves is completely out of the question. (n/t)
- Everyone is lying to me, it comes from the top.
- Only if you don't read it. Don't forget:the NYT is lying to you (n/t)
- only from the headline on down (n/t)
- All we need is a 0.5% shortfall.
- Running on Empty
- Grim. I didn't realize how grim.
- We're walking off of a cliff
- Too Pessimistic. The future will be Magnificent!
- re:And build a high speed train network!:) (n/t)
- Lessee. If I am in the US, and my job is in India - A train? (n/t)
- We are not French, we don't know how to build trains that work (n/t)
- re: re:And build a high speed train network!:)
- We're walking off of a cliff
- Grim. I didn't realize how grim.
- Running on Empty