Thank you for providing these in-depth articles. History is instructive as it reminds us that the "good ideas" of today may not be original and we ought to consider and learn why the same "good ideas" did not work in previous generations.
An underappreciated aspect of transportation solutions is the competition between roads and rail and air and water is constantly changing as technology provides new options and consumer preferences adapt. The "National Road" is commemorated in Ellicott City Maryland. One of the information boards talks about the competition between the railroad and the road. In the 19th century, innovations with railroad gave the upper hand to the trains.
"Noisy, dirty, and at first, unreliable, the railroad soon gained the upper hand. By 1840, a stage coach trip to Cumberland on the National Pike cost $9 and took twenty hours. The same trip on the B & O cost $7 and took ten. John H. B. Latrobe summed it up best when he wrote, “That solitary horseman who comes down [the National Road] at a trot that dislocates half the bones in his body, and sends his saddle bags with grievous flapping is one of the few who still prefers its glow and dust to the shade and velocity of travel on the iron avenue to the west.” While it was so important for the first decades of the 1800s, the National Road was doomed." https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=720
Today, the Patapsco Valley tracks carry coal on train cars from Appalachia to the port in Baltimore, but there is no passenger rail service. Instead, many thousands of cars each day drive the "National Road" and its derivative freeways to travel between homes and towns west of Baltimore to the city and back.
The “new” technology never has a chance to get off the ground in the modern era due to lobbying from entrenched industries. You would think the green new deal would be all about some high speed mass transit, but no, not a peep.
It takes someone who is already a billionaire to change the system a little at this point.
>Around the world, only two high-speed rail lines (Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Osaka) earn enough money from fares to pay back their infrastructure costs and operating costs, and many can’t even cover their operating costs without government assistance.
Do you have a source for this? If I remember correctly, the EU does not allow subsidies to long-distance rail and member states have gotten into trouble for violating this in the past.
It’s crucial that rail is re-framed in discussion. Sure many rail systems don’t turn a profit. How many highways or interstates turn a profit?
Why do rails require burdensome environmental reviews when we know there is a net benefit to the environment by putting more people in a vehicle that can be powered by any power source?
Trains have been unsuccessful due to optics. If we can cut down environmental requirements and stop these unfair cost comparisons then rail can get off the ground.
The fact that, world-wide, high-speed rail is unprofitable, tells us that it is proposed and built for non-market reasons.
Nuclear power plants were built in the sixties and seventies because if you were a Great Power state in 1950, you had to have nuclear technology ASAP to remain a Great Power and not be relegated to the children's table at international conferences. Power plants were both an excuse for the technology's existence and a way to maintain a workforce trained in the technology until the next war.
In the same way, high-speed rail is not wanted for market reasons. The most likely culprits are a High Modernist aesthetic and a belief that it will somehow enhance internal security.
I think it's hard to separate what you are calling "non-market reasons" from external benefits that can't be internalized by funders. It's worthwhile to compare the number of high-speed rail lines that are unprofitable to the number of highways that are unprofitable to the number of airports that are unprofitable.
Excellent summary, thanks. I do think that "local opposition" is the one constant here. "A train will go through here, but it won't do US any good!" from every locality it passes through.
It would be instructive to look at why other countries can say, "yeah, well, tough!" but in the U.S. we can't.
I think this partially falls under missing supporting infrastructure, as in missing local commuter and small lines. If you look at many European countries, they’re spiderwebbed with small rail lines so even relatively small towns have a stake in the overall project of passenger rail, so to speak, even if they themselves don’t benefit from a particular high speed rail line all that often (usually one sees a lot of connecting routes from major cities that *can* get you to where you want though, one way or another).
CAHSR is the poster child for why the US can't do HSR. Once there is is a political commitment, construction and operation become a "money is no object" situation. HSR is now a jobs program for unionized construction and unionized civil servants, with any resulting transportation incidental to the project.
A huge cost I think is putting new trains at ground level and dealing with road crossings and infrastructure, which is why I was excited about hyperloops as they can be elevated. But it appears they are too expensive (at such high speeds you can't put enough cars/passengers safely to make it worthwhile). I always liked monorails, at least for the infrastructure/land requirement issue--lego-like modularity and all above ground. But I've read even with that simplistic construction they don't make economic sense because of low passenger capacity and lower speeds.
