The issue is your advantages disappear once you include the options of flying or driving. Short distances? Driving takes you from your start point all the way to your end point. All with privacy and complete flexibility. Long distance? Over long distances the travel time even for HSR adds up worse and worse. Flying becomes massively quicker and likely cheaper as well.

@@TheOwenMajor Not like HSR gonna replaces other options. Car and plane are still important in their range same as HSR which is best in distance between car and plane, people just need more options and they will decide which is best for them in a particular situation.

@@TheOwenMajor The problem is that that car takes up a huge amount of space if it's only carrying one or two people, and if it's a private car then you have to store it wherever you take it. This hollows out towns and cities because they have to create extra space to store all these cars, which means stuff is further apart, meaning even more car trips, meaning traffic congestion. With a human-scale city (even a smallish one) with fast rail you can get in, out, and across quickly, and don't have to take car trips just to do *anything*. You don't need an extra car or time to drive your kids to school because they can just walk or bike there. I'm not talking about New York City or Paris or Tokyo here, I'm talking about European or Japanese towns with 10,000-20,000 people. You don't need a car because your feet or bike or mobility scooter take you to your destination in minutes, and if you need to go further, you take the train, where your destination is also just a few minutes walk from the station. In the US we associate public transit with big dense cities, but in much of the world, your small town life can have it too. Of course cars still have a place. In your tiny 500 person farming village far from the train, it makes sense to own a car, in the same way that before cars, farmers owned horses but people in town didn't. Horses need parking just like cars do, and it made more sense not to have to build horse parking everywhere when you could just walk.

@@DOSFS "HSR which is best in distance between car and plane" I'm not sure this distance exists. People are quite willing to sacrifice some time for the convenience and privacy of the car.

@@NozomuYume I'm sorry to burst your bubble. But having lived in Europe it isn't exactly the eutopia you paint. This is a common theme amongst Europhiles. But in reality, Europe and even Japan are almost as much in love with the car as North Americans. The data is clear, Europeans love driving. It's by far the most popular mode of transport. Now yes, I understand you personally might be in love with transit, but most people aren't. The inconvenient truth for transitphiles is that most people actually prefer suburbia over their concept of transit orientated eutopia.

In America the legendary railroads ran two trains per day in each direction, their sleeper trains and their coach/mail trains. The major difference was that the sleeper trains stopped around every fifty miles whereas the coach/mail trains stopped around every 25 miles. No longer do American passenger trains have a dozen or more mail cars on their consists. There is a reason why the post office was adjacent to a station or depot during the hey days of railroads, and many still do today. As more paved roads were built the coach/mail trains slowly disappeared, and as more interstate highways were built the sleeper trains disappeared. Simply put, the US government itself, the USPS chose to fly the mail long distances and truck the mail short distances more than 50 years ago. Why? Well the airlines can fly the mail across the country in hours while the trains took a similar number of days... HOURS, NOT DAYS. America and Canada are not TINY nations one can drive across in a single day like Germany or France... Even the railroad running the northeast corridor went bankrupt when it lost its mail contract... Why Amtrak was created by Congress in the first place...

@@ronclark9724 Those companies mostly went bankrupt due to strict legislation against them that required them to run unprofitable routes. Not because of the lack of mail transport. That was the final mail in the coffin to an already struggling industry. The NEC is VERY successful, even during the collapse of the PRR and Penn Central. The problem is that those companies had to continue to operate unprofitable branch and commuter lines with little subsidies by the government.

@@banksrail There was a LOT of active opposition from the federal government to train systems when the highway and airline systems were becoming predominant. There was a very powerful perception of trains as the past, while automobiles and airplanes were the future.

@@k.c1126 The anti-rail anger was programmed into people by the newspapers who wanted a big fall guy to attack, thus jacking up circulation with each rail mass death accident.

@@ronclark9724 but that was the point of the video where he said even if your not taking a trip from LA to NY you can still use it’s high speed advantage between cities that are closer, like we do with the interstate.

Come on America get with it

Not the most logical move getting rid of trains

Texas would be an amazing place to build HSR as nearly every major city could be linked up. The communities in between those major cities would also be linked up as well so a lot of people would be an hour ride away from any major downtown area. Those downtown areas would become far more valuable places as the number of commuters who could easily reach them would grow drastically. Because the place is so flat they could pull some sort of crazy 250+ mph monster train. There would also be a ton of development within a mile radius of pretty much every HSR stop. Texas is going to also need HSR to keep up with California. Within a dozen years or so, California cities are all going to be linked up with HSR. That is going to be an economic advantage that pretty much anyone in a major city can get to any other major city within a few hours without having to deal with an airport. Major conventions or events like the Olympics can handle tens of thousands of people moving all over the state very easily. If you are in San Francisco and have a meeting with a vendor in the central valley, they are only going to be a 90 minute train ride away. No airport BS, no dealing with the drive, just hop on and go.

