To be fair, Amtrak is not high speed rail. From what I can find, the Texas Eagle, for example, averages about 42.5 mph between San Antonio and Fort Worth, with no stops. On the other hand, the bullet trains over in Japan have normal operation speeds well over 100 mph, and have demonstrated speeds up to 275 mph for conventional rail and 360 mph for maglev.
That said, reading up on the bullet train, I think you are correct. A high speed rail line going straight from Detroit to Tucson, over even Detroit to Washington, DC is probably not worthwhile. According to Wikipedia, the 4 hour mark is roughly when the Japanese people switch from train to plane. What would be more reasonable, in my mind, is multiple, regional high speed rail systems connected to "low speed", local lines. I would take the bullet train from, say, Chicago to Detroit, then switch to a more "Amtrak" style train which would take me to Ann Arbor, say.
Would it be just as expensive and longer? Possibly. But even if it was, it has some big conveniences. The first is frequency. In Japan, the most common route has bullet trains literally leaving ever 10 minutes. Second is comfort. Sure, you pay the same amount for a train ticket as a plane ticket, but riding a train is closer to first class on a plane than it is to coach. Third is storage. The max size of carry ons for a train is the max size of CHECKED luggage for planes, and the checked luggage for trains is even larger.
Now, does this mean it's viable? I have no idea. No matter how much I hope it is, I don't know. But dangit, I would love for some studies to be done to find out if it is. Because if it is...dang that would be nice.
The one thing that bugs me, though, is this.
For some trips, it will be faster than flying -- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.)
So...is current airport security a joke or a necessity? If it's a joke, why do we have it? If it's a necessity, why is he joking about it, and why wouldn't it be on trains too?
See, that's the thing... I doubt that there would be enough use in the US for bullet trains to leave every 10 minutes, because there just aren't that many people that regularly travel between Chicago and Detroit (example, of course). The way I see it: either we end up with frequent trains that no one uses because there's just not that much traffic traveling on the line (even if it were free, I suspect), or we end up with infrequent trains that no one uses because the schedules are horribly inconvenient. Naturally, I could be wrong. Maybe there are tens of thousands of Detroiters... Detroitans... people from around Detroit that are just waiting for a better way to get to Chicago. I just have serious doubts.
"So...is current airport security a joke or a necessity? If it's a joke, why do we have it? If it's a necessity, why is he joking about it, and why wouldn't it be on trains too?"
To be fair, Amtrak is not high speed rail. From what I can find, the Texas Eagle, for example, averages about 42.5 mph between San Antonio and Fort Worth, with no stops. On the other hand, the bullet trains over in Japan have normal operation speeds well over 100 mph, and have demonstrated speeds up to 275 mph for conventional rail and 360 mph for maglev.
That said, reading up on the bullet train, I think you are correct. A high speed rail line going straight from Detroit to Tucson, over even Detroit to Washington, DC is probably not worthwhile. According to Wikipedia, the 4 hour mark is roughly when the Japanese people switch from train to plane. What would be more reasonable, in my mind, is multiple, regional high speed rail systems connected to "low speed", local lines. I would take the bullet train from, say, Chicago to Detroit, then switch to a more "Amtrak" style train which would take me to Ann Arbor, say.
Would it be just as expensive and longer? Possibly. But even if it was, it has some big conveniences. The first is frequency. In Japan, the most common route has bullet trains literally leaving ever 10 minutes. Second is comfort. Sure, you pay the same amount for a train ticket as a plane ticket, but riding a train is closer to first class on a plane than it is to coach. Third is storage. The max size of carry ons for a train is the max size of CHECKED luggage for planes, and the checked luggage for trains is even larger.
Now, does this mean it's viable? I have no idea. No matter how much I hope it is, I don't know. But dangit, I would love for some studies to be done to find out if it is. Because if it is...dang that would be nice.
The one thing that bugs me, though, is this.
For some trips, it will be faster than flying -- without the pat-down. (Laughter and applause.)
So...is current airport security a joke or a necessity? If it's a joke, why do we have it? If it's a necessity, why is he joking about it, and why wouldn't it be on trains too?
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"So...is current airport security a joke or a necessity? If it's a joke, why do we have it? If it's a necessity, why is he joking about it, and why wouldn't it be on trains too?"
This, I think, is a strong point.
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