Popular posts
U.S. Lagging World in Highspeed Rail
Posted by Scott on 20th July, 2008 | 15 commentsI’m in France this week, and took the TGV train from Paris to Lyon today. That’s a distance of 290 miles, covered in 2 hours, at an average speed of 144 mph. If you want to see what it’s like to go 144 mph in a train, check out my video below. It’s so smooth, you can’t even feel the train start and stop and it feels like you are riding on a cushion of air. It’s extremely quiet, and you can sleep like a baby - the only thing that will wake you is the conductor announcing, “tickets please”. I think if more Americans experienced this, we’d all demand that the TGV be brought to the U.S. and soon. Being able to hop on a rocket between cities without hassling with the airlines is oh so refreshing.
Since 1981, the TGV has carried 1.8 Billion people without a single fatality.
TGV Paris to Lyon, 144+mph (note the cars doing 70+ on the highway):
As a business traveler, I want to get from A to B cheaply and quickly. Flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles takes about 2 hours when you factor in airport delays. Now, if you dropped France’s TGV into California, it would take 2.5 hours, probably cost less, pollute far less / less energy / cost less to operate (the TGV is electric!), I wouldn’t have to deal with major security/weather/ATC delays, and I’d be able to work from the train with my laptop and EVDO Internet access. I still can’t believe that in 2008, we can’t get Internet access on airlines (though it has been tried on a small scale).
Highspeed rail has been tried on the east coast with Amtrak’s Acela, but that train has had its share of problems, plus it’s slow (75mph-150mph) compared to Europe trains like the TGV (200mph+). The engineers of Acela botched the design, creating the trains too wide, limiting their top speed. California is planning high speed rail and finalized a high speed route this month, but again, they’re planning to design the system from scratch. Why reinvent the wheel and create a buggy new system (e.g. like Acela) when a tried and true design exists in Europe that carries thousands of daily commuters around Europe, on-time, and very efficiently?
With gas prices being what they are, airlines raising prices and having financial troubles, and climate change at its worst, it’s time to look at this energy efficient alternative that other countries have embraced for years.
Popularity: 29%
Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 8:03 am and is filed under Web Business. If you like this post why not subscribe to my full text RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Community
Hey Scott,
I completely agree with the Internet, travel, and essentially everything else you mention on your blog. :).
Or the US could do what the Koreans did. First “borrow” France’s design and the “make it better” by copying it. You can find an article about it here: http://www.korea.net/news/news/NewsView.asp?serial_no=20050728010&part=107&SearchDay=
Peace.
That’s is just way too cool. You know what. We are slow with everything here in the U.S and it sucks! Technology, transportation, medicine, etc. There are so much advances in other countries in Europe and I’m sure other continents. Some of these places are supposed to be considered “Third World”, Yet when you go there they are far more advance then we are. The U.S. wants to squeeze every penny from hard working americans before it can move on to the next stage of advancement. Such a shame.
I do think there could be a place for this.
We did have an extensive rail system in the US at one time. It was abandoned by consumers basically because there were more convenient ways to travel.
I disagree that we should not try to invent something better than Frances system. While it may seem great now, it may seem very outdated in a few years.
The other question is cost and if it can survive without much public financial aid.
i think that its a great experience to see different places in the world… nice post
The US was built on the railways, the new frontiers were developed around where the train went!
I must confess I have never been on a train in the US, but have experienced the TGV in France and our Pendulum Trains in the UK and they are something to behold.
I do think the double decker trains you have are cool, don’t know why it’s probably because we don’t have them here.
Keep the wagons rolling
Jim
In Europe there exist at least 3 working high-speed train systems. The TGV in France, that you experienced, the ICE in Germany and the AVE in Spain. They all have different technological backgrounds but all of them are very successful. In germany there is a big political discussion about the new “Transrapid” that has the trains floating over magnetic fields. But so far it is too expensive for real use, only testing routes are in existence now.
That train is crazy fast. I don’t see one coming to the US anytime soon though, in my opinion.
I have been using the railway here all the time. (I’m ahead of the loop) Also, I like it a lot more because it is easy to get to.
It is a nice train, agree
Scott
Are you still writing on this blog or have you been away testing other trains!
It has been a month since this post.
Look forward to some new nuggets!
Jim
The TGV is not the best option. I have ridden the TGV, and it is good, but I have also had experience riding the Shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan several times, and the ride is smoother and the train is even faster. However, China’s new train, the Maglev, is way faster than the Sinkansen, but as I understand is still too expensive due to the magnetized suspension system…as noted by a previous comment. I have also ridden the other end of the spectrum, Amtrak. This is by far the slowest means of transportation available. In Japan, as well as in Europe, train schedules mean something. Here in the US, they don’t. My train from north of Sacramento to Reno took over 7 hours. About 1/3 of that distance was just covered by a Kenyan in the olympics in 2 hours on foot. But, we need people to ride to generate the buzz, and funding, and we need the buzz to get pople to ride. I have no answers.
Ar, you were riding a crazy horse!
Wow, fantastic feelings, I am a rail fan!
I really love high-speed rail, feeling excited!