As for Texas HSR, I think it should be rerouted so it connects Houston and Dallas via San Antonio and Austin

As a Texan from West Central Texas, the idea of interlinking our major cities in the East and Northeast with El Paso in the far West sounds like a dream. So many smaller communities could be linked via this rail as well, bringing another boom to virtually all sectors of the Texan economy, not to mention the culture. Towns like Brady or Junction could become a Central Texas hub which would inevitably bring riches and population to those regions. A 1 1/2 hour train ride to Austin is much preferred to the 3 1/2 hour drive it takes me to get there, which always has some sort of construction, several narrow two-lane roads, not to mention the horrible Austin Interstate traffic once you get there. I could visit my friends in the metropolitan areas so much easier, and I really could just go over for a weekend and be back for work Monday without planning around a long round trip. From a cultural standpoint, and perhaps even an ideological one, the interlinking of Texas by high speed rail could reveal parts of the state, both geographical and human, to Texans that they never really understood. Think of a person who has lived in Beaumont his entire life but has never gotten to see Big Bend, even though they both reside in the same state. The drive across our great state is challenging and tiring, and usually is enough to convince a lot of people not to embark on such a long drive. But if all this guy had to do was drive from Beaumont to Houston, hop on a train and get to El Paso in 5-6 hours, and then take a bus or rent a car down to the park, I'd wager he'd be a lot more willing to take that trip. Once this hypothetical person gets there, he's spending money at the local economy, bolstering our state, and he gets to experience a natural beauty that he couldn't believe has been in the same state he's called home his whole life. The people he'd meet there, the locals, could also open his eyes in recognizing that Texas is a beautifully diverse place in every way. High speed rail wouldn't just revolutionize our state economically, but I believe high speed rail could truly act as a stitch to heal this state, and honestly this entire nation, of many of its divisions. If Americans had better access to hassle-free, high-speed travel a natural wave of humanity would follow the economic and population booms along these rail lines. I'm not saying that this will fix all of our problems, but a project like this could help to restore some faith in government, and could open the eyes of a lot of people to help them realize we're all a lot more alike than we believe. I'll end my wall of text that no one will probably read by saying, Texas is the perfect place for a project like this to prove itself. Texas is an economic and cultural powerhouse, the 10th largest economy in the world. It could afford to pump out a project like this within two decades. The resources, finances, man and computer power are at our fingertips. The government (and inevitably, the corporations) just need to get this crap going. Our state could lead the way in showing our nation that not only would high-speed rail work here, but it would make it thrive the same way the railroad boom of the 1800's and the Interstate boom of the 1900's did. A high speed rail system would be complimented by our immensely expansive road network. But weeding out the auto and (especially in our state) oil lobbyists that are actively working to prevent projects like this from happening needs to be one of the top priorities.

@@josephcortese3986 I read your wall of Text and you are right. There is another thing. High Speed Rail is like a magnet for tourism. It makes countries far more appealing for tourists. When California's high speed rail is finished it will be a major attraction that will bring in millions of tourists every year. These tourists will spend billions of dollars and reinforce the California brand. I participate a lot in the AskAnAmerican subreddit. A common question people from either Europe or Asia will ask is that they want to visit the US. They do not drive and they want to know what sort of trip can be done with a train. There is a bit they can do on the east coast but they quickly get frustrated to learn that a lot of interesting things are off limits to them. California with HSR becomes the ultimate vacation destination for the country. Someone has easy access to nearly every major tourist destination on the state with a simple to use train system. No airport bullshit. No needing to rent a car and mess around with long drives in a foreign place. Texas would absolutely be a great place for these tourists as well. Especially as the places near the stops can develop into iconic Texan communities. Places that are worth spending a few days in. Places of character. This is in addition to the fact that people in small Texas towns would have immediate access to not only other small towns but the major cities as well.

@@riley_oneill I appreciate that I had a reader lol. I agree. I have several foreign friends that would love to come to America and spend as long as their visas would allow here. HSR would remove that hassle of worrying about renting and then driving a car, especially in a foreign country that does not use the Metric system. That's why I say it would be a boon to every sector of the sate, fiscally and culturally. A large boom in tourism would bring gobs of money, and expose both Texans and the foreigners to different cultures and ideas, all because accessible, high speed transportation would be available, maybe even the norm. There is plenty of research and data to back up that better infrastructure improves overall well-being and quality of life as well. Cutting down a person's two hour round trip commute would improve their stress levels and give them more time to relax and/or work. Like you said, small towns would have access to major cities. That ease of access would allow small-town folk to broaden their perspective a bit. It works the same vice-versa. A big city dweller would have easier access to less populated, more open areas, and probably more nature as well. The possibilities are truly limitless. It would be a mixing of urban and rural populations unlike anything we've seen before. Throw an influx of international tourism on top of that and you have yourself one pretty sweet gig.

But that would be supporting the productive majority with needed services!. We need to spend our money on War and spending in Conservative districts! They're the ones that benefited most from the New Deal and by dammit they're going to be the last ones to lose it!

I’m pretty sure it’s more than twice/day and it take like an hour and a half. But you were right about its past

Actually, the Amtrack schedule shows nine daily departures between Chicago and Milwaukee. When was the last time YOU used that service? I know beefing about it is easy, but if you don't use it, your complaints are really just hot air.

@@SeattlePioneer The internet provides information pretty easily.... Union Rail Museum still has an Electroliner. I have an old Official Guide around here I should look up the number of rounds they made along the Lake....

