It is a true high speed rail, we can’t just keep changing the definition of high speed rail to make a point. The Acela tops out faster than the Austrian Railjet which is referred to as a high speed rail, it’s faster than Brightline which people refer to as high speed rail. Yes the US needs more high speed rail, but can we stop lying about what it already has.
@@bencns The issue with Acela is that they only go operate as high speed for less than 15% of the NE corridor. The route it runs on are too curvy for the gen 1 trains to go fast, plus it also has to run alongside freight and commuter trains. Giving it a dedicated high speed spec'd tracks will definitely increase its competitiveness
you can run at 160 mph next to commuter trains, that's what the four tracks are for. I don't think the northeast corridor sees much freight traffic. And good luck increasing curve radii in the densest part of the country.
@ScenicDashcamRides Yep, the politics of the state and the ego of the governor at the time!!!! Man it's go to see him. You can't keep a good man down!! The New York City Transit subway has gone to blazes!!! Deploying a 1000 National Gaurd in the subway, the assaults on MTA employee's, the increased violence acts on the train, not to mention kids surfing on top of the train. Man we could use an Andy Byford now!!!
This push has been long overdue. It’s been a rocky road to get to where we are today, but interviews like this make me excited for the future of rail in the US.
I'm in Ontario, and really want to see Andy Byford push this through to completion. Totally respect him as a passenger rail executive, and the Texas route looks like a prime candidate for proof of concept for bullet-train style service. So many markets in Canada and the US need the technology.
Great to hear this call for action from a senior executive at Amtrak. However, what makes Shinkansen so famous is not just the rolling stock. I rode the Nozomi Shinkansen train in April 2024 and it was impressive how clean and timely the trains were despite multiple trains running within minutes of each other, each being at or near full capacity. Hence, Amtrak and every HSR in the US needs to see how to replicate the operations and infrastructure required to truly make HSR a success.
That's exactly the situation where high speed rail works! The primary benefit of HSR is that high speed rail allows you to run trains at higher frequencies and requires less rolling stock. The speed is only a secondary benefit to increased capacity.
The Texas Triangle, Florida and California are the natural 3 Southern regions/corridors which make sense for true high speed rail in America... Also Atlanta-Charlotte-Raleigh-Richmond-DC... In the North? Vancouver-Seattle-Portland, Milwaukee-Chicago-St Louis, Chicago-Detroit, Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati, Omaha-Des Moines-Davenport-Chicago-Indianapolis...
@@SethMethCSthe whole point is to not have to travel out to an airport to take a train to go to another city. I don’t understand your thought process here.
Chicago is screaming to be the main HSR connection hub in the Midwest. So many Chicagoans don’t own cars and usually only rent one when traveling to another regional city. HSR please and we’ll actually see Interstate congestion fall! I know DOTs won’t like that, but it’s a better more effective reality for everyone.
Japanese trains in USA would be incredible. Hopefully we can come ride Acela for our channel someday. We are currently visiting and vlogging EVERY Amtrak station in the system.
@@MAL1GNANT China has horrendous infrastructure lol. They've had thousands of casualties in less than 20 years of service, and numerous major accidents lol. Japan has had 0 in over 70.
@@MAL1GNANTJapanese already start building the world first long distance maglev line, due to competition in 2027. They are probably the only developed country that doesn’t run into massive cost and time overruns
@@averyshaham1697 I think Amtrak was always part of the coalition, and was always going to be the ones operating the trains, they just took a bigger role once a huge amount of federal funding got tossed at the project.
I think it's a case where Kawasaki has the factory capacity available in their US factories (The Shinkansen N700 series is designed and built by Kawasaki), they are finishing up building new trains for MTA in New York. Siemens and Alstom have massive backlogs in their US factories and Amtrak is Siemens and Alstoms biggest US customer.
I suspect you're going to see a LOT of increased development in that NW Houston area, such that access is created, either through actually acquiring trackage to downtown HST, or at least connection via the streetcar.
I'd rather have Amtrak handle it than the private group... Still, that's a lot of farmers and ranchers who will have their businesses destroyed by trackage bisecting their land. I also don't know how they'd get around closing off towns that are positioned along the route since level crossings need to be minimized if not entirely eliminated. I saw a lot of people agreeing with this on Reddit and it's definitely going to harm public support for the issue. Not filling out the triangle between Houston-SA and SA-Dallas also hurts it and precludes a lot of people from using the system, myself included. I ultimately support the system, to be clear, I just find it annoying that it's primarily going to target "super commuters" who are already flying between Houston and DFW instead of regular people (this is why the private group chose to target that corridor so you can assume Amtrak is interested for the same reason).
A lot of uplifting information in this presentation. Although the United States has been a prime candidate for high-speed rail for decades, it's never too late to implement the service! As a citizen of the U.S., I would prefer that the rolling stock be designed and manufactured here.
There aren't any US rolling stock manufacturers that build HSR trains. The Shinkansen rolling stock for this project in Texas will be built in the US, and the design will be modified a bit from the Japanese design to meet US regulations. Using existing HSR rolling stock with modifications for US regulations is much more cost effective. The original Acela was a joint venture between Bombardier and Alstom it used a modified TGV 200 series power car combined with Bombardier tilting cars. Avelia Liberty (2nd gen Acela) is a modified version of the newest French TGV trains and is built by Alstom. Brightline West will use a US spec version of the Siemens Velaro trainset which is the most common high speed train in the world (most German ICE trains and Spanish AVE trains are Velaros, plus a lot of the Chinese HSR trains) so a very established and reliable design. All of these are built in the US for the US market. Siemens has a huge factory building trains in California and Alstom has a huge factory in New York. Stadler a Swiss company that builds light rail and commuter trains has a big factory in Utah.