Perhaps when driverless cars become bug-proof those can be daisy chained together into temporary 'road trains'--that along with a concomitant syncing with local traffic signals for efficiency will be our best option--not fast but cheap as most the infrastructure is already in place. Plus airlines can still do the long hauls.
Of course, conventional steel wheel on steel track can be elevated too, and often is. The main reason that it isn't is that it's more expensive to build things elevated than at ground level, and it's possible to build conventional track at ground level.
The hyperloop should not even be mentioned in a dialogue about effective public transportation. It’s an idea that doesn’t even try to solve any of the problems that a high-speed rail would solve. 1. Theoretically (because it’s not even a successfully proven concept) it would only work with Tesla vehicles. Thus, promoting the rise of an industry monopoly and an even more dramatic hoarding of wealth.
2. It’s not public infrastructure! It requires privately owned vehicles to be utilized, so other than “car go fast vroom vroom”, how is this any different than the current highway system? It’s relatively the same thing.
I think you are confusing Musk's silly underground tunnel system for cars with hyperloops which are levitated trains/sleds propelled through steel tubes by vacuum suction (like those tubes at drive-through banks) and though the idea was brought forward into the modern technological era to much faster speeds by Musk (est.650mph) Germany was actually working on this somewhere before WWII I think. Also Musk has no vested interest in hyperloops as he handed the challenge off to several other entities to work on. To date I think they're at 250mph testing.
As for the tunneling system for cars I think that was a spawned idea to get work for Musk's Boring Company which as yet hasn't made the hoped for leap in tunneling productivity that was hoped for. That said, if future gains are made tunnels are more optimal than ground level for trains often.
Thank you for providing these in-depth articles. History is instructive as it reminds us that the "good ideas" of today may not be original and we ought to consider and learn why the same "good ideas" did not work in previous generations.
An underappreciated aspect of transportation solutions is the competition between roads and rail and air and water is constantly changing as technology provides new options and consumer preferences adapt. The "National Road" is commemorated in Ellicott City Maryland. One of the information boards talks about the competition between the railroad and the road. In the 19th century, innovations with railroad gave the upper hand to the trains.
"Noisy, dirty, and at first, unreliable, the railroad soon gained the upper hand. By 1840, a stage coach trip to Cumberland on the National Pike cost $9 and took twenty hours. The same trip on the B & O cost $7 and took ten. John H. B. Latrobe summed it up best when he wrote, “That solitary horseman who comes down [the National Road] at a trot that dislocates half the bones in his body, and sends his saddle bags with grievous flapping is one of the few who still prefers its glow and dust to the shade and velocity of travel on the iron avenue to the west.” While it was so important for the first decades of the 1800s, the National Road was doomed." https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=720
Today, the Patapsco Valley tracks carry coal on train cars from Appalachia to the port in Baltimore, but there is no passenger rail service. Instead, many thousands of cars each day drive the "National Road" and its derivative freeways to travel between homes and towns west of Baltimore to the city and back.
The “new” technology never has a chance to get off the ground in the modern era due to lobbying from entrenched industries. You would think the green new deal would be all about some high speed mass transit, but no, not a peep.
It takes someone who is already a billionaire to change the system a little at this point.
>Around the world, only two high-speed rail lines (Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Osaka) earn enough money from fares to pay back their infrastructure costs and operating costs, and many can’t even cover their operating costs without government assistance.
Do you have a source for this? If I remember correctly, the EU does not allow subsidies to long-distance rail and member states have gotten into trouble for violating this in the past.
check out twitter user GlennLuk's several excellent threads on this subject. The OP quote is indeed bunk.
It’s crucial that rail is re-framed in discussion. Sure many rail systems don’t turn a profit. How many highways or interstates turn a profit?
Why do rails require burdensome environmental reviews when we know there is a net benefit to the environment by putting more people in a vehicle that can be powered by any power source?
Trains have been unsuccessful due to optics. If we can cut down environmental requirements and stop these unfair cost comparisons then rail can get off the ground.
The fact that, world-wide, high-speed rail is unprofitable, tells us that it is proposed and built for non-market reasons.
Nuclear power plants were built in the sixties and seventies because if you were a Great Power state in 1950, you had to have nuclear technology ASAP to remain a Great Power and not be relegated to the children's table at international conferences. Power plants were both an excuse for the technology's existence and a way to maintain a workforce trained in the technology until the next war.
In the same way, high-speed rail is not wanted for market reasons. The most likely culprits are a High Modernist aesthetic and a belief that it will somehow enhance internal security.
I think it's hard to separate what you are calling "non-market reasons" from external benefits that can't be internalized by funders. It's worthwhile to compare the number of high-speed rail lines that are unprofitable to the number of highways that are unprofitable to the number of airports that are unprofitable.
Excellent summary, thanks. I do think that "local opposition" is the one constant here. "A train will go through here, but it won't do US any good!" from every locality it passes through.
It would be instructive to look at why other countries can say, "yeah, well, tough!" but in the U.S. we can't.
I think this partially falls under missing supporting infrastructure, as in missing local commuter and small lines. If you look at many European countries, they’re spiderwebbed with small rail lines so even relatively small towns have a stake in the overall project of passenger rail, so to speak, even if they themselves don’t benefit from a particular high speed rail line all that often (usually one sees a lot of connecting routes from major cities that *can* get you to where you want though, one way or another).
Re the topic of hyperloops ---its possible they may be more efficient in certain situations for running freight, but not passengers.
https://www.railway-technology.com/features/virgin-hyperloop-takes-a-new-route-but-is-freight-just-a-pipe-dream/?cf-view
CAHSR is the poster child for why the US can't do HSR. Once there is is a political commitment, construction and operation become a "money is no object" situation. HSR is now a jobs program for unionized construction and unionized civil servants, with any resulting transportation incidental to the project.
A huge cost I think is putting new trains at ground level and dealing with road crossings and infrastructure, which is why I was excited about hyperloops as they can be elevated. But it appears they are too expensive (at such high speeds you can't put enough cars/passengers safely to make it worthwhile). I always liked monorails, at least for the infrastructure/land requirement issue--lego-like modularity and all above ground. But I've read even with that simplistic construction they don't make economic sense because of low passenger capacity and lower speeds.
Perhaps when driverless cars become bug-proof those can be daisy chained together into temporary 'road trains'--that along with a concomitant syncing with local traffic signals for efficiency will be our best option--not fast but cheap as most the infrastructure is already in place. Plus airlines can still do the long hauls.
Of course, conventional steel wheel on steel track can be elevated too, and often is. The main reason that it isn't is that it's more expensive to build things elevated than at ground level, and it's possible to build conventional track at ground level.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/train-landlocks-neighborhood-in-north-fort-worth-for-hours/3369942/
Something that may not be considered in the "cost" of ground level trains is the interruption and lost time waiting for trains to cross traffic lanes.
The hyperloop should not even be mentioned in a dialogue about effective public transportation. It’s an idea that doesn’t even try to solve any of the problems that a high-speed rail would solve. 1. Theoretically (because it’s not even a successfully proven concept) it would only work with Tesla vehicles. Thus, promoting the rise of an industry monopoly and an even more dramatic hoarding of wealth.
2. It’s not public infrastructure! It requires privately owned vehicles to be utilized, so other than “car go fast vroom vroom”, how is this any different than the current highway system? It’s relatively the same thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop
I think you are confusing Musk's silly underground tunnel system for cars with hyperloops which are levitated trains/sleds propelled through steel tubes by vacuum suction (like those tubes at drive-through banks) and though the idea was brought forward into the modern technological era to much faster speeds by Musk (est.650mph) Germany was actually working on this somewhere before WWII I think. Also Musk has no vested interest in hyperloops as he handed the challenge off to several other entities to work on. To date I think they're at 250mph testing.
As for the tunneling system for cars I think that was a spawned idea to get work for Musk's Boring Company which as yet hasn't made the hoped for leap in tunneling productivity that was hoped for. That said, if future gains are made tunnels are more optimal than ground level for trains often.
Yeah I assumed you were referencing the Musk “Hyperloop” and not the hyperloop technology itself. My bad. Carry on.
A superpower that cannot build trailing edge infrastructure (I commuted at 250kph in 1967) may not be a superpower.
A superpower that has no industries is probably not a superpower.
A superpower that pays $1 trillion in interest each year is almost certainly not a superpower.
A superpower that has never won a war and lost wars to both of its 'rivals' is bullshit.
As a nation, we've become like the Egyptian Army, incapable of maneuver.
I would think that anyone who successfully pays out $1 trillion in interest each year absolutely *must* be a superpower!
I almost thought you were referring to Germany!
Don't remind us. How humiliating!