Streetcars on shared streets are almost entirely inferior to buses. The marginal benefits in capacity, speed, and operating costs are drastically outweighed by build costs and most importantly the lack of flexibility. Let's take your first two examples, Toronto and San Fran. How much worse would they be? They wouldn't be because systems are legacy routs and have been overwhelmingly outshined by buses. They only exist because they were present before buses.

@@TheOwenMajor Buses have the major downside of being uncomfortable. They lurch around in a way that streetcars don't. While mixed-traffic streetcars don't make sense for downtowns, they do have the added comfort and less motion sickness. It's not a coincidence that the most functional legacy streetcar networks in the US like Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia all had a central underground segment. This let them remain useful. It's also why new downtown streetcars look nice but aren't as usefui. Then there's cities like Portland and especially San Jose that made the huge mistake of building new light rail systems where the outer areas have grade separation but the downtown areas are at-grade.

@@NozomuYume "Buses have the major downside of being uncomfortable. They lurch around in a way that streetcars don't. " I haven't been on a streetcar in a while, but in terms of comfort, subways lurch around just as much as buses. Both are fine if you are sitting down and uncomfortable standing.

@@TheOwenMajor I will have to respectfully disagree. Rails in good condition allow high quality control over the trajectory of the vehicle. There is relatively little sway and consistent cornering, so most of the changes in motion are along only one axis when accelerating or braking. The steering that gives buses their flexibility means there is constant sway, and the fact that road surfaces are shape like inverted U's (for drainage) means that when pulling over to bus stops the whole vehicle makes a hard-to-predict lurch to the side. Since buses are steered, they must make small changes in side-to-side movement are amplified by the suspension. Imperfections in the road service causes the whole bus to rattle, even on new buses. Asphalt develops ruts and potholes far more quickly due to cars driving on them, while steel rails are much more durable. Automobiles have much lower center of gravity and you sit in a lower semi-reclined position, so you don't experience the same forces as you do on a bus. Most of these issues are mostly not an issue on rubber-tired metros and people movers on concrete tracks, and are somewhat less bad on bus rapid transit systems, but on public roadways it's extremely noticeable. Travel to San Francisco or Boston and take a ride on one of the rail lines (Muni Metro surface lines in San Francisco, MBTA Green line in Boston) and compare the stability of your ride to one of the buses along a parallel route. It's like night and day.

@@TheOwenMajor lemme put it this way: I would take a streetcar, subway or conventional train to work over my car, but I would NOT take a bus to work over my car. Many people resonate in a similar way.

There were also buses and planes that made it posible.

@@AllenGraetz You're right about the plane, specially because the only other way to go overseas is by ship, but it does not relate to the video because it's subject is in-USA transport. But we didn't take the bus at any moment (neither at our hometown or at the US), that's an assumption on your part.

Not Just Bikes made a video on how hsr in Italy bankrupted an airport. One of the most epic train stories ever. ;)

The main reason Americans don't want to give HSR a chance is that the vast majority of them don't want to go to the next city, The demand just isn't there, and many Americans don't believe creating the new HSR systems will do anything to actually generate demand. The corridors that make sense for HSR are business corridors of cities in the same region. The only proposed line that make sense for personal travel instead of business is the Los Angeles to Las Vegas line only due to average people wanting to gamble at the casinos.

Italy has less land area that Michigan, IIRC

@@eq1373 There are states in the US larger than Italy, but not Michigan

@@BulletRain100 in the northeast many people like to visit NYC so I wouldn't say that's the only place that makes sense.

If it ever gets done, don't expect it to be cheaper than driving. It will be safer and it is nice being able to spend you attention on other things, but cost, time, and convenience will likely still go to the car.

Yeah the problem is that type of rail system is very small scale (only within one state) and nothing like a national rail system that wouldnt benifit in the cross country traffic (besides in vacationing which is to small to warrent a whole rail system) while being incredibly expensive to people who would never use it.

I rode Brightline from West Palm to Fort Lauderdale twice in the past month for the first time. Was very impressed and would like to see similar projects expand across the country.

If you just returned from Spain you may not be aware that the 3 different HSR systems is only a thing from 2023. And only because the EU passed a law requiring HSR tracks to be open to all parties. In 2022, when Spain's Renfe had its last year of monopoly, the system lost the Spanish people more than half a billion euros. Now that outsiders have come in and exploited the only route worth operating (Madrid to Barcelona) the Spanish people will be looking at annual losses of more than $1B, all to operate a HSR system that tourists love, but which most Spaniards can't afford. I've taken the Spanish trains multiple times, and they are great, but so too are Spanish roads and Spanish airports. The country went on an infrastructure binge using cheap German loans as its "reward" for supporting the Euro. To this day that spending has stopped the country from doing many projects that would have been more worthwhile.

I think part of the hope of HSR is that once a city has a centrally located stop they notice the demand for local transit and get their stuff together and actually make decent transit. (Induced demand cuts both ways, it makes highway traffic worse but it also helps transit) Obviously you still need to get over the initial hump but atleast for NY i could see having the "Empire corridor" of NYC, ALB, SYR, ROC, BUF already having decent transit in NYC, Rochester, and Buffalo as really encuraging all of those cities to improve their systems even if its just nice busses and an app to help navigate the system. Personally i would expand it as a line from NYC to Montreal and a line from Buffalo to Boston with good timing for easy transfers in Albany. (Maybe just have a longer dwell time and share a platform with no transfer cost)

@@jasonreed7522 once you find the money for it, that sounds like an interesting idea.