The only way that can happen is if we start building our high speed railways. And since we don't have that industry here, we can't build our own high speed trains (and let's not forget how some of our government is against anything dealing with rail).
The key to the success of high-speed rail between megacities is frequency of service and average speed. What is needed is dedicated tracks for high-speed rail and rolling stock with high acceleration capabilities like the Shinkansen.
I love his optimism. But the disdain this country has against passenger rail does not make me believe high speed rail will happen (outside California and the Northeast). Texas could be another France (given they're practically the same size), but it's Texas. So that says it all.
I would say the tide is turning, that there's a growing majority of Americans, namely younger generations, who want better passenger rail in the US, including high speed rail. We first need to make building big things easier, streamline the environmental review process, and not let a few powerful opponents hold up these kinds of projects in litigation. Texas could have had high speed rail back in the 90s, had it not been for a Southwest Airlines-led misinformation campaign to stop it. It's also about changing the stigma around passenger rail here, show that trains are meant to provide more travel options, not take any away, and that they should be faster than driving, and flying for high speed rail. We've had decades of auto-centric spending, pushed heavily by lobbies that support that industry, and airline lobbies have fought hard in the past to stop HSR happening here. We need to be able to break that mold, and make building better rail easier, and that starts with continuing to engage with the public and make the idea of investing in rail and transit a positive. What's not helped is the negative stigma around transit in general, even though cases often cited fall in the minority of most people's daily experiences. Online opinions probably don't do much, but they can still influence enough people to choose to vote against any new transit spending, while we continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into roads despite driving being statistically more dangerous than riding transit. However, like I said above, the tide does appear to be turning toward a more positive view of transit, and a greater demand for improving and building more of it, including intercity transit like high speed rail. Car culture is far too ingrained in our society, and many of our cities built post-WW2 are built around it, for it to go away. Better trains and transit won't eliminate driving, or flying for that matter, nor should they, but by providing another travel option that's competitive with those, and by some choosing transit means fewer cars on the roads and less crowded airports for those who will continue to choose those options, makes life easier for everyone. Having great intracity and intercity transit makes driving and flying easier. That should be the message that's pushed. Yes, let's keep maintaining our existing road and airport infrastructure, but let's also invest in modes of travel proven by much of the developed world to relieve the strain on those. Those countries have roads and airports, but they also have great transit, including high speed rail. America is not too big for fast trains, just as it isn't for cars. They along with air travel can and will all work here. Let's stop kicking the can down the road and get it done. If we can build the Interstates, we can build 200+ mph high speed rail. It starts with a first, whether it's California, Nevada, Texas, or wherever.
I’m optimistic, I’ve seen some of the most conservative people from the US travel to Europe, take a HSR trip, and return to the US asking why we don’t have those here. It’s not a political ideological thing, HSR is an incredibly attractive and effective solution to real transportation problems.
Really glad to see a push for this stuff in the states. Hopefully stuff is done in the Northeast too, upgrading more and more of the corridor with speed and capacity upgrades, possibly new sections of high speed line. That area especially needs it too. Plus the Acela could be so much better. Its currently the only high speed rail service without an economy class which is just pretty absurd, and I imagine detrimental to public support. Why would the public support a train that only the top elite in business class can afford to use regularly. Like invest in upgrades and in adding economy class to the Acela, please!
@@drdewott9154 Oh I only mentioned that run because I go from NY to West Palm on the snail trains. I know the high speed rail will not happen in my lifetime. I'm already 65 so I don't think within the next 20 years I will see it.
The top area of the NEC that needs upgrading is in Connecticut, that is the section that is not owned by Amtrak. Top speed on the CT shore line is 90mph between New Haven and New London. Between NYC and New Haven top speed is 80mph if you're lucky.
It's really important for high speed trains to bump up their capacity. 1300 passengers per trainset is the number to meet in my opinion, maybe with select trainsets of lower capacities that the US is familiar with for services with lower capacity demands. I think it would be prudent to increase capacities on other rail services too, like the Surfliner.
The Metroliner introduced in 1967 was essentially the 1st high speed train in the Western Hemisphere, even if 120 mph isn't that fast in the developed world these days. The Japanese Bullet Train started out at that speed in 1964 and it's done alright.
The metroliners reached 150mph in testing, but took many years to be cleared for 125mph in service, by the time they did the EMD AEM-7s were entering service and could hit 125mph more easily and were much more reliable than the metroliners. You can see the remains of the metroliners to this day on the NEC, the Amfleet cars are unpowered metroliner cars, the Amfleet cab cars were the old metroliner control cars simply with their power systems removed. Budd company of course is now part of Alstom, they got bought out by Bombardier in the early 90s and then Bombardier was bought out by Alstom in 2021.
SLC doesn't really have another major metro area close to it. Boise is about the only one in reasonable range for HSR where the terrain isn't too difficult. The terrain is quite difficult between SLC and Denver and SLC and Las Vegas, the two next closest major cities. As for within Utah, there's no reason, 80% of Utah's population lives within an hour of SLC, they just need to keep expanding their commuter rail.
