I tried to make it fairly realistic. Obviously I would like HSR absolutely everywhere, but a line through middle of nowhere Montana probably would not see much ridership and would come at extreme cost (especially in the mountains).
Imagine Montréal<->New York in 2h instead of 11h... We could go there the morning like leave at 6AM from Montreal and be in NYC at 8AM, spend the day there, and go back at like 10PM
Is this 11-hour figure based on driving or some type of train that already exists?
Train that already exists, depart is at 11AM and you arrive in NYC at 10PM.
By car it's way faster, 6 or 7h iirc
I think you would need an east-west line further north - perhaps continue west from Omaha or Denver - to make east coast to west coast travel practical.
Maybe Seattle->Spokane, Spokane->Boise->SLC->Denver, Spokane->Minneapolis.
I think there also needs to be more in Canada, Vancouver->Calgary->Winnipeg->Toronto.
I was just thinking this too, having to go all the way to LA from Washington before the rest of the country is weird, and anyone who lives in the west is screwed over by this map.
A line from Seattle to Atlanta with big metro stops in between is would be amazing
IIRC I clocked that NY-LA line at something like 14 hours with medium HSR and down to 10 with the newest shit that can run on steel. In either case it's plenty fast for a sleeper train. There's also a pre-existing corridor, and, most importantly, massive population centres: A sleeper each direction each day won't nearly be enough to cover demand but that's no biggie you can spread them out and e.g. have people get up or start sleeping at Huston (allowing them to get on and off) or let them sleep through the whole of Texas. That's already three trains each giving the passengers even more possibilities.
You probably want to close the middle traverse from Colorado to Oregon and then connect to whatever the Canadians are doing east-west, but that doesn't mean that the southern corridor doesn't make sense in isolation.
“I guess crossing the Rocky Mountains is impossible”
-OP
For high-speed rail? Basically, yes. Unless you're into spending a couple million bucks per mile to rip out big chunks of the mountain. High speed rail can't reasonably navigate tight turns or steep grades.
I’m inclined to believe you, and have to say I love to see discussion like this here on lemmy’s version of fuckcars, but curious, does anyone know what switzerland does? Afaik, they have tons of rail and tons of mountains. Is it all/mostly low-speed? Sorry if it’s a dumb question or easy to answer.
Yes, it's low-speed. There are only a handful of HSR lines crossing the Alps, afaik, but they're generally huge, expensive projects that basically tunnel through many kilometers. For example, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is a 57-km tunnel through the Swiss Alps, but its feasible because it's connecting large population centers with large existing HSR networks on both sides.
I also love that this community is picking up some discussions so very much thanks to @Fried_out_Kombi!
As I live in Germany, directly at the swiss border I may be able to give some insight. The West of Switzerland is quite flat in comparison to the rest, so a lot of south/north traffic goes there. Also a lot of cargo trains. (Funfact, there is a project ongoing to make the north south cargo route more useable. Renew and expand the railways. Swiss has done its part years ago but Germany has not even started)
But as he said, there are also quite some HSR lines through the alps. The swiss people are pretty good in building them, but yeah its mostly possible due to the high population density in Europe. There are also quite some slow trains in switzerland but the view is always incredible so I don't mind to much.
So yeah I think its probably not feasible to do the same in the US. At least as long we don't invent magical new tunnel construction
I love the Buffalo to Mexico City line
Fuck you Winnipeg!
Agreed
That made my day and also inspired me to watch some vintage Simp-i-sone's. Thanks!
Sorry guys I'm trying my best. 🚄
You have 6 States that have no routes that go through them and a few that have cities on the edge of the border. That's at least 12 senators that would never let's this pass on the federal level. I would love to see this happen but you have to have some connection in each state to get federal support.
The green one in Wisconsin until Scott Walker wanted to make a point or something. Yet anothe thing he left smoldering when he fucked our state royally.