I think the need for HSR is just a small part of the greater realization that we have messed up our transportation on every level in this country. From walking to flying, we have managed to make getting from one place to another as unpleasant and unsustainable as possible because this is America and we resist progress and reasonability lol.

@@lars1588 no, it's because America is fucking massive and relatively sparsely populated. Building rail everywhere in the US is not viable for a return on investment, at least for anyone outside of urban areas.

@@lars1588 The U.S. made a huge mistake when it tore up most of its national passenger train routes and service.

Who remembers the top-hat attacks of 2062.

One freight Railroad that was most notable for most of its lines being electrified was the Virginian. Unfortunately that was all removed after the Norfolk & Western Merge

There is out in California the Pacific Surfliner service between San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara & San Luis Obispo, the Capital Corridor between San Jose & Auburn, CA as well as the San Joaquin service between Bakersfield & the San Francisco Bay Area & Sacramento as well as the Amtrak Empire Corridor between Niagara Falls & New York City as well as the Cascades service between Eugene, OR & Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada that also make profits.

Springfield MA to New Haven CT now is also ran by CT transit. Making more local stops as well. No need to pay for a higher priced Amtrak ticket on this route

Oregon definitely needs to redo its west side rail line. While I think Corvallis would be better served by a light rail connection, the fact that the Tri-Met WES line stops at Wilsonville (where there’s no Amtrak connection) and not, at least, Salem is stupid and the fact that it ends in Beaverton and not Portland is also ridiculous. Beaverton is not a destination and the Beaverton TC is clunky. An electrified version of the TEXRail trains would be great improvement to replace the aging RDCs and the troublesome DMUs. And service to Salem and Eugene would tie the upper west side cities tighter together.

I wouldn't bet on that But I'm sure that cars will get even more efficient in the future I can wait for the 50mpg f150 Or 60mpg Cadillac escalade

Development and improvement of public transportation would also reduce our dependency on oil.

But railroad diesel fuel is going up in price, too. Also, in a lot od areas the bulk of electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. It would be wasteful to burn oil at a power plant to produce electricity to power an electric passenger train, when less carbon would be used by directly using a diesel locomotive.

@@franzzrilich9041 how does multiple diesel power plant / locomotives works better than a single power station which could be renewable or non-renewable but with efficient filters. It's a single source of polluter if it's a power station, while diesel locomotive is basically cars on wheels in terms of pollution generation where you have hundreds of vehicles going around. You can isolate a power station for smog, but not a power plant...

@@PrograError We are talking about burning oil either in a power station or in diesel locomotives. There is more power loss in burning oil to run a gas turbine and converting the mechanical energy first to electricity, then transmitting it to be picked up via pantographs. In a series of diesel locomotives, less carbon is released because you do not have the transmission losses. I am not discussing incidental air pollution, such as smog, because both types of engines are very good at that.

Why would it be once a day. The northeast has high speed trains every other hour and slower regional trains to the places on the opposite hour during peak times.

Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Fransico D.C. Dallas has decent Light Rail, Heavy Rail, and Streetcar systems. Hell Even LA has Decent Light Rail

@@TheMansfieldBusGuy Los Angeles was the King of them All! 1000 miles of track in the county ad its peak! Even Who Framed Roger Rabbit made that a plot point...

The last mile is ironically the easiest to solve... Minibuses, taxes, kiss n ride/park n ride, ride-sharing are all cheap and easy solutions for this step. Here in Edmonton, we built an LRT when our city only had 500,000 people... And we even had a massive streetcar system before that with over 50 miles of track with a population of only 50,000! It's re-establishing these city/regional connections that are expensive and hard especially when short-sighted cities sell off or build over Rights of Way, etc. I.e. our 14 km Valley Line? $1.8 BILLION CAD... That's a lot of cash in any nation!

@@TheMansfieldBusGuy And San Diego.

@@TheMansfieldBusGuy I'd hardly call Dallas's light rail system "decent." It may be somewhat extensive, but it is also very infrequent and doesn't actually go anywhere useful. Charlotte's Lynx system has similar ridership despite the city being about half the size and the system far smaller. And while last mile is an issue, there are plenty of people who fly between all of the city pairs in the US. They don't have cars available to them either. Even if they just take taxis everywhere once they reach their destination, that's better than driving the full distance. And for those who take the train instead of driving, they may just start walking a bit rather than driving everywhere.

The most important part, the OP, you, and train lovers intentionally ignore, lack of public transportation. If American train lovers keep thinking car assisted HSR or any rail systems, they will fail. In Japan n Taiwan, ridership are very high. It is very difficult to find seats in regular train or not able to get reservation even in non peak season or hours. Governments have to step in. Thats ok because a lot people benefit. Don't dream based on the population that taking is train is fun. Public transportation exists to serve people who don drive or wish not to drive. Many train lovers just love the ideas of going toncar rental or bring cars on trains. That's not going to boost ridership. Also, how do Orlando people go to Disneyland without cars? Mission impossible. I was in Orlando. My friend did not want to rent a car. They also did not want to stay in expensive Didney resort. I eventually found a hotel nearby that has free shuttle services. Oh, my friends wanted to stay as late as possible. I told them it was free service, deal with its limited service. They were the ones wanted to be cheap on cars n hotels. believe me, the shuttles were all packed. They didn't want the rent cars. They did not want to stay in expensive resorts. The HSR would not help. Surprisingly, the ones that cause American public transportation so bad are train lovers

@@commentorsilensor3734 you cant compare japanese train to the US. theirs are pristine and highly efficient. They are almost always right on time, to the minute. US is like "it gets here when it gets here" in a rundown station. No wonder nobody uses em! They come off as dingy and shady, even though the ride was totally fine. Also just looked on Amtrak. Takes on average 1.75x the time by train than just driving there. Even avoiding tolls. waiting 9 hours for a train to do what a car can do in 5 hours is ridiculous.

