Only because US train system is biased toward freight.
Not complaining, it is what it is.
That said, I don’t see any pragmatic way to build passenger high-speed rail across the US. Every state would want it to run for them - otherwise they won’t support it. Then every city, etc.
Edit: for straight shots (point-to-point) across vast distances I don’t see train ever matching planes (like NY to LA)
It would be most feasible to have like three high speed rails in the US. Up and down both coasts, and then east coast to west coast through the midwest, Denver, SLC etc.
That alone would be enough to replace a ton of car and plane trips, even if it didn’t provide service everywhere
The US rail network is already kind of a disaster. A lot of major cities don’t even have passenger rail stations at all. There are entire STATES that don’t have a single amtrack station lol.
Depends on what type of train it is. A passenger aeroplane travels around 800 km/hr, a ‘typical’ train about 150-200.
However, the highest average speed of a commercial train is reached by the Fuxing, which goes 320 km/hr, enabling to go from Beijing to Nanjing (1,020 km) in 3.2 hours. The Shanghai maglev used to go faster, about 430 km/hr.
So a train can certainly be faster than a plane on mid-long distances if we take pre-flight time into account.
An experimental Maglev, the L0 Series, managed to go 600 km/hr. At that speed, you’re honestly directly competing with planes at long distances.
Try closer to 30 average. Most rail isn’t rated for above 50 outside the Northeast Corridor, and you’re also pausing for hours at a time sometimes because freight rail gets priority treatment.
If the two locations are close maybe, but most of the time I would say theyre not remotely as fast.
You can fly from New York to LA in 6 hours. On a train it would take like 3 days
Only because US train system is biased toward freight.
Not complaining, it is what it is.
That said, I don’t see any pragmatic way to build passenger high-speed rail across the US. Every state would want it to run for them - otherwise they won’t support it. Then every city, etc.
Edit: for straight shots (point-to-point) across vast distances I don’t see train ever matching planes (like NY to LA)
It would be most feasible to have like three high speed rails in the US. Up and down both coasts, and then east coast to west coast through the midwest, Denver, SLC etc.
That alone would be enough to replace a ton of car and plane trips, even if it didn’t provide service everywhere
We can’t even build a single HSR line anywhere in the US
We’re a long ways away from being able to even think about trans-continental HSR
We simply do not have the competence to do it
The US rail network is already kind of a disaster. A lot of major cities don’t even have passenger rail stations at all. There are entire STATES that don’t have a single amtrack station lol.
Just for clarity, this map doesn’t show all Amtrak stations. The cities pictured are just the big ones on the routes
Depends on what type of train it is. A passenger aeroplane travels around 800 km/hr, a ‘typical’ train about 150-200.
However, the highest average speed of a commercial train is reached by the Fuxing, which goes 320 km/hr, enabling to go from Beijing to Nanjing (1,020 km) in 3.2 hours. The Shanghai maglev used to go faster, about 430 km/hr. So a train can certainly be faster than a plane on mid-long distances if we take pre-flight time into account.
An experimental Maglev, the L0 Series, managed to go 600 km/hr. At that speed, you’re honestly directly competing with planes at long distances.
Meanwhile Amtrak trains: 74mph, unless you’re on the Acela, then top is 150mph.
Try closer to 30 average. Most rail isn’t rated for above 50 outside the Northeast Corridor, and you’re also pausing for hours at a time sometimes because freight rail gets priority treatment.
Okay yea “often” was bit of an exaggeration on my part
I suspect DekSomBoon is talking about sensible countries
If, in this context, “sensible” means “smaller than half of Texas” maybe…