• BestBouclettes@jlai.luEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      It doesn’t really matter, if done properly, the return on investment would be absolutely massive.

    • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      The ridiculous bullshit is that the Lakeshore Limited already goes from Chicago to New York, but hits its maximum speed of 180km/h on a few stretches of track in the east that Amtrak owns. It averages only about 60km/h for the whole trip. That’s because the freight companies don’t care to maintain their tracks for high speed, since freight service doesn’t need it.

      I’m still pissed at Pres. Biden threw the rail workers unions under the train, when he should’ve protected the economy by nationalizing the rails to establish leverage over the corporations, instead. It would have had so many knock-on benefits to the nation.

    • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      The rights of way already exist for the most part. The whole nation was built on railways. Most are just cargo only, and many have been converted to bike/foot paths.

      Alternatively, interstate highway rights of way could be used.

        • destructdisc@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          Gosh it’s almost like you guys have a system encoded into your constitution specifically designed to fix that

          • MnemonicBump@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            23 days ago

            What, exactly are you talking about that you think is “encoded” into our constitution to allow us to completely replace our government with a new government? I really can’t think of anything that fits that. You’re either talking about Article V, which allows for constitutional amendment (but that is NOT a system for fixing the a need for an entirely different government) or you’re talking about the 2nd Amendment (again, not what you’re talking about) and that would be a VERY different way of achieving those results. Either way, I’m confused about what you mean.

            Or are we just operating on different concepts of what the word “government” means in this context? FYI, when most Americans say, “new government” they mean an entirely new political system, not a change in administration. We would just say, “administration” for that.

  • Hond@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    Fuck Maglev.

    Regular ass trains on steel tracks can go >200mph if built to spec. Suuuure, maglev can go even faster. But regular ass trains on steel tracks can actually be build on a realistic budget. Like in theory atleast. But before the US does something this sane they’re gonna nuke themselves. idk

    • Asetru@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      Maglev isn’t even more expensive. High speed rails that are built “to spec” for 400 km/h are expensive as fuck. Trains are usually shorter but frequency is higher, so per passenger it roughly evens out.

      The real deal breaker is the lack of compatibility. Can’t ever run a maglev train on legacy rail while your high speed train can use the existing system to bridge gaps in the high speed network.

      • jdr@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        Not more expensive? Hard to say because also nobody builds them! But I don’t think there’s any specification you could make today that could be met cheaper with maglev than with old school big iron.

      • Photonic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        I don’t know why you would want compatibility. The Shinkansen is also always on their own track. Air planes aren’t compatible with train tracks either, so if you look at it more from a perspective of what they’re trying to replace I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

        I think it’s also mainly the start up and build costs, I think the wear of the rails of high speed trains on wheels is very costly

        • twix@infosec.pubEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          So you can have your high speed trains run to more remote stations, limiting the amount of changes for passengers. Took the train to Grenoble that way, which is quite comfortable with a direct connection from Paris.

    • TheJesusaurus@piefed.caEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      Regular ass train gang. Let’s stop trying to reinvent something that already works way better than whatever half ass bullshit you thought about for a couple hours.

    • VAK@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      22 days ago

      Maglev makes sense in connecting only the major cities like Japan is doing

    • BL4CKP1XX13 [they/it]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      I don’t know much about various train technologies, but surely that’s going to cause massive wear and tear on the tracks and need to be serviced very often right? And any debris on the track is probably going to cause quite bad damage to the wheels too.

      I don’t know, but I feel like your “if built to spec” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, what kind of spec? Is that sort of quality realistic for a real-world installation? Exposed to the elements?

      Maglev is definitely more expensive to build and probably to run, but it seems like it’d be far more reliable? And also a much smoother experience for those on-board?

      And I feel like Maglev has much greater theoretical speed limits than typical contact tracks, as, well, we basically remove the friction between the wheel and the track?

      Also imo Maglev is cool and gets style points.

      • kestrel7_7@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        “It seems like this experimental tech is going to be more reliable than the proven thing that’s existed since the 19th century.”

        You sure about that, hoss?

      • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        Built to spec does do a lot of heavy lifting. American distances are larger than European distances. China has the advantage of a dictatorship which can be decisive.

        But the Interstate system was expensive and had a crazy spec and was built and continues to be maintained at an extremely high cost.

        Last I heard, maglev is mostly vaporware. Just build good tracks.

        • blx@piefed.zipEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          China has the advantage of a dictatorship which can be decisive

          Not to worry! The USA is catching up real quick on that point

        • LwL@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          Japan and afaik also china are building long distance maglev lines at the moment. We will see if there are any issues that regular hsr wouldn’t have. It’s certainly expensive to build, but high speed connection between major cities can be worth it. Technology that can go at almost 2/3 the speed of planes but is able to run entirely on electricity isn’t necessarily just some gimmick, there is an actual use case for it. 300 km/h is fast, but 500 is a lot faster. Of course just like with existing HSR, building routes that support these high speeds is a challenge (and part of why japans line under construction is so much faster than the existing shinkansen is that it just cuts straight through the mountains, which is of course expensive).