@@meatbleed I am talking about except USA, all countries including Japan, will not design car interface rails. That's stupid. I usually don't agree with conservatives, but conservatives mentioned that with good local public transportation, HSR will not work. Kato institute n Libertarian all published articles on that. Don't use conservatives hate public transportation. The libertarian guy who wrote that article claimed he took buses to work. The train supporters cannot live without cars. The, including you, will be very honest stay that. If CA HSR got completed even if its punctual n fast, it will be laughing stock. In Japan, you don't need driver licenses to ride HSR. In future CA, you need it because u have from n to stations

In regards to that route, 15 years was a long time ago and improvements have definitely been made.

As a fellow Ohioan interested in more rail access: Ted Strickland had a plan to use federal funding to create the "3-C corridor" doing exactly what you propose, with the initial route of Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati. The Republicans quashed it, and Ohio lost the funding. It's now something they're considering doing as a slower route running as Amtrak regional rail, but not operational until 2035 (!), but again lots of Republican opposition to it because reasons. You'd think they could at least think about Cleveland-Akron or Dayton-Cinci as short regional rail hops that would cut down on road traffic considerably, but instead they just keep pouring money into highway expansions.

Yep, Cinci or Louisville would be the perfect place, personally I think Lexington or Cincinnati would be the best place to start a high speed rail.

@@thexalon Because Republicans biggest Oil donors want people to keep driving their cars on highways and buying gas at insane prices rather than taking a train somewhere.

@@thexalon it’s really sad that Ted Stricklands plan was opposed. I’ve heard of Amtraks plan as well and I’m hoping that the state government will actually take a serious look at it and put in a bid. I know there biggest argument against it will be the operation costs, as if the state highways don’t cost millions to maintain yearly. Sadly, I have a feeling that the Amtrak proposal won’t make it off the ground. Although I would be happy to be proved wrong.

@@luke2393 I agree that Cincinnati seems like the perfect place to build out a high speed rail network. It can be easily connected to a large number of cities in the region and already has a large rail yard downtown connecting to the old train station.

That's not actually how it works, you don't get security-checked before bording a high-speed train or a train in general. That's why 15 minutes is still realistic

@@mrpuddles7272 Wondering how often or how recently you've taken trains in Europe. Most major rail stations now screen luggage. Taking the Eurostar is little different from catching an airplane.

Compounded on that: How many bridges/overpasses or underpasses would have to be built to replace crossings, or how many crossings would have to be closed outright, so high speed trains can go without the high risks of accidents and deaths at the crossings?

Well that’s exactly what they’ve been doing for the past two decades and ridership is increasing. First they started branding more trains as “Northeast Regionals” despite the fact that they were the same old routes from their predecessor railroads. Then they started upgrading the infrastructure and equipment on the trains. Now they’re working on upgrading the tracks to allow for higher speeds. One at a time it works.

@@banksrail Yes it works, for that region, It would not be the same for other parts of the country. There is no reason for anyone to travel between Minneapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis except for vacation.

@@linknlogs2273 Actually they’ve also been doing it in the Midwest. Just to a lower degree since the Midwest lacks any form of HSR. So instead they increase service on state routes and attempt to buy back tracks along the region and upgrade them. It’s one step at a time.

@@banksrail they have been doing it but no one is using it. That is my point. It isnt useful infrastructure

That's supposed to be in the HSR plan already on the books, but for some reason I think the route goes through Inland Empire instead of right down the coast as makes most sense ....

@@k.c1126 Going down the coast doesn't make any sense.

SD to LA is 120 hours, with HSR averaging around 120 mph with a few stops dragging the average speed down from a top speed of 200 mph, maybe less than an hour, non stop 45 minutes is possible... But I doubt any HSR train running through Southern California would ever be non stop...

What do you do once you're there? You still need a car to get around both destinations unless you want to sit for hours on a bus or go broke using a ride share. Trains are anachronisms. They belong to a bygone era. We have cars and airplanes now.

What if we had a technology that didn't require thousands of miles of right-of-way maintenance and could get you anywhere in the country inside of four hours? Oh yeah, we do. It's called air travel. They are opposed to it because it involves billions of tax dollars to make work, is slower than air travel, doesn't solve energy issues, and is operated by the government at a loss. Other than that, it is a fun idea.

@@kurtpena5462 Oh yeah the HSR in California isn’t a failure either. Air Travel which pollutes the world and is much more expensive?

@@Justicemcbride Bingo. You can't fail if you haven't tried or offered service yet... SHEESH! Talk about a hater!

