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great article about the california high-speed rail project in the new york times magazine over the weekend: Getting Up to Speed

it’s going to require a political will that is practically unheard of… I can’t even imagine all of the backyards they’re going to have to criss-cross to make it work.

Apart from the breathtaking price tag, commentators often focus on the projected velocity of the California trains, on how they will reach an astounding 220 m.p.h. in some stretches near Bakersfield and will cover the distance from L.A. to the Bay Area at an average speed approaching 175 m.p.h. As someone who never understood the zealotry of hard-core train enthusiasts, I found the project’s other selling points more compelling: center city to center city in a few hours without airport lines or onerous security checks. No bus connections. No traffic. And no counting on luck. Which is to say that high-speed trains are obviously about going fast, but when you think about it, they’re just as much about time as speed.

I’m still hoping for the Minneapolis to Chicago connection. We just flew down there, to Midway airport, and it’s just so much more of a production than it needs to be.

It’s about 400 miles, doable in 2 hours and 15 minutes at an average of 175mph (as discussed in the article). I don’t know what the recommended lead time for boarding a train is, but let’s call it 30 minutes.

By plane, it takes 1 hour and 15 minutes. Add an hour for the check-in security lead time. And now add in additional travel time. Instead of arriving in downtown chicago, you’re arriving out at midway or o’hare. Add another 30 minutes.

We’re right at the same point. Except that a train can do this for 500 passengers, while each plane is only carrying ~150 passengers.

Well, anyways. Enough of that…

To sell his vision of a high-speed train network to the American public, President Barack Obama this week cited Spain, a country most people dont associate with futuristic bullet trains.

via Spains Bullet Train Changes Nation — and Fast – WSJ.com.

Great article about the progress Spain has made with regards to rail travel. This is exactly the type of transformation we could experience here in America.

The government has identified 10 corridors, each from 100 to 600 miles long, with greatest promise for high-speed development.

They are: a northern New England line; an Empire line running east to west in New York State; a Keystone corridor running laterally through Pennsylvania; a major Chicago hub network; a southeast network connecting the District of Columbia to Florida and the Gulf Coast; a Gulf Coast line extending from eastern Texas to western Alabama; a corridor in central and southern Florida; a Texas-to-Oklahoma line; a California corridor where voters have already approved a line that will allow travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours; and a corridor in the Pacific Northwest.

via Obama Seeks High-Speed Rail System for U.S. – NYTimes.com.

Emphasis mine. Great news! Here’s to hoping that train trips to Duluth and Chicago are in the near future!

With $8 billion in federal grants for high-speed rail corridors and intercity passenger rail up for grabs, Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Friday ordered a statewide study to determine the best rail projects for which Minnesota should pursue stimulus funding.

via It’s full steam ahead on Minnesota rail plans.

I’m pretty sure that this is the same Gov. Pawlenty that has tried to, uh, derail, these projects in the past, but whatever… there’s no time like the present!

With $8 billion in the federal stimulus package devoted to high-speed rail projects, supporters of the long-planned high-speed train from Chicago to St. Paul are scrambling to prepare a proposal strong enough to grab some of that money.

via High-speed train from Chicago: Next stop, Minneapolis?.

It wasn’t clear to me if this was “High-Speed” as the US Government currently defines it… 89mph I think. Or if it was High Speed as the Japanese might define it.

Update: After reading the article a bit closer, it’s 110mph, as is the current government definition… it would be a 5 1/2 hour trip.

Either way, great news for traveling out of minneapolis/st. paul to chicago. And great news for rail around the country.

According to the StarTribune, "Plan for rail service to Duluth gains steam".

What I’d really like to see is faster rail service to Chicago! I wonder if there are any plans in the works for that? Maybe I’ll email Jim Oberstar…

Tags: amtrak, trains, rail