          The planned line is supposedt to be even faster than flying (45m vs 1h) overall, probably due to the overhead of taxiing. And that’s without considering security.

          • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            0·
            23 days ago

            There’s only 6 globally, under 100km total track. Shinkansen trains are conventional rail. It’s been just around the corner for 100 years.

            1. Korea, 1km
            2. Shanghai, 30km
            3. Linimo, Japan, 8.9km
            4. Incheon, Korea, 6.1km
            5. Changsha, China, 18.5km
            6. beijing, China, 8.2km
        • Hond@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          tbf idk on which behalf you argue about american distances. But i feel(!)¹ like thats another reason to prefer regular ass trains(with implied heavy lifting specs). Like it is known that you can build >tenthousand miles of regular high speed tracks to build a tight network between major cities. It has been done. America doesnt even have the huge issue of several differing national standards which are in competition to eachother but still want to be connected ideally like in europe.

          ¹am just random idiot on the internet.

          • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            0·
            23 days ago

            Track maintenance is expensive and even more so when in remote areas. Population density is much lower in USA than most of Europe so km rail per person is just much higher.

            Hasn’t stopped the interstate system from taking billions of dollars a year though.

            Building a strong high speed rail in dense areas like New England and Midwest probably would be a good starter because people can see how well it works. But there’s so much carbrain inertia.

            • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zipEnglish
              0·
              23 days ago

              Indeed, that’s really only true because the United States and Canada have vast areas in which nobody lives. About 1/3 of the U.S. is federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management; that really throws off the average. If I recall correctly, around 40% of the population of Canada lives along a line between Windsor and Montréal. Meanwhile, this is Spain compared to the Northeast:

              image

              Spain has a population just under 50 million. It also has a high-speed rail network. You’d think that in a region with a far, far higher population density, the U.S. and Canada could do better than the Acela.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.todayEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        In the end the maintenance cost for maglev vs bullet trains are about the same. Bullet trains focus more on mechanical maintenance of the track and wheels. While the maintenance of maglev is typically more technical, it requires constant recalibration of the electronics and constant monitoring for alignment.

        Maglev is definitely more expensive to build and probably to run, but it seems like it’d be far more reliable? And also a much smoother experience for those on-board?

        Traditional steel on rail is actually more reliable in practice. Theoretically the basic mechanics of maglev are more reliable, but in practice they tend to suffer from longer delays when they do fail. This is mostly because the repairs/maintenance for traditional rail can be done by just about anyone, where maglevs tend to be locked in by a single vendor contract.

        Maglev has much greater theoretical speed limits than typical contact tracks, as, well, we basically remove the friction between the wheel and the track?

        They are theoretically faster, but in practice the speed of trains are most often governed not by the limitations of the trains themselves, but instead are limited by the surrounding infrastructure and terrain.

        The cruising speed of railed bullet trains are around 200mph, while the cruising speeds of maglev is around 265mph. Maglevs have gone significantly faster around 375mph, but thats not really a realistic expectation for daily operations.

        Imo both are extremely cool, but traditional rail is just a lot more practical for a plethora of reasons. The most important being that the installation and operational cost are just a lot more realistic than maglev. There’s a reason there’s only a total of 37 miles of maglev in operation today compared to over 30k miles of high-speed rail.

        • stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          Remember that the TGV has the high speed record for rail, at 574kmh or 356mph

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.todayEnglish
            0·
            23 days ago

            Yeah, but it’s not something you would ever see in operation. The V150 trial had special modified and powered cars running on the most favorable railway conditions possible. Plus, running over 200mph on steel starts to create enough friction to damage the wheels and rail.

      • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.socialEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        Most industry nations around the world are running high speed trains by now. They’re doing petty fine I’d say. China threw a ton of money into German maglev tech and there isn’t really much to see still. There’s a reason most countries gave up on it.

          • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.socialEnglish
            0·
            23 days ago

            Ich wünsche mir die Zeit zurück, in der ich über Politiker fast ausschließlich lachen musste, statt mich endlos über sie aufzuregen.

            Nicht, dass es da nicht auch genug Gründe gegeben hätte, aber zwischendrin kam immer mal wieder etwas raus was nicht komplett gestört war.

        • BL4CKP1XX13 [they/it]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          I reckon it’ll be one of those things that was just ahead of it’s time, I think the concept is sound, but other infrastructure to run it, energy, rare-earth mining, just isn’t ready to keep up yet.

    • DrPop@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      We need a rail line that is strictly for commuters. Right now the rails are owned by freight companies so they prioritize freight over people. Yes we do have the infrastructure to initiate high speed rails, but those rails are used for objects not people.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        Passengers is the term you mean, not commuters. I read the first sentence and thought you were going to suggest something that is only open to people coming from and going to work.

        But yes, we need passenger rail that’s exclusively passenger rail.

  • eksb@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    These trains would run at capacity all the time, being full of New Yorkers going to Chicago to get good pizza and immediately returning.

    • architect@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      You’re acting like this isn’t every world leader at this point. Ffs look at the rest of the world.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    a viable high speed rail system is more than just the trains.

    its the rails… and most the rail in america is owned by private freight companies. freight companies who don’t like sharing their rail with passenger trains, and probably wholly unsuitable for high speed trains to begin with.

    So you’d have to build your own stations, and lay your own rail, which… if you want the trains to go anywhere useful, is probably going to involve enough land buyouts and eminent domain as to take up 95% of the budget of any rail plan.

    But realism aside, it’d be fuckin wonderful if we could have a national high speed rail network that you could jump on to go almost anywhere.

    • arrow74@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      Funny how the country can eminent domain your property to build a road or a transmission line, but they seem to not be able to eminent domain this nice rail system

      Also we have spent an insane amount of money, 43.6 billion so far, fighting a pointless war in Iran. Yet it’s unrealistic to spend money on rail

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    While we spent 20 years, and 7 trillion bucks, losing wars in the Middle East, China built a nationwide high speed rail system from scratch, and eliminated most poverty in their country.

    We just got out of one 20 year quagmire, and now Trump gets us right into another one. Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, etc. all LOVE it though.

    We have the money to do anything we want in this country - free health care, college/trades, pre-k, etc., but the people we elect on both sides prefer to waste it on Wars, and policies that help the ultra-wealthy, which is Wars.

  • orioler25@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    Imagine how this would disempower landlords if you could commute to either of those cities from anywhere between them.

    Car dependency is about power, it’s about keeping workers vulnerable and reliant on constant employment to participate in society. The one thing the US and Canada has over other imperial powers is the obscene amount of space each state has at its disposal within the metropole with which to construct what really is an exceptional form of oppression. It’s important to recognize that when you’re talking about ending car dependency, this is an existential threat to either power, and they will treat it in kind.

    There is convenience in the ineptitude of neoliberal politics in state-planning and infrastructure, which most people attribute as the cause of this development, but it’s crucial to remember that suburban sprawl and car dependency were state projects by the US and Canada in very much they same way neoliberal privatization is.

    • cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      America is just a collection of subscription fees you must pay in order to survive. You need a car, rent, groceries, and bills at the bare minimum so you must have a job or you will die in the street.

        • orioler25@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          23 days ago

          Though capitalism is pervasive globally, I don’t think it’s necessary to narrow our understanding of its specificities within the US metropole to be able to discuss the commonalities globally.

          Car dependency is certainly more prevalent within the US than it is the EU, but even it’s presence in either takes on different forms and performs different functions. And then, the car dependency in the US is different from colonized spaces in Latin America, or between Latin American settler-colonial states like Brazil or Argentina.

          • Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish
            0·
            22 days ago

            We have the same car dependency issues here in Australia. I tried to go without a car once, and then I realised it would take me 2 hours and 2 transfers to go to work instead of a 30 minute drive. And good luck going to any appointment; you end up taking a lot of taxis

            • orioler25@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              22 days ago

              yes, it happens in many places. Except, Australia has just under 30 million people in it, where the US has 350 million. Additionally, the US is where the car industry and car-centric city planning emerged, and it did so within the context of a culture with not only a settler-colonial incentive to dominate space, but also a significant population of other oppressed groups who posed a threat to white supremacy, like African Americans. Even though both the US and Australia engage in imperialism, the US has a much more expansive and pervasive imperial presence globally. Consequently, suburban sprawl was as much an element of white supremacy within the metropole as it was a military necessity once WWII concluded and the US state became anxious about decentralizing its manufacturing industries.

              So, even though car dependency exists in other settler-colonial states, like Australia or Canada, the context and conditions under which that car dependency is created and functions is substantially different.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        And it’s all shit that should be paid for with our taxes. But instead, they need to use that money to bomb kids on the other side of the planet.

      • orioler25@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        23 days ago

        Yes, and it’s important to identify why that happens and how it functions, not satisfy ourselves with the certainty that it is bad, or unjust, or unreasonable; which many of these posts end up doing.

        The US is the way it is because that is what settler-colonialism and capitalism require to continue. Even when there were periods of “reform,” such as the labour and state policies of the welfare liberal era in the 1930s-40s (which is how suburbanism and car dependency came about), or the civil rights movements of the mid- to late-twentieth century (which is how neoliberalism and the liberal appropriation of social justice was achieved), victories in reform are inevitably eroded by these fundamental imperatives.

  • Zron@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    I wonder what happens when a train traveling at 320mph hits deer.

    Or a bird if it’s elevated tracks.

    I can’t imagine this is good for the train.