@@radicallyrethinkingrailwaysinathat would be roughly similar to CAHSR plans for San Francisco/Bay Area, running bullet trains at standard speed on electrified Caltrain right of way. The unfortunately likely scenario would be instead similar to Brightline West's terminus in Rancho Cucamonga. Hopefully they all do better anyway, and of course them getting constructed will mean inevitable demand for the terminus to reach either respective downtown station.
TRAIN DADDY! I love his enthusiasm for high speed rail. The time is NOW! Let's bring it on! Can't wait for what will happen in the next decade or two. I, too have travelled on the Shinkansen and the pure efficiency, frequency, and speed of the entire experience end to end was unrivaled even though its speed isn't the fastest. Glad to see that we're not settling for "good enough" but that the US is finally embracing the absolute best and cutting edge. As long as we aim for that and make it happen, the future is bright. Hopefully Andy Byford stays in Amtrak for at least 6 years. Let's go Amtrak!
America.. I know you like to use the term Western Hemisphere as a metonym for the Americas, but it actually describes the half of our planet west of the prime meridian. This includes the majority of mainland Spain, where the first high-speed railway (up to 185mph) was opened in 1992 between Madrid and Seville. I think this should be taken into consideration when claiming to have the 'First' of sth in a specific area. That being said, I am very excited for the current trend in the US to invest more in railway infrastructure and hope we get so see splendid result in a few years! You can do it! And srsly, you have to do it, too. It's about damn time 🎶
If Acela is the fastest train in the western hemisphere, we have to redefine what western hemisphere means, because spain in europe and morocco in africa are currently part of it.
Ah your confusing "western hemisphere" with "the West"/"Western Civilization". "Western hemisphere" is a geographic term that refers to North and South America "the West"/"Western Civilization" is a much more nebulous term that refers to a group of countries that share a consolation of social/political/cultural traits. Usually defined as Western Europe and most of their former colonies.
@@Patmorgan235Us In reality, western hemisphere refers to anything between 0° and 180° west, and that includes spain, morocco, parts of france, parts of great britain and some more area. Especially mentioning morocco should illustrate, that "the west" is not meant. If you mean "the americas", then say "the americas". Otherwise "western hemisphere" means everything west of greenwich.
@@doctorhabilthcjesus4610except it doesn't. words are defined by how people use them and that's not how people use or understand the term Western hemisphere in this context.
@@doctorhabilthcjesus4610and that isn't a colloquially useful definition of the western hemisphere. In simple terms, the western hemisphere refers to the northern and southern American continent group and the territories therein. And the eastern hemisphere would refer to the Eurasian and African continents and the territories therein. What's vague in my mind is whether Oceania goes into the Eastern hemisphere, which I imagine it would after some thought. That's all, you don't need to break out a map and think about it so much.
Agreed. Including pushing forward the 2nd phase to San Diego. The LA to San Diego Surfliner is one of the most popular routes on Amtrak. They could replace that route with the CAHSR.
TX Central and Brightline West will be complete and operational before CAHSR is even halfway built. California is just a nightmare to build any public infrastructure in due to NIMBYs and special interests. BLW just has the advantage of being mostly privately funded and building down the median of I-15 with the blessing of the state so less NIMBY problems.
@@mrvwbug4423 as much as I like timelines, Texas Central was supposed to complete construction 4 years ago based on their original plans. They have kept pushing back for 11 years. Similar with DesertXPress now Brightline West. While I was to see all 3 built only one has actually made significant progress.
I’d love to see high speed rail from Atlanta to Nashville, Savannah, and Charlotte! The dream would be to be able to visit friends in Indianapolis direct from Atlanta (without having to go to DC first)
The Michigan Wolverine line is where Amtrak can really run a high speed rail line.The tracks are already owned by Amtrak and MDOT @ 90% of the trip. Improve the tracks more and run the entire segment at 110mph or more.
I agree! Would love one between Chicago and Milwaukee too! That is the busiest route outside of the NE or California and would make it possible to commute from Chi to MKE (currently 1.5 hour trip with 7-8 trains per day)
took acela from nyc to providence and had to head back to penn station after we got to the bronx and then once we got up and going again we were stopped in new haven for 2 hours. Supposed to get in at 9 PM and got in at 2 AM. we need better service
Bring it on! Also, New Orleans to Los Angeles. That track is in deplorable condition between Baton Rouge and Lafayette. Passengers don't need to have dinner with the gators, yet the sway is just that bad -- secondary track, at best. The desert conditions out west also favor high-speed rail service. Houston and Tucson would be good intermediate stops. Now, this: East-west service is desperately needed between either Atlanta or Raleigh and Hutchinson with intermediate stops in Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, and Oklahoma City. In Hutchinson, the trains could couple with the Southwest Chief for the remainder of the way to Los Angeles. Talks have been held about such a route for many years. It's time to get the ball rolling. One more thing: Emphasis needs to be placed on more joint routes (states / Amtrak) for intermediate runs. Baton Rouge to New Orleans would be ideal, for I-10 is a madhouse and, as you said about I-45, a dangerous road. Please give these ideas your very serious consideration. Thank you.
HSR is not a cross country thing in a country as large as the US. The optimal distance for HSR is 150-300 miles and is a viable alternative to air travel up to 600 miles, beyond that air travel reigns supreme. HSR is best used for linking cities within a region like the Northeast, California, Texas, Florida or the rust belt.
Acela isn't necessarily high speed rail considering it only goes up to 150 MPH in certain sections. Many sections especially in NYC and Philadelphia have tight curves that restrict such speeds.
