Forum - View topicINTEREST: Maryland Governor Seeks Federal Funding After Riding Japan's Maglev Train
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dragonrider_cody
Posts: 2541 |
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Actually, in the Northeast Corridor between DC and Boston, far more people travel by train than by airplane. Amtrak transports more passengers to those destinations than all of the airliners combined. As a result, it's the only part of the Amtrak system that actually pays for itself, while the other systems require federal and state subsidies to cover their losses. |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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Nope, they're nowhere near that long here. I think the most they can be is probably about a quarter of a mile. I remember seeing epic long freight trains in the USA when I visited. About the most you'll ever be stuck at a crossing here is around 10 minutes and that's when you've got a slow train on a fast line, as the equipment which sets the crossing off is obviously designed to bring the barriers down in time for the faster trains. |
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omiya
 Posts: 1835 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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FYI - on the interstate main line near where I live the train length limit is or at least was 1500 metres, in other places it's 1800 metres.
The longest passenger train I ever rode in Australia was a double length Indian Pacific at 667 metres long - it occupied 2 platforms at Sydney station and the front half was reversed to couple with the back half. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Something I think is worth bringing up that just now made the newspapers: The California High Speed Rail is facing fierce opposition from the locals. Part of the reason passenger trains can't make much headway in the United States is because trains have a bad reputation of being loud and disruptive. For that matter, for similar reasons, locals tend to oppose other transportation pathways too, such as highways and bridges.
According to that article, common reasons for people who want no high speed rails near where they live are as follows: • Soundproof walls must be built surrounding the train tracks, destroying the landscape. "Residents of several low-income and predominantly minority communities, including San Fernando, Pacoima and Sylmar, complained that their neighborhoods would be divided by 20-foot-high sound walls along the high-speed train corridor." • Even then, noise and rumbling will still seep through and affect heavily-populated areas. "The 62-page [board meeting] analysis shows that within half a mile of the track from Palmdale to Burbank, there could be noise and vibration affecting about 20,000 residences, 25 parks, 47 schools, 48 churches and nine hotels, as well as archaeological sites and wetlands." • Train tracks divide regions more so than paved roads. "Some said their areas had been already been chopped up by three major freeways and a dozen dumps." • When a railroad is even proposed to go through a region, property values drop. "Nancy Lulejian Starczyk, a longtime real estate association executive, said property values in some Santa Clarita areas are already falling because of the potential routes." • People must move their residences and businesses if they're in the way of a planned route. "'Our community's history has been riddled with displacement,' said San Fernando resident Genaro Ayala. 'My family has all its roots here. I want my grandchildren to grow up here, understanding how great a place it is. We like where we live.'" • The presence of trains scares horses. This may seem like a petty reason, but all of the possible routes pass through Acton and a couple pass through Lakeview Terrace and Agua Dulce, which contain a lot of horse ranches. "Residents of Agua Dulce and Acton said the aboveground rail route would ruin their rural, equestrian communities. They called for a tunneling alternative." (It should be mentioned that all of these communities have major highways passing through them.) • There are environmental concerns over underground tunnels for the train. "But other residents were strongly opposed to the underground routes, which would be bored through the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. Speakers from Kagel Canyon said they depend on wells that could be harmed by tunneling. Some warned that train tunnels could disrupt water supplies that are critical to both the city and county of Los Angeles." I'm not entirely sure what they want the alternatives to be, but I would suspect there's no agreement. It looks like most wouldn't mind the existence of the California High Speed Rail, as long as it stayed out of their way, but some seem to be inherently against it being built at all. Looks like there are some railfans on ANN. I'm curious: Do any of you have anything to say about this? Is this a common thing? These seem like issues that would pop up any time a new railroad is to be built. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Yes and no. I would love to have a system like I see in most animes where I can get on the subway get close to most points of interest in my city. The reality I live with is a %&@# freight railway system by kansas city soutern I can see from my window that literally blows their horn even in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. Back to the rest of the article, looks like the philosophy of the greater good is dead and buried in the USA, it is either "my way or you can hitch a ride in the highway". That is sad because that way of thinking is the reason many things do not get done over here -_- I mean, it is not like any of this things you list weren't either fixed or people accepted for the good of the community in japan/europe. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Well, from my experiences, this kind of attitude is largely focused in Los Angeles. (I am genuinely interested in hearing what these guys think of people in Europe and Japan, for whom rail transport is a common and omnipresent thing.) But I don't know as much about what goes on when planning for a high speed train except the one in California, as I live in California and it directly concerns me. (I support the California High Speed Rail, for the record, and I live in one of these communties that has a lot of people complaining.)
I remember seeing on TV a bunch of people off the street given a map of the United States and asked to identify the South. One person circled the entire southern half and said that the people who live there are nice. Then, he put X marks over Las Vegas and Los Angeles and said those are exceptions; he met a lot of jerks traveling through those two cities. |
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Mikeski
Posts: 608 Location: Minneapolis, MN |
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It's been replaced with "won't somebody think of the children (and the elderly)"-type spending. 70% of US Federal spending in 2014 was direct payments to individuals (medicare, social security, welfare, veteran's benefits, etc). For obvious reasons (aging population, obamacare, zero-growth economy), that number is going up a lot recently, and is forecast to continue doing so. The 6% we're spending on interest is also ramping up. Good luck funding some bullet train so rich East-Coasters can get back and forth to their D.C. lobbying jobs faster. Actually... |
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