TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

Over the past week, there has been quite a lot of press and also comments by other bloggers about this new speed record. Here are a couple additional notes/comments.

• Peet (in German) points to the one video clip that is the most interesting in his view, i.e. this one here. Looks like it is a direct reproduction of the onboard recording - with no added commentary by a TV reporter or some such. You can however hear the audio from the onboard intercom, i.e. between the driver and the laboratory, etc.
• Philippe Herisse gives an interesting eye-witness account on his blog (in French). Philippe is an engineer with SNCF and writes articles for the French publisher La Vie du Rail. He was onboard the record-setting train.
• Alstom/RFF/SNCF have set up an official site to document the record.
• Somebody posted a curve showing elapsed time/distance vs. speed on the French forum “Trains en Voyage” - see this thread here (in French, registration required). Quite interesting …
• Also, this record seems to have revived interest in high speed rail in California - it probably created more public and press attention for the ailing California High Speed Rail project than years of rail advocacy. Maybe we should all thank the French for inviting those lawmakers… Hmm, I wonder whether it was a coincidence that this record attempt took place in the same week as the California legislature’s spring break … After all, the CAHSR project potentially represents big business for Alstom.
• With all the articles that appeared in the press, I noticed one thing: what’s it with this animosity towards the French? I often saw phrases similar to “… the French of all people …” used when talking about this record. Why would that be so surprising? Or is it just that Americans don’t like the French? I can see why the Germans would be jealous, but why should America care?
• Then there was the usual Maglev vs. HSR debate: Maglev supporters were quick to point out that the Maglev record hasn’t quite been beaten (nobody claimed it was). Just to make it clear - I’m not a big fan of Maglev. Sure, it sounds interesting and is certainly intriguing from a technology point of view, but to me, it seems that Maglev is still very far from being a proven technology. Conventional High Speed Rail is proven technology, in use in multiple countries with thousands of miles of track in service and multiple manufacturers of equipment, etc. HSR today can basically be considered as being available off the shelf - just call Alstom or Siemens (or Bombardier/Talgo) and ask for a quote. Also, HSR is compatible with existing rail lines, Maglev is not (admittedly, this is less the case here in the US than in Europe, since most US rail lines are not already electrified. But that’s a minor point, compared with the fact that Maglev is a completely separate system).

The lesson: we think of government-owned Amtrak as money-losing socialism, but the money-losing airline industry as a bunch of noble capitalists. Maybe we should re-examine our national transportation policies the way JetBlue is rethinking its customer-service policies.

[Quoted from Allan Sloan: Lessons From JetBlue’s Meltdown ]

That comment about the airline industry - my feeling exactly. As we all know, Amtrak is a money-losing entity. Lots of people think it could be otherwise, but I just don’t think so. But then, the much touted airline industry is also a money loser. Nobody really knows about the road transportation industry, because there is no single entity at whose income statement one could look at, but last I heard, most of the roads are paid for by the taxpayer and can therefore be considered a subsidy of the road transportation industry, so they’re probably not real profitable either. Looks like the only profitable transportation entities are freight railroads - they pay for their own infrastructure and still make a profit.

Well, maybe the general conclusion should be that transportation in general is just too cheap nowadays, i.e. the operators don’t charge as much money as they should in order to pay all the bills. I believe the general public in the USA somehow has the notion that transportation is/should be “free” and that cheap airfares are as much a basic human right as freedom or free speech… That’s just not true - especially with “Global Warming” showing up on people’s horizon more and more, I hope that those same people will soon have to recognize that transportation is a major factor. And the only way to really teach them is through their pockets - get them where it hurts most: charge more money for it. And then they might well recognize that trains are a much more efficient means of transportation than either air or road.

(via TicketPunch).

There will be a National Rail Passenger Summit on Friday, March 23, 2007 in Chicago - if you’re interested in more details, head over to their website for more information.

The Lott-Lautenberg Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, formerly known as Senate Bill #1516, has been reintroduced as the Lautenberg-Lott Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act under Senate Bill #294 in the new Congress.

Washington, D.C.—Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Trent Lott (R-MS), appearing at a joint news conference this noon at Washington Union Station, announced that they were introducing today their Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. The new bill, S. 294, is similar to S. 1516 in the last Congress, except for changes in the dates and technical amendments.

[via NARP Press Release]

This proposed legislation would, among other things:

• Reauthorize and provide funding for Amtrak for 5 years
• Establishes an 80% federal match funding mechanism for capital projects.
• Requires the development of a long-range Federal rail policy

Adron has a post on his blog where he attempts to calculate how high the gas taxes would have to be to actually cover all costs associated with road construction and maintenance. His conclusion:

In no scenario does the gas tax cover roadway maintenance except in certain circumstances. Even on the vast majority of the interstates gas taxes don’t cover the costs. If they where to cover the costs the taxes would have to increase from 10-35 cents per gallon to about 60-80 cents per gallon minimum. In addition to that if new construction and maintenance where factored in for ongoing expansion of roadways that would have to increase somewhere to the tune of $1.20-2.00 per gallon.

[Quoted from Transit Sleuth : Gas Taxes for Roads?]

The main take from this should be the following: a lot of people in politics and elsewhere complain about the fact that public transportation (especially Amtrak) is not “self-sufficient” - this calculation hear clearly shows that road-based transportation is also not “self-sufficient” and I believe a similar calculation applied to air traffic would show the same. What follows is that no means of transportation is currently “self-sufficient” (i.e. pays its own costs), but rather relies on certain subsidies to be paid out of general tax monies.

I meant to write an article about upcoming new rail lines that are scheduled to open in Europe this year, but I just ran across this piece by columnist Ed Perkins (written as part of a more generic travel article, so you might not have noticed the rail content …), where he sums up the most important parts quite nicely.

Rail: Focus on Europe. The Europeans remain serious about high-speed rail, and you’ll see some major improvements this year: The last remaining high-speed segment between London and the “Chunnel” will open late this year, cutting 15-20 minutes off the already spectacular rail times between London and Brussels (less than two hours) or Paris (a bit over two hours). From the new station at St. Pancras to the Continental terminals, travel will be entirely on high-speed tracks, with speeds up to 186 mph.

France will open most of the LGV Est line from Paris to near Strasbourg, with a branch connecting to Frankfurt, Germany. Belgium and the Netherlands will open high-speed links, cutting train time from Amsterdam to Paris to just three hours. Spain expects to complete most of the high-speed line between Barcelona and Madrid this year. Late in the year, Switzerland will open the new 20-mile low-level Lotschberg tunnel between Brig and Bern, cutting an hour off travel times between Italy and Germany.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to talk a lot and do little about high-speed rail. At best, we’ll see a few improved (but conventional) speeds on a few Midwestern Amtrak routes. The main improvements will be in local public transit and commuter systems — welcome, to be sure, but not a substitute.

[Quoted from Expect higher hotel rates and more hidden fees (sfgate.com)]

I also like his comment about, well, the non-existent U.S. rail program. Although there might be some good news: Apparently, Senators Lautenburg, Lott, Inouye and Stevens are planning to re-introduce the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act next week - if you support this, call your senator to encourage him/her to support this bill!

Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Trent Lott (R-MS), Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
and Ted Stevens (R-AK) plan to re-introduce the Passenger Rail Investment
and Improvement Act next Tuesday.

[Quoted from an email newsletter from NARP]

Well, there must be other ways to finance this thing than always just by borrowing money, no? Almost everybody all around the world believes that High Speed Rail is infrastructure that is worth investing in - but in the car-centric United States, do people (or maybe I should say “the politicians”) still only believe in the “drive-and-fly”-mentality?

Sayonara High Speed Rail?

In a pre-speech briefing with reporters, the Schwarzenegger administration said that Schwarzenegger’s bond proposal would essentially max out the state’s borrowing capacity for the next decade. So what about the idea of a ballot measure asking voters to approve bonds to build a high speed rail system through the Central Valley? After all, it was supposed to have been on the ballot already, but kept getting postponed. Administration officials said today that the high-speed rail project should be derailed… again, and perhaps indefinitely.

Quoted from Capital Notes- From KQED’s John Myers: State… of the State of the State

The latest issue of NARP’s newsletter contains the following overview of new Light Rail/Streetcar line segments that are scheduled to open for service this fall:

• November 10, Sacramento RTD: spur connecting Amtrak station to Light Rail network
• November 17, Denver: “T-Rex” Southeast Corridor Light Rail
• late November, Little Rock: River Rail streetcar branch to Heifer International Headquarters and Clinton Library