@@Justicemcbride Please explain this magic train that doesn't have a carbon footprint. How does this work? How does the government operating mostly empty trains without a profit motive solve a pollution problem?

@@Justicemcbride HSR has yet to succeed. Go look at an Amtrak station and then ask yourself if this is the agency that you want operating what is a 1970's concept of the future of train travel. You clearly haven't priced a train trip if you think air travel is more expensive. And rail is flat-out subsidized. Amtrak doesn't charge you fair value, yet people still refuse to ride it. But make it futuristic, and people will want it. XD

We need more auto trains tbh

I agree too, especially with Chicago as the branching point of the new Midwest HSR lines. Not only that, but a good place to start would be the Northeast Corridor and a whole bunch of HSR lines branching out from hub cities like New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. This could change travel through these regions of the US since there’s now a fast downtown to downtown (or in NYC’s case, Midtown) alternative to driving and flying, the latter of which is going from outskirts to outskirts.

exactly and throw in lobbying from the car, and gas industries that will feel threatened by the ever so slight break in their monopoly.

If only we had that $54 billion we gave to the airlines during covid .

Furthermore for the large size of Houston's metro, some 7 million plus, not having a Amtrak daily intercity train is a JOKE! Frankly, all of TEXAS is underserved by Amtrak...

Does the Rusk to Palastine Train still operate?

I’m honestly surprised it only took 6 hours😂

I checked Hartford to Syracuse NY once, ≈4hrs by car and 8 by train one way (to try and get to my hometown takes 6hrs of nonstop driving or 23 hrs if trains to be a 3hr drive away, to be fair its super rural but come on amtrak atleast try and compete with a car to the same destination), i know that the Northeast has amazing highway infrastructure but that is still embarrassing. Its probably a combination of now owning the rails and unfortunate scheduling. (But once you have to spend over an hour driving it becomes preferable to not drive for stress reasons before time factor matters. Mass drivers have earned their deragatory nick name.)

You're dreaming

Ditto.

LA to Vegas makes sense. Dedicated gamblers, of which there are many, avoiding CHP all the while being able to drink during the journey.

I love Amtrak for experiences just like yours (minus the bathroom). But a few people preferring the rail experience does not justify the billions that would have to be invested to make national HSR a reality.

@@BS-vx8dg And the experiences that my dad had as a kid where they would get in the car and drive on the interstates across the Lower 48 doesn't justify the cost of the Interstate system. So... Your point?

@@SadisticSenpai61 Comparing the cost of the interstate highway system to the cost of a HSR network is missing the point. Not only do hundreds of millions of people *choose* to get from city to city on the interstate for their everyday needs (as opposed to an occasional vacation jaunt), 73% of all freight in the US is carried on interstate highways. You're comparing a tattoo on your shoulder (a fun thing) to the body's circulatory system. One is absolutely essential, the other is a choice.

@@BS-vx8dg Yeah, that's what you were doing too. Lots of ppl take the train to work every day. Lots more would take the train to work if it was available to them. As they say, "if you build it, they will come." The majority of freight in this country travels by rail for most of its journey across the nation - it's the most economical way to move things. There is no downside to high speed rail. Well, unless you're a car manufacturer - that's why they set out in the 1940s-1960s to destroy our existing passenger rail network. Trains are the most efficient way to transport ppl and goods. Make those rails electric instead of diesel and the efficiency just goes up. We're the only first world nation without a comprehensive passenger rail network and one of the few without a high speed rail network. But we're also one of the few nations in the world without universal healthcare, so as usual we like doing things the least efficient and most wasteful way possible.

@@SadisticSenpai61 ... Minnesota built the Northstar line hoping to attract people who drive 30 miles to work now, but it failed, people don't like trains as much as nerds think. . But nerds ignore proof.... I ride the bus but that's not cool I'm the only white middle aged man on board, shows there is not pent up demand for middle distance transport.... Roads cost each taxpayer $600 a year, really, let's us drive or bicycle 5 miles or 50 or 500, at that price it's a good deal. Train would be $900 and we'd still have to pay $600, so yearly wow we re paying 2.5x as much, for small benefit of being able to close eyes for 3 hour trip rather than drive, that's a costly choice.. Before people talk about trains take 4 long distance buses to see if they're good enough and prove there actually is a demand for medium speed travel.... Fun to see so much talk based on people who don't ever use the existing bus lines, like demanding a starbucks when you never try the local coffee shop... Ha. People b silly.

Infrastructure almost never makes a direct financial profit. The profit is in national economy. It's exactly the same with the interstate network.

Then we should get rid of all public transportation as it’s unprofitable.

@@ferky123 exactly. the reality is that after it is built, most people love it and couldn't imagine life without it.

The Interstates were paid for via fuel taxes. Most airports built since WWII received some federal funding for construction, but liitle afterwards. None were ever subsidized to the extent that Amtrak is.

Hopefully within my “explorative” lifetime. I’m 51 😞

California is building HSR at 10 miles per year, so good luck

What if our government spent money on keeping junkies and criminals incarcerated like they should be?

we supported rail with a fraction of the urbanization we have today

Big infrastructure projects are often seen with suspicion because they go overbudget, behind schedule, and under perform. California's HSR, for example, was caught up in politics, environmental assessments, while operating in one of the most expensive labor and regulatory areas in the US. People are all for environmental regulations and for strong unions, but then wonder why nothing gets built.

