Merkinland's ambitious Shinkansen plans

[yanpa]

Brilliant solution.

Ambitious New High-Speed Rail Plan Will Fly Americans To Japan To Use Their Trains

WASHINGTON—In an effort to bring the United States’ transportation network “into the 21st century,” President Barack Obama unveiled an ambitious new high-speed rail plan Friday that will fly Americans to Japan in order to use the island nation’s extensive, state-of-the-art train system.

According to the president, the $80 billion initiative will subsidize airline tickets between the U.S. and several major Japanese cities, allowing the American people to enjoy all the benefits of a modernized network of high-speed trains as soon as their international flights touch down in the East Asian country.

“After years of lagging behind other industrialized nations, this new plan at last provides our citizens with a cutting-edge passenger train network that will rival the world’s most advanced transit systems,” said Obama at a morning press conference, touting Japan’s fast, safe, and comfortable Shinkansen rail network as a vital upgrade to the U.S.’s outdated Amtrak service. “Under this new plan, all Americans will be able to travel quickly and reliably between hundreds of destinations by simply taking a trans-Pacific flight across nine time zones and then boarding one of dozens of lightning-fast, ultramodern trains.”

...more...

[Russell]

In the mean time...

[Tsuru]

It's from The Onion.

And a high speed rail network outside of California or the Northeast is simply not economically viable. A 200mph train will never beat a 500mph airplane over these distances, and I think Merkins much prefer road-tripping if they don't want to fly anyway. Tesla has the right idea with their supercharging stations.

[Wage Slave]

It's from The Onion.

And a high speed rail network outside of California or the Northeast is simply not economically viable. A 200mph train will never beat a 500mph airplane over these distances, and I think Merkins much prefer road-tripping if they don't want to fly anyway. Tesla has the right idea with their supercharging stations.

How about when travel time to and from airports as well as security and so on is added in. Perhaps not competitive from LA to NY but how about NY to Chicago and similar?

[Grumpy Gramps]

Sometimes it is not only about the "get there", but also about the "get around once you're there". With the excellent public transportation networks that you have in Japan and in parts of Europe, trains can easily overtake the planes even on longer routes, if you calculate door to door.

In the US, I am not so sure, but haven't been there for a couple of decades or so

[wagyl]

How about when travel time to and from airports as well as security and so on is added in. Perhaps not competitive from LA to NY but how about NY to Chicago and similar?

NY City to Chicago is about 1300 Km, further than for example the distance between London and Florence, or between Tokyo and Nagasaki. It would be hard for the train to win in that scenario as it would almost always be a full day's journey even by high speed train. Better than the 22 hours not including 4 to 6 hour delay while waiting for congestion from freight transport which the line currently experiences, of course.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Why Japan’s Bullet Train Will Finally Bring High-Speed Rail to America

High-speed trains—which can hit 300 miles per hour or more—are the ultimate example of how futuristic engineering can solve real-world transportation problems. In the past several decades, dozens of safe, sustainable high-speed train systems have started racing across the planet. And the place that does high-speed rail best is where it all started over 50 years ago: Japan.

In contrast, high-speed rail in the US often feels like vaporware. The closest thing we have to it is the Acela Express, an East Coast Amtrak train that tops out at 150 miles per hour. While proposals in places like Florida have sputtered out, California and Texas currently have the most enduring high-speed rail plans.

One of the biggest hurdles for any of these plans is getting Americans to embrace train culture; convincing car-loving Americans to get literally onboard is a challenge—and one not made any easier by the recent Amtrak tragedy in Philadelphia. To make sure we pull this off, we need to be importing the right kind of train. A train that’s safe, fast, quiet, eco-friendly, and something that people actually want to ride. That train should come from Japan.

You may be thinking, why Japan? Other countries have faster trains! China’s commercial maglev goes up to 270 mph! True. And shinkansen “only” goes a max of 200 miles an hour. Well, when you’re implementing an entirely new travel infrastructure in a country full of skeptics, and are looking to fundamentally change how people move about cities, you need to play the long game. Speed alone isn’t important. So is safety. Low emissions. Passenger comfort. Running on time.

[...]

Fifty years, 10 billion people, and yet the shinkansen has seen zero accident-related deaths or injuries. That’s in contrast to China, Germany, and Spain, whose high-speed rail systems have all had fatal accidents that took the lives of anywhere from 40 to 101 people. (France also has a zero-fatality safety record, though their high-speed system is almost 20 years younger than Japan’s.)

[...]

Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while on a diplomatic visit to the US, met with California Governor Jerry Brown to pitch the Japanese bullet train to California. Additionally, since last year, the prime minister has been pitching the US a super bullet train: maglev, a souped-up edition of high-speed rail. He wants this one built between Washington DC and Baltimore.

[...]

Texas has fully committed to copying Japan’s bullet train. A high-speed rail route is being planned to link the 240 miles between Dallas and Houston in a 90-minute, one-way shot. Texas Central Railway, a private organization, is working with Central Japan Railways—an arm of Japan Railways Group, the company that operates all bullet trains in Japan. They have agreed to plop an actual Japanese shinkansen in the middle of cowboy country.

[kurogane]

It's from The Onion.

And a high speed rail network outside of California or the Northeast is simply not economically viable. A 200mph train will never beat a 500mph airplane over these distances, and I think Merkins much prefer road-tripping if they don't want to fly anyway. Tesla has the right idea with their supercharging stations.

This is what it is, sadly. As everyone has noted, once you factor in all the to and from, waiting and AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH time involved in air travel a regional network of fast trains would probably be quite efficient, but Americans simply do not want to travel by train. It's not just not driving and the walking; many people see it as a slightly different form of bus travel, which is for plebs. Also, does anybody actually believe that the land narwhals at the US TSA won't be able to make train travel every bit as miserable as they have made air travel? Those fat fucks could make Speedy Gonzalez give up hope for a better tomorrow.