Thanks for this, Andy! You are still missed at the MTA. When will these beautiful new Acela trains actually start to run? There's four or five of them at 30th Street in Philly just hanging out for well over a year now. The people want the new trains, please.
"In the year 2000, Amtrak introduced Acela, the first high speed rail service in the Western Hemisphere." I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry. Come on, it's the first sentence in the video and you got it wrong.
We NEED this and this is the perfect route to make it happen. Just make sure to retrofit Shinkansen seats with Amtrak coach seats as those are way more comfortable
I would likely expect something similar to what is going on the new 2nd gen Acela trains, which are supposed to be pretty good. Also quite similar to what is on the new Amtrak Venture cars and Brightline.
Ok, here are several massive problems for the NEC: Amtrak doesn't own the entire corridor, CT owns almost all the rail within, capping the speed limit as it is controlled by local politicians that want to say their random small town has Acela service, so they'll need to build their own ROW to get around that. To continue, the longest stretches of the corridor where higher speeds could be possible, are effectively boxed in by development on both sides. So, unless NJ, PA, MD are suddenly going to use eminent domain to permit for 200mph track construction that is a non-starter. One possibility could be to take Japan's approach and build a viaduct over the existing rail lines to different specifications using prefabricated sections of bridge to keep the cost down. It will still be expensive but you don't have to factor in the cost of land acquisition then. Naturally there are other issues like tunnels and bridges-permanent infrastructure that already exists which presents not only a point of failure but a bottleneck in the entire system. If any projections are to be believed then adding a single rail tunnel into downtown NYC is the bare minimum of what is going to be required, one might need four tunnels to handle capacity. Just one is already going for near $20 billion. Now, in the past 30 years, there has been nothing stopping NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, CT, RI, MA from getting together and establishing the NEC interstate compact authority specifically designed to enhance and upgrade the NEC, with contributions made from their state budgets directly to the line. In this way, the people that support the expansion fund it and have authority over the budget overruns. Projections estimate the entire upgrade for the line to cost north of $150 billion, and that's if it gets built in the lifetime of my grandchildren. For how HSR construction will go in the US, California is the poster child. 80% over budget, 60% longer timeline, and half-baked projects. Just phase 1 is funded, there is no funding currently for phase 2 and the entire project is held up in red tape. That is a micro-chosm for how the US builds transit projects.
Amtrak will finally release a new high speed rail train like the Acela soon! Finally, high speed trains are coming soon all over the U.S.! It's better late than never!
Very delightful, Americans and their Geography Knowledge 🙂 "The first high-speed rail service in the Western Heimsphere"... I guess the Spanish don't count, running Trains with over 200mph since the 90ies 😜
Byford was president of N.Y.C. Transit & received accolades from passengers, transit advocate groups, & the employees of the system. The problem was, for whatever reason, the governor of NY @ the time didn’t like him & pushed him out. Amtrak’s gain.
Use the Acela services to go between Boston and New York. Amtrak seriously needs independent rail because its ridiculous that you fly from Boston to southern Rhode Island and then crawl at 75 mph the rest of the way through Connecticut and into the NYC area, kinda makes it not worth the 100-200 dollar tickets.
Wait if you said Acela is launched on 2000 then wouldn't it make it not the first HSR in western hemisphere? Because there is a HSR line connecting Madrid to Seville that operate in 1992. And as of now Spain HSR clocking at 300 kph.
We need a true HSR replacement for the Pacific Surfliner. The current tracks are falling into the ocean and causes months long closures that inconvenience passengers on America's second busiest passenger rail corridor. We need a fast and reliable solution now and I think HSR would be that
Dallas and Houston are too suburbanised and low density for a significant modal shift from air/road to rail. The north east between DC and New York and on towards Boston is where the tree real potential is, a dedicated high speed line on that corridor would be extremely expensive but the returns could outweigh that not just in terms of wider economic benefits but also by turning an operational profit. It really could be the US equivalent of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the busiest and at the time of writing the only high speed line in the world that isn't subsidised.
Kind of expensive to build that sort of infrastructure. Not to mention building a terminus far enough into the city center to make it a significant advantage over flying, or public transportation systems connecting on each end
If the US can build one HSR system successfully that should make future projects easier and cheaper to build. France builds HSR for about the same cost as conventional rail in the US, just because they have it down to a science even with the high labor costs of unionized French workers.
@@mrvwbug4423 Yes, but as China's system has shown building a line doesn't mean it will be successful or a good investment. Air and road travel took over much of the travel market for a reason; The NEC, or the Florida east coast corridor for example, have the sort of conditions that might make HSR viable, but there are an awful lot of proposals floating around right now that couldn't make back their cost.
@@andrewreynolds4949The airline industry spends tens of millions of dollars a year lobbying against High-Speed rail. Almost every airport is publicly owned in the US. That's the opposite of Europe, where airports have to survive financially. Clearly, it is not a level playing field. We have to be careful about comparing the perceived popularity and anticipated viability of different modes.
