In the United States the definition of
high-speed rail ranges from 90 mph to 150 mph. The average speed of the the fastest train currently running in the United States, the Acela Express, is
68 mph. While the Acela Express is capable of higher speeds, and while it does run at 150 mph on segments of its run, its speed is woefully lacking when compared to other countries.
Japan this week tested a new maglev train with a top speed of 374 mph. That is more than double the speed that is considered high speed—150 mph—in the United States.
Shortly after Scott Walker took the governor's office in Wisconsin, he killed the proposed Madison to Milwaukee section of high-speed rail, which eventually would have been a part of a line that connected Chicago to Minneapolis. That line would have been completed two years ago. And while this was a short-sighted political move, this is not a post written to slam Walker, as you can read below the fold.
While Republican governors like Walker kill desperately needed infrastructure projects like the Madison to Milwaukee high-speed rail line, countries like Japan continue to invest in high-speed rail transport. China also continues to expand its high-speed rail service. Currently China runs the fastest commercial maglev, reaching speeds of 268 mph. At this time, the United States does not have any commercially operating maglev trains, nor will it have at any point in the near future.
We have fallen behind. If you want to travel across the country your options are air travel, a Greyhound bus, a train that by world standards is slow, or you drive. There is no real option to take high-speed rail. Imagine how much less congested our highways would be, how much easier it would be to go through our airports, if we had a viable high-speed rail option that spanned our nation.
As a child I recall looking through family albums, with photos of my grandmother getting off the train to visit my dad. That train depot is bicycle store today. My dad had stories of crossing the country in troop trains during World War II. Part of my training in the Army was to put our vehicles on trains for transport, training that took place in Germany, not the United States.
What passenger rail we do have has to share rail lines with freight lines as the freight lines own much of the rail infrastructure in the the United States:
When it comes to making money, passengers come last. The freight railroad companies’ main goal is to make a profit. Freight shipments in this country often run on an erratic schedule. Due to poor infrastructure and extremely heavy congestion on some routes, freight trains are liable to show up at unpredictable times. Union Pacific has been known to hold up a passenger train to allow a long, slow freight train that is behind schedule to proceed ahead on a single track. Remember that UPRR (Union Pacific Rail Road) makes a lot more money from the freight train than from the passenger train — although some passenger agencies have worked out financial incentives to UPRR to allow passenger trains to proceed on schedule.
This shows the need for the federal government to invest in building a nationwide passenger-only rail system. In the 1950s, our nation undertook the herculean task of building the
Interstate Highway System. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy
challenged us to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. As a nation we answered the call, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon on July 21, 1969.
Our leadership has failed us. We not only need to rebuild our existing infrastructure, we need to upgrade and modernize our infrastructure as well. We spend billions and billions of dollars on preparing for war, wars that we must fight because we are prepared for them. Yet we can no longer maintain, let alone modernize, our infrastructure. As a nation, we have lost our way. We seem only to exist t provide money to defense contractors. We can spend billions on a military airplane that may never fly, yet we cannot keep up with other nations when it comes to high-speed rail.