@@dasbubba841 that's where Chinese government comes . No matter how much US/West criticise Chinese government system when it comes to infrastructre development they have upper hand . In west all talks little action , in China work in silence get it done .

@@dasbubba841 And of course that's absolutely no fault of private enterprise. The greedy workers and pols screw it all up by themselves. Crony capitalism isn't the responsibility of capitalists.

@@Mira-pm3ni It's a trade off. China has terrible labor rights. Laws that are in place are often ignored due to corruption. China is also notorious for substandard construction quality, due again to weak laws and a culture of extreme cost cutting (due to stiff competition and a emphasis on speed). Environmental regulations go without saying: They're terrible. Thus, while infrastructure projects are very slow and expensive in the West, in China, while immense constructs are rapidly and cheaply built, they are nicknamed "tofu-dreg" projects due to their poor quality.

Perverse incentives.

@Kabuki Kitsune except for that track is owned by the 5 Class I railroads and their freight shipments will take priority over passenger traffic. The US doesn't have those 140,000 miles of track. Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Canadian Pacific do.

Because the companies stretch out projects to make as much money as possible. They could build some HSR projects in 5 years, but they'll make them take 40 to squeeze as much money out of them as possible. Happening in the UK too with HS2.

Railroads, in their heyday, were the first high speed upgrade to transportation in the US. The railroad barons of the day invested hugely, and there were also huge losses. But quite a bit of the so-called 'old-money' families / corporations today were founded as railways. People made a LOT of money. The entire problem with rail in the US today is that same 'can't do' attitude; when management is focused on quick, safe profits and fear risks over the desire to win prizes, nothing changes.

@@mattevans4377 California is NOT a private corporation and its taken them forever to build HAR from SF to LA... Simply put, California has many other issues which are higher on the lists of getting done, HSR isn't on top of that list...

@@ronclark9724 It might be a government project, but it's contracted to a private company, who are paid for how long they work, not the job they are doing, so are incentivized to 'work' for longer so they get paid more by the government.

indeed. the costs are what we really have to look at. it might be profitable in some corridors. it would need to be built locally before nationally

HSR is often more expensive than regular trains and can even cause disinvestment on slower trains. I think we should improve Amtrak and also focus on motorcoaches instead before we can dream about HSR whisking US from Chicago to New York.

@@AlexCab_49 I totally agree we should do more commuter trains and definitely more regional trains. I believe that Amtrak needs its own limes which will be expensive but if Amtrak had its own tracks I believe that it probably would be able to compete with cars and airlines. Just my thoughts.

@@alexanderwaite9403 That's why we need to nationalize the tracks and spent the same amount of money we spent on the interstate highway system to upgrade track alignments and signalling up to 110 mph or more and to electrify commuter lines and regional lines. And of course spent a significant amount on upgrading and expanding urban mass transit.

@@AlexCab_49 we need a Marshall Plan for the USA.

@@alexanderwaite9403 We do. Our government doesn't want to do this and they'd rather just throw more billions of dollars at highway expansion and expect all of us to cough up $80,000 for a Tesla.

If you compare maps of population density you can easily see that (at least the eastern half of) the US is _very_ comparable to Europe. Also - to take your example from Tampa to Atlanta - there _are_ suitable cities in between. On that particular corridor e.g. Gainesville (approx. 340.000 inhabitants in the metro area), Talahassee (380.000), Albany (150.000) and Columbus (330.000). That means many possible inter-city connections exactly in the sweet spot for HSR (about 100-250 miles).

​@@stephanweinbergeri think regional HSR is a fine idea, but that isnt the theme of the video, its a national system. A Boston to Washington line would be SUPER expensive given the inadequacy of current right of way for HSR (its too bendy), but totally viable once built. Same in Florida. Same in Texas from Dallas to Houston to San Antonio and Austin. Its connecting them together through the big empty that makes little sense. Population alone cant support a system either. You also need a reason to go from A to B. There is a reason Gainesville and Tallahassee are not in Brightline's plans to even link to the Florida system. Not enough traffic.

​@@danz1182 You need to stop thinking in lines and start thinking in networks. Eg. think of "regional" HSR trains from e.g. from Nashville to Cincinatti, and from Cincinatti to Pittsburgh, and from Pittsburgh to Washington - and voilá you automatically get a network that spans a large part of the country. You can either think of them as individual lines, or you can realize that it makes no difference in cost to just let the same train go the whole way from e.g. Nashville to Washington (in fact - depending on the schedule you come up with - this could actually be cheaper, as you may end up needing fewer trains overall). Of course very few people will travel the whole length of the line, but _along_ the line there will be several (overlapping) sections with useful connections (and they will be _more_ useful, as there is no need to change trains in the middle for people who e.g. want to travel from Louisville to Columbus). And exactly the same would be true with other "regional networks", like e.g. Minneapoils-Chicago-Indidianapolis, or Kansas City-St.Louis-Louisville, or Atlanta-Charlotte-Raleigh-Richmond-Washington. That's basically how HSR _networks_ work in most of the world. They are hardly ever conceived as individual, separate lines, but as part of a larger network (often also using older, non-HSR section in between the newer parts).