@@YourLocalGP Yes, we do have to be careful; and it's my strong belief that current political opinion swings too far in favor of it. There are absolutely some places where it would work but even the NEC struggles to get funding at the moment. Amtrak really doesn't need more money pits CAHSR style, they have enough routes that make enormous losses as it is
I’m excited for this expansion but we need to be talking about the political component of all this too. The California project has revealed just how much the little fiefdoms of state and county government get in the way of economic development in this country. The French company SNCF, makers of the famous TGV, had advisors in California and were so appalled at the overlapping jurisdictional authorities and managerial bloat, they pulled out entirely in order to focus on Morocco, which they claimed had “less political dysfunction than the US.” Despite all the politicians boasting about budget cuts and “living within our means” for the last 40 years, the US now has the most overinflated construction costs of anywhere in the developed world. These are the fundamental problems that have to be addressed and that citizens have to be more aware of if we’re gonna develop a proper railway network in this country. It’s good to see Texas as the first candidate for Shinkansen-type system in the US. But there are so many other corridors where we could build that too. Why aren’t they being proposed? In New England Amtrak just proposed a 14 hour route between Boston and Montreal - 14 hours is literally almost 19th century travel times. I’m just afraid Amtrak and US politicians are using these shiny new single projects to mask the overall stagnation elsewhere. We need to get bold with a nationwide vision for rail.
Siemens isn't building any more. The ALC-42E is going to replace the ACS-64 on the NEC by the end of the decade, that will be a dual mode diesel/electric that will eliminate locomotive swaps on a lot of their routes that change power modes. The retired ACS-64s will likely be sold to MBTA, MARC, SEPTA and NJT. And they are planning to use a dual mode Diesel/battery version of the Charger on the Empire corridor (the battery will give them enough juice to get out of Penn station and also extra power for acceleration then it will charge off the diesel when cruising basically like a hybrid car).
We need a rail system that allows us to tear down urban freeways and make America feel like America again, making neighborhoods more close knit. Make cities walkable again. Everyone is so isolated in their cars and driving sucks a lot of the time and it's driving is a potential death sentence every time you drive. I would love to see the U.S. build a passenger rail system that is better than China, Japan, France, Italy and Switzerland(....insert country with great trains here....) combined. It would be cool to see every town connected by efficient electric trains. 250+ mph high speed lines between major cities, 155 mph local rail, quality subway and tram networks in cities and towns. Let airports connect to the rail network seamlessly. The old Interstate and U.S. highway system will be fun to drive on for those who still love driving because most people take the train. I feel like this push for superior rail transport in the U.S. will be a project that rivals the Interstate highway project. I'm sure at this point we could use AI to help figure out a profitable solution. I would love to work on a project like this and I imagine many others. The U.S. needs to get this right, no half ass attempts with trains hitting cars at grade crossings. Eliminate those.
The Acela has a design problem, it's 6" too wide to tilt correctly. The Acela 2 is thin enough, but the windows pop out, along with leaky hydraulics and other things. The Aero train sets don't fit in the maintenance bays, costing $3 Billion for new facilities before they are even produced. The Charger locomotives have an engine problem with cylinder scuffing that makes the engine go boom, and the Venture passenger cars are too light to set off crossing signals on several lines. There's probably more, but I am going to bet on Brightline if you don't mind.
This is why we need dedicated non street crossing routes and rolling stock. Because we are 30 years behind where we should have been, it offers the opportunity to eliminate all the design and engineering shortcomings of previous efforts, and build actually reliable trains here in the US. Let's go!
Well you can't blame the Charger issues on Amtrak, that's an issue with Cummins who makes the engine for Siemens. Siemens had little choice but to use Cummins engines because CAT owns Progress Rail/EMD and isn't about to sell train engines to a US competitor (they do sell train engines to Stadler for use in Europe). And MTU would have to set up a US factory to build their engines here, though Siemens usually uses Cummins engines even in Europe
![FNAF vs TF2 - Episode 2 [SFM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5b3V2-VLb0/mqdefault.jpg)
Petition to give the Acela dedicated tracks so that it can reach its top speed on more of the length
It is a true high speed rail, we can’t just keep changing the definition of high speed rail to make a point. The Acela tops out faster than the Austrian Railjet which is referred to as a high speed rail, it’s faster than Brightline which people refer to as high speed rail. Yes the US needs more high speed rail, but can we stop lying about what it already has.
@@bencns The issue with Acela is that they only go operate as high speed for less than 15% of the NE corridor. The route it runs on are too curvy for the gen 1 trains to go fast, plus it also has to run alongside freight and commuter trains. Giving it a dedicated high speed spec'd tracks will definitely increase its competitiveness
@@duncantalksalotand brightline can only go 120mph for 1 mile
you can run at 160 mph next to commuter trains, that's what the four tracks are for. I don't think the northeast corridor sees much freight traffic. And good luck increasing curve radii in the densest part of the country.
@@SandoClubyes that goes 180 mph but is not built yet
We absolutely need more Andy Byfords with passenger rail.
The way I squealed
We had him in Toronto and we LOST him
We had him in NYC, and Cuomo basically drove him out.
@ScenicDashcamRides
Yep, the politics of the state and the ego of the governor at the time!!!! Man it's go to see him. You can't keep a good man down!!
The New York City Transit subway has gone to blazes!!! Deploying a 1000 National Gaurd in the subway, the assaults on MTA employee's, the increased violence acts on the train, not to mention kids surfing on top of the train. Man we could use an Andy Byford now!!!
Train Daddy gonna do his thing on Amtrak
This push has been long overdue. It’s been a rocky road to get to where we are today, but interviews like this make me excited for the future of rail in the US.
The key with Andy Byford, you gotta let him FINISH his job like he was able to do with the Elizabeth Line but not on the Subway
That means politicians need to stay out of his way
Which subway?
@@RGGeekNYC Subway. Was the President there until Cuomo pushed him out.