One of the problems with this is that currently, a lot of these smaller city routes don't have a lot of demand. You could maybe get one train per weekday from Des Moines to Chicago for instance, Thats if you stopped at Iowa City, Moline/Rock Island, and maybe outside Chicago.
Same thing, like Tuscon to Albuquerque. Or any of the Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska lines.
I think if these routes existed though, there would grow demand around that route tho.
Well, last I checked there's only like six people in Montana, Idaho is full of potatoes, no one has ever willing gone to South or North Dakota and Wyoming is like a public toilet, only if you're really desperate do you ever go there.
This is always such an interesting topic. I remember doing a project on this in school. This would be such a nice upgrade for the public.
The tough thing is how much US rail & land is privately owned by commercial operators. Plus virtually all of that rail would need to be redone to accommodate HSR. Additionally, I think tickets would often need to be subsidized to be competitive to alternatives in many cases (some regional flights will already likely be the same price as what commercial HSR tickets would be).
The cost always makes it tough to justify versus other potential places for the government to spend its money.
Not that I wouldn't like to see it done. I think having HSR would be transformative for America in a great way.
Your in laws are in Idaho?
Question? Why can't the silent majority start pushing these endeavors?
FL has bright line But I'm unaware of other HSR in the states.
Bright line is also expensive ($80ish for Miami to Orlando) and has caused a number of accidents so far…
I grew up in a completely non-walkable part of this country and then moved just outside of NYC and it’s been life-changing. I walk almost everywhere.
Driving is garbage.
Thank you for giving us something to dream about for the future. This country neeeeeeds to advance.
I think I'm going to have to play some NIMBY Rails soon...
Id love to have a high speed rail of not just Calgary and Edmonton, but also Fort McMurray.
I really like it. It is well thought out. Canada could use a rail line along it's southern cities, but I'm not sure highspeed is required. I would love the Boston to So. Cal line to be the first built.
Did you use population density to decide on the cities?
I generally tried to lay through-running lines between large cities that aren't too far apart and avoiding rough terrain as much as possible. Flat land with plenty of large cities not too far apart? Perfect for HSR. Mountains with cities few and far between? Not so much.
NotJustBikes discusses this in this video around 4:30 onwards
The whole video is pretty good if you happen to find it interesting. Pretty much all of the counters that are useful to have in your arsenal to any type of 'iT cAnT wOrK hErE' brain-dead comments from people.
The existing highline route, Amtrak Empire Builder, goes through north dekoda, Montana, Idaho, and Washington and it is a very heavily used route, so I'm not sure that wouldn't get usage if it existed.
I mean I'm down for leaving Utah and Idaho disconnected from the network (and they probably like it that way too) but isn't there this big railway going through Utah already?
Yeah, it's just not high-speed. Not mapped are all the many other non-HSR rail lines you would expect as part of a complete system.
Why aren't there connections to those states in north west of the map?
I tried to keep it semi-realistic. There's a ton of mountains and very few people east of the Cascades. Regular non-HSR trains would still run there. HSR can't handle nearly as sharp turns or nearly as steep gradients, so building HSR through mountains gets crazy expensive crazy fast. Without population density to support it, it'd probably be a boondoggle to build HSR there. Plus, the vast majority of travel is regional, so most trips in the PNW would be served quiet adequately by having that West Coast HSR line.
Of course, if the goal were to completely replace airplanes and demolish the interstate system, then HSR might make more sense.
This immediately made me think of the boardgame Ticket to Ride
Oh hell yeah, Terre Haute, Indiana is the Crossroads of America again. Right now we're stuck being the Methroads of America.
I like the one line between Edmonton and Calgary. Mostly for how accurate it would be. I live in the middle of that forest in the North West of the picture and while a passenger train technically exists, it is intentionally inconvenient for some reason- requiring at least one night stay in a National Park.
Public transport has been a nightmare for a long time but having Greyhound shut down on us made it impossible to travel anywhere without a car.
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