Some Facts About High Speed Rail

With President Obama poised to ask Congress to spend billions of Americans’ tax dollars on high speed rail it is time for some facts about this particular form of transportation in order to contradict the usual media distortions.
The first fact that Americans need to learn is that high speed is not some exotic, new science fiction technology. Virtually all of the high speed trains operating in the world today are plain old fashioned trains, they run just like any other train with steel wheels on a steel track. The difference between high speed trains and regular trains is this, high speed trains operate on special rail lines that are built like freeways that is they are straight and there no surface level crossings where cars and pedestrians cross the track. Like cars on the freeway or the Interstate the high speed train is free to move at high speeds because no other traffic will be crossing the track. Also high speed rail lines are built like highways so that trains can pass each other without having to pull onto sidings. In addition to this many high speed trains operate on dedicated rail lines that they don’t have to share with normal freight and passenger trains. Much of the advantage of high speed rail is not its speed but the fact that the train operates frequently and is always on schedule.
What this is means is that the mean expense of high speed rail will not be fancy new trains but building new rail lines or upgrading rail lines to high speed rail standards. This would involve building overpasses or underpasses so cars could around the train without stopping, straightening out rail lines, building new track so trains could bypass congested cities and in many cities building tunnels or trench like cuts so trains could pass through town without stopping.
The second thing Americans need to realize about high speed rail is that most “high speed trains” don’t move much faster than most trains. The 200 mile an hour trains in France and Japan, are fast special services that operate in limited areas. Most high speed trains run at speeds between 100 and 150 MPH the same speed range as the Acela train in America’s Northeast Corridor and many high speed trains drop to normal speeds of well below 100 MPH when they leave their special track. The 300 mile an hour train in China you’ve heard about is a Maglev, an experimental transit system using exotic technology that runs only between Downtown Shanghai and that city’s airport.
Indeed many of the trains operating on America’s tracks today could be capable of operating at speeds similar to the European and Asian trains if the tracks they operated on were upgraded to modern standards. The Accela train in the Northeast could operate as fast as the French and Japanese bullet trains if it were given proper tracks. Many of Amtrak’s diesel powered passenger trains could operate at speeds of well over 100 MPH if they were given good track. So we may not even have to electrify many rail lines to create high speed rail.
The good news folks is that we don’t have to invest in any exotic technology to create a high speed rail system in America. The bad news is that we’re going to have spend a lot of money upgrading our railroad system in order to make high speed rail possible. Of course, a side benefit of this upgrading would be to make our existing freight and passenger rail system much faster and more efficient than it is today.
The best method of creating a high speed rail network in the United States would be to create a railway equivalent of the Interstate Highway System. That is a nationwide network of double, triple or quadruple tracked electrified rail lines that are grade separated and would carry high speed passenger and freight trains. This of course will cost a fortune and take decades but it will revolutionize ground transportation in much the same way that Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System did.