Well, why not start small and expand from there (like start with the NE, and Midwest and gradually connect the two systems)? Also, High-Speed Rail can transform small cities as well. China, a country just as large as the US can do it, and so can the US.

@@TheRailLeaguer China is not a good comparison to the US in this regard. The vast majority of China's vast population lives in a tight band of land next to the Pacific Ocean. The eastern half of China contains 94% of its population. The most eastern 20% of China has well over 85% of its population. That density of population translates into a very high demand for any form of public transportation, so high speed rail will work well there. You need also consider that that area, roughly equivalent to the area of Georgia north to Boston contains perhaps ten times the population the same area holds in the US. The US is big - long distancew abound- but is sparsely populated in comparison to other developed countries in the world.

@@cdjhyoung Are you sure about that? Not to mention that HSR can make sparsely populated areas into densely populated areas, if done right. Still though. We can start with a few regions and make the connections from there.

@@TheRailLeaguer Global Warming has already created what you just described in Montana. Residents of California are moving into Montana in large groups, and drinking all the little water that is available here.... Even low speed rail is helpful.....

@@danielhutchinson6604 Exactly. Not to mention that it can benefit the entire Northern US.

Car culture says no, ure stuck with them for life

Planes use kerosene, but your point still stands. (A quick web search shows that planes get ~50mpg per passenger.)

Yet Europeans FLY to Tel Aviv, Istanbul, and Moscow from London or Paris... There isn't a HSR train to either large metro mention before from Western Europe. Yet Europeans expect America to build HSR to greater distances than they have built HSR in Europe. DOUBLE STANDARDS.... Beyond three or so hours, almost all Europeans FLY!

@@elijaha773 kerosene is made from petroleum, Elijah, so yeah, planes consume petroleum.

@@BS-vx8dg My bad. I forgot that gasoline is what cars use, not petroleum.

You're referring to National City Lines, which turned out to be a false-front for GM, Firestone, and a few other fossil-fuel companies. They acted like a predator, seeking out systems that were already in trouble and tearing them up, along with taking systems that were still in good shape and hollowing out their rail operations to force people onto buses.

@@Poisson4147 BULLSHIT. The Trolleys and interurbans were obsolete and inconvenient and Americans voted with their feet. The lines NCL took over were already dying and the cities were glad to see them go.

Exactly. I have to go to Omaha moderately often. Flying's the only option because there's one train per day and it stops in the middle of the night.

china

Japan is smaller than Montana ... the entire country could fit inside Montana with plenty of space left over.

@@robertsabharwal9787size isn’t really a factor

@@robertsabharwal9787 ok, then China or Europe are better examples. Size isn't really a big factor in it, with the exception of cost to build and maintain.

There’s no people there so no need for train stops.

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

@@starventure Absolutely. HSR will never be anything other than a niche thing out west. The distances are too far, the mountains too tall, and the demand for trips that a network would support, just isn't there. Nevermind that passenger trains are 2nd class citizens on the UP and BNSF rails out here, so they would have to build build completely isolated rails for real speed and safety.

Texans are opposed to HSR so the state won't subsidize any. The one to run from Dallas to Houston is a private venture that's dead in the water for now since it's been struggling to acquire a ROW. Most Texans wouldn't mind if that was turned into a two track freight route for intermodal (steel shipping containers) transportation since it would be more practical to have.

@@billwilson3609 I would prefer a limited access autobahn between the two cities. Maybe make it for just electric vehicles only, with in pavement charging and automated driving enabled. Make it something to be proud of.

​@@starventure France tried in-pavement charging on a stretch of road to find it was horribly expensive due to the electric lines requiring constant repairs so declared it was impractical. As for an autobahn between DFW and Houston, the state could build a 4 lane toll road alongside the HSR route if the company fails to get going on it with the state taking over the ROW. It could have limited on-off access plus gas stations with charging stations with a sit down diners located inside the toll road like The Indian Nation Turnpike in Oklahoma. That would take a fair amount of traffic off I-35.

We stopped having a national passenger rail system because there was no demand, just like there's no demand now.

80% of Americans live East of the 98th Meridian which, north to south, is the length of Japan. There's a tonne of major urban areas there, just connect them up. You have a large enough population since plenty of countries with a fraction of your population have high speed rail. Hell, my European city has the same population as Albuquerque and yet has a better public transit system. If it's too expensive to maintain then it's definitely too expensive to maintain the national highway system. That shit haemorrhages money and you still maintain it.

@@kev2034 What a nonsense post. The poster said that HSR across the US is not warranted, and you respond that your CITY has a good public transit system. And the comment that if trains aren't affordable then highways aren't is just classic liberal false equivalence. Roads don't exist just for cars - they are the basic means by which all parts of society are connected with each other, and the means by which services are brought to each individual person. Roads don't exist because of cars - the ancient romans had highway networks thousands of years before cars were invented, as has been the case with every civilization on the planet. Cars are an efficient means of transport that utilizes infrastructure that ALREADY NEEDS TO EXIST ANYWAY. Maybe you might be happy to have a fire crew attend to your burning house by taking the train, but no one else is. Train infrastructure doesn't need to exist; it is a nice to have, which is why it needs a cost/benefit justification. Roads are needed whether private cars are used for transport or not, so the economics are completely different.