@@jayy9029 oh yeah, now I remember this guy. Sad to hear that happened. 😢
Yup, the man can absolutely get the job done. Just need the red tape bs to be removed.
I'm in Ontario, and really want to see Andy Byford push this through to completion. Totally respect him as a passenger rail executive, and the Texas route looks like a prime candidate for proof of concept for bullet-train style service. So many markets in Canada and the US need the technology.
Great to hear this call for action from a senior executive at Amtrak. However, what makes Shinkansen so famous is not just the rolling stock. I rode the Nozomi Shinkansen train in April 2024 and it was impressive how clean and timely the trains were despite multiple trains running within minutes of each other, each being at or near full capacity. Hence, Amtrak and every HSR in the US needs to see how to replicate the operations and infrastructure required to truly make HSR a success.
Agreed. I took the Shinkansen twice when I went to Japan and the on-time performance is absolutely incredible.
That's exactly the situation where high speed rail works! The primary benefit of HSR is that high speed rail allows you to run trains at higher frequencies and requires less rolling stock. The speed is only a secondary benefit to increased capacity.
The Texas Triangle, Florida and California are the natural 3 Southern regions/corridors which make sense for true high speed rail in America... Also Atlanta-Charlotte-Raleigh-Richmond-DC... In the North? Vancouver-Seattle-Portland, Milwaukee-Chicago-St Louis, Chicago-Detroit, Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati, Omaha-Des Moines-Davenport-Chicago-Indianapolis...
Could extend the Texas triangle to include New Orleans and OKC as well.
Why not route the lines under airport terminals so that medium haul fights become more competitive with easy access to competing airports in a region?
@@SethMethCSthe whole point is to not have to travel out to an airport to take a train to go to another city. I don’t understand your thought process here.
Chicago is screaming to be the main HSR connection hub in the Midwest. So many Chicagoans don’t own cars and usually only rent one when traveling to another regional city. HSR please and we’ll actually see Interstate congestion fall! I know DOTs won’t like that, but it’s a better more effective reality for everyone.
Minneapolis/Saint Paul to Milwaukee to Chicago
Japanese trains in USA would be incredible. Hopefully we can come ride Acela for our channel someday.
We are currently visiting and vlogging EVERY Amtrak station in the system.
Japanese trains are mid. China has better infrastructure, Germany and France have better rolling stock.
@@MAL1GNANT China has horrendous infrastructure lol. They've had thousands of casualties in less than 20 years of service, and numerous major accidents lol. Japan has had 0 in over 70.
@@MAL1GNANTJapanese already start building the world first long distance maglev line, due to competition in 2027. They are probably the only developed country that doesn’t run into massive cost and time overruns
@@stc2828 Besides the maglev, obviously.
that's cool - look forward to watching
So is Amtrak going to work with Texas Central Railway to make that Shinkansen train line?
Yes, they entered into a partnership to revive the project and got federal funding under the infrastructure bill for the early-phase planning
Amtrak has essentially taken over Texas Central
@@hge437 epic!
@@hge437can’t wait to see the progress they make
@@averyshaham1697 I think Amtrak was always part of the coalition, and was always going to be the ones operating the trains, they just took a bigger role once a huge amount of federal funding got tossed at the project.
VERY happy that they're sticking with the Shinkansen for Dallas to Houston
I think it's a case where Kawasaki has the factory capacity available in their US factories (The Shinkansen N700 series is designed and built by Kawasaki), they are finishing up building new trains for MTA in New York. Siemens and Alstom have massive backlogs in their US factories and Amtrak is Siemens and Alstoms biggest US customer.
Yes! We need that line between downtown (not northwest) Houston and Dallas! I cannot wait to vlog the grand opening!
Me too 🎉
Yeah and have the College Station station actually IN College Station
I suspect you're going to see a LOT of increased development in that NW Houston area, such that access is created, either through actually acquiring trackage to downtown HST, or at least connection via the streetcar.
@@HighHolyOne we shall see what happens. I’m excited for this!
I'd rather have Amtrak handle it than the private group... Still, that's a lot of farmers and ranchers who will have their businesses destroyed by trackage bisecting their land. I also don't know how they'd get around closing off towns that are positioned along the route since level crossings need to be minimized if not entirely eliminated. I saw a lot of people agreeing with this on Reddit and it's definitely going to harm public support for the issue. Not filling out the triangle between Houston-SA and SA-Dallas also hurts it and precludes a lot of people from using the system, myself included. I ultimately support the system, to be clear, I just find it annoying that it's primarily going to target "super commuters" who are already flying between Houston and DFW instead of regular people (this is why the private group chose to target that corridor so you can assume Amtrak is interested for the same reason).
Love this video and train daddy. Let's go, Amtrak. 💙
A lot of uplifting information in this presentation. Although the United States has been a prime candidate for high-speed rail for decades, it's never too late to implement the service! As a citizen of the U.S., I would prefer that the rolling stock be designed and manufactured here.
There aren't any US rolling stock manufacturers that build HSR trains. The Shinkansen rolling stock for this project in Texas will be built in the US, and the design will be modified a bit from the Japanese design to meet US regulations. Using existing HSR rolling stock with modifications for US regulations is much more cost effective. The original Acela was a joint venture between Bombardier and Alstom it used a modified TGV 200 series power car combined with Bombardier tilting cars. Avelia Liberty (2nd gen Acela) is a modified version of the newest French TGV trains and is built by Alstom. Brightline West will use a US spec version of the Siemens Velaro trainset which is the most common high speed train in the world (most German ICE trains and Spanish AVE trains are Velaros, plus a lot of the Chinese HSR trains) so a very established and reliable design. All of these are built in the US for the US market. Siemens has a huge factory building trains in California and Alstom has a huge factory in New York. Stadler a Swiss company that builds light rail and commuter trains has a big factory in Utah.
The only way that can happen is if we start building our high speed railways. And since we don't have that industry here, we can't build our own high speed trains (and let's not forget how some of our government is against anything dealing with rail).
Andy is an iconic leader in rail transportation. You have the right man and expert!
The key to the success of high-speed rail between megacities is frequency of service and average speed. What is needed is dedicated tracks for high-speed rail and rolling stock with high acceleration capabilities like the Shinkansen.
Thank you for the information, you guys are the best, @amtrak.
I love his optimism. But the disdain this country has against passenger rail does not make me believe high speed rail will happen (outside California and the Northeast). Texas could be another France (given they're practically the same size), but it's Texas. So that says it all.
I would say the tide is turning, that there's a growing majority of Americans, namely younger generations, who want better passenger rail in the US, including high speed rail.
We first need to make building big things easier, streamline the environmental review process, and not let a few powerful opponents hold up these kinds of projects in litigation. Texas could have had high speed rail back in the 90s, had it not been for a Southwest Airlines-led misinformation campaign to stop it.
It's also about changing the stigma around passenger rail here, show that trains are meant to provide more travel options, not take any away, and that they should be faster than driving, and flying for high speed rail. We've had decades of auto-centric spending, pushed heavily by lobbies that support that industry, and airline lobbies have fought hard in the past to stop HSR happening here. We need to be able to break that mold, and make building better rail easier, and that starts with continuing to engage with the public and make the idea of investing in rail and transit a positive.
What's not helped is the negative stigma around transit in general, even though cases often cited fall in the minority of most people's daily experiences. Online opinions probably don't do much, but they can still influence enough people to choose to vote against any new transit spending, while we continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into roads despite driving being statistically more dangerous than riding transit.
However, like I said above, the tide does appear to be turning toward a more positive view of transit, and a greater demand for improving and building more of it, including intercity transit like high speed rail. Car culture is far too ingrained in our society, and many of our cities built post-WW2 are built around it, for it to go away. Better trains and transit won't eliminate driving, or flying for that matter, nor should they, but by providing another travel option that's competitive with those, and by some choosing transit means fewer cars on the roads and less crowded airports for those who will continue to choose those options, makes life easier for everyone. Having great intracity and intercity transit makes driving and flying easier. That should be the message that's pushed.
Yes, let's keep maintaining our existing road and airport infrastructure, but let's also invest in modes of travel proven by much of the developed world to relieve the strain on those. Those countries have roads and airports, but they also have great transit, including high speed rail. America is not too big for fast trains, just as it isn't for cars. They along with air travel can and will all work here. Let's stop kicking the can down the road and get it done. If we can build the Interstates, we can build 200+ mph high speed rail. It starts with a first, whether it's California, Nevada, Texas, or wherever.
@@ChrisJones-gx7fc I love ALL of this.
@@ChrisJones-gx7fcWell, CAHSR is the only one under construction since 2015. BLW just announced their groundbreaking a few days ago
@@mrxman581 BLW will be finished and running before CAHSR gets halfway done. CAHSR is being killed by NIMBYs and cost overruns
I’m optimistic, I’ve seen some of the most conservative people from the US travel to Europe, take a HSR trip, and return to the US asking why we don’t have those here. It’s not a political ideological thing, HSR is an incredibly attractive and effective solution to real transportation problems.
Really glad to see a push for this stuff in the states. Hopefully stuff is done in the Northeast too, upgrading more and more of the corridor with speed and capacity upgrades, possibly new sections of high speed line. That area especially needs it too. Plus the Acela could be so much better. Its currently the only high speed rail service without an economy class which is just pretty absurd, and I imagine detrimental to public support. Why would the public support a train that only the top elite in business class can afford to use regularly. Like invest in upgrades and in adding economy class to the Acela, please!
DC to Miami, high speed rail is just a dream. Never going to happen.
@@edwardcricchio6106 I am not saying DC to Miami. But stuff like NYC-Cleveland-Chicago, Philly-Pittsburgh, Detroit-Chicago, and so on.
@@drdewott9154 Oh I only mentioned that run because I go from NY to West Palm on the snail trains. I know the high speed rail will not happen in my lifetime. I'm already 65 so I don't think within the next 20 years I will see it.
The top area of the NEC that needs upgrading is in Connecticut, that is the section that is not owned by Amtrak. Top speed on the CT shore line is 90mph between New Haven and New London. Between NYC and New Haven top speed is 80mph if you're lucky.
It's really important for high speed trains to bump up their capacity. 1300 passengers per trainset is the number to meet in my opinion, maybe with select trainsets of lower capacities that the US is familiar with for services with lower capacity demands. I think it would be prudent to increase capacities on other rail services too, like the Surfliner.
The Metroliner introduced in 1967 was essentially the 1st high speed train in the Western Hemisphere, even if 120 mph isn't that fast in the developed world these days. The Japanese Bullet Train started out at that speed in 1964 and it's done alright.
The metroliners reached 150mph in testing, but took many years to be cleared for 125mph in service, by the time they did the EMD AEM-7s were entering service and could hit 125mph more easily and were much more reliable than the metroliners. You can see the remains of the metroliners to this day on the NEC, the Amfleet cars are unpowered metroliner cars, the Amfleet cab cars were the old metroliner control cars simply with their power systems removed. Budd company of course is now part of Alstom, they got bought out by Bombardier in the early 90s and then Bombardier was bought out by Alstom in 2021.
Heck numerous express steam locomotives were capable of above 100, beyond the paltry 80mph initial operating speed on brightline.
We need to get some more people talking about Salt Lake City and the Rio Grande Plan and how it will get Utah ready for high speed rail!
SLC doesn't really have another major metro area close to it. Boise is about the only one in reasonable range for HSR where the terrain isn't too difficult. The terrain is quite difficult between SLC and Denver and SLC and Las Vegas, the two next closest major cities. As for within Utah, there's no reason, 80% of Utah's population lives within an hour of SLC, they just need to keep expanding their commuter rail.
please do what yall can to actually bring the houston stop to DOWNTOWN and connect it with the rest of downtown transit
You probably need 2 stops - an outer suburban park and ride and a genuine downtown. The line between the 2 does not need to be full hsr standard
@@radicallyrethinkingrailwaysinathat would be roughly similar to CAHSR plans for San Francisco/Bay Area, running bullet trains at standard speed on electrified Caltrain right of way. The unfortunately likely scenario would be instead similar to Brightline West's terminus in Rancho Cucamonga. Hopefully they all do better anyway, and of course them getting constructed will mean inevitable demand for the terminus to reach either respective downtown station.
Save us Train Dad
Countin' on ya, train daddy🚇
TRAIN DADDY! I love his enthusiasm for high speed rail. The time is NOW! Let's bring it on! Can't wait for what will happen in the next decade or two. I, too have travelled on the Shinkansen and the pure efficiency, frequency, and speed of the entire experience end to end was unrivaled even though its speed isn't the fastest. Glad to see that we're not settling for "good enough" but that the US is finally embracing the absolute best and cutting edge. As long as we aim for that and make it happen, the future is bright. Hopefully Andy Byford stays in Amtrak for at least 6 years. Let's go Amtrak!
Long overdue!
Sorry if I'm wrong but the "western hemisphere" is west of Greenwich? That means both the TGV and Renfe are west and faster....
No
@@cmmartti They should just say "The Americas" at that point.
Another big Hollywood hit showing Americans navel-gazing
Do Americans even have geography classes?
@@gsf02Byford is literally British you dolt
America.. I know you like to use the term Western Hemisphere as a metonym for the Americas, but it actually describes the half of our planet west of the prime meridian. This includes the majority of mainland Spain, where the first high-speed railway (up to 185mph) was opened in 1992 between Madrid and Seville. I think this should be taken into consideration when claiming to have the 'First' of sth in a specific area.
That being said, I am very excited for the current trend in the US to invest more in railway infrastructure and hope we get so see splendid result in a few years! You can do it! And srsly, you have to do it, too. It's about damn time 🎶
Andy Byford is a legend. We miss him in Toronto but I think it’s amazing that he is helping get projects like this initiated.
We must let Train Daddy cook
If Acela is the fastest train in the western hemisphere, we have to redefine what western hemisphere means, because spain in europe and morocco in africa are currently part of it.
@@cmmartti Then it should rather be called "the Americas".
Ah your confusing "western hemisphere" with "the West"/"Western Civilization".
"Western hemisphere" is a geographic term that refers to North and South America
"the West"/"Western Civilization" is a much more nebulous term that refers to a group of countries that share a consolation of social/political/cultural traits. Usually defined as Western Europe and most of their former colonies.
@@Patmorgan235Us In reality, western hemisphere refers to anything between 0° and 180° west, and that includes spain, morocco, parts of france, parts of great britain and some more area. Especially mentioning morocco should illustrate, that "the west" is not meant. If you mean "the americas", then say "the americas". Otherwise "western hemisphere" means everything west of greenwich.
@@doctorhabilthcjesus4610except it doesn't. words are defined by how people use them and that's not how people use or understand the term Western hemisphere in this context.
@@doctorhabilthcjesus4610and that isn't a colloquially useful definition of the western hemisphere. In simple terms, the western hemisphere refers to the northern and southern American continent group and the territories therein. And the eastern hemisphere would refer to the Eurasian and African continents and the territories therein. What's vague in my mind is whether Oceania goes into the Eastern hemisphere, which I imagine it would after some thought. That's all, you don't need to break out a map and think about it so much.
They need to make a documentary on this guy's professional life. Very good to see him back in the states.
IMO investing in CAHSR should be a priority for Amtrak and any rail expansion. Yes it’s expensive, but it’s demand is comparable to the NEC.
Agreed. Including pushing forward the 2nd phase to San Diego. The LA to San Diego Surfliner is one of the most popular routes on Amtrak. They could replace that route with the CAHSR.
TX Central and Brightline West will be complete and operational before CAHSR is even halfway built. California is just a nightmare to build any public infrastructure in due to NIMBYs and special interests. BLW just has the advantage of being mostly privately funded and building down the median of I-15 with the blessing of the state so less NIMBY problems.
@@mrxman581agreed. Especially when they have to constantly close the tracks whenever it rains for months at a time to stabilize the bluffs
@@mrvwbug4423 as much as I like timelines, Texas Central was supposed to complete construction 4 years ago based on their original plans. They have kept pushing back for 11 years. Similar with DesertXPress now Brightline West. While I was to see all 3 built only one has actually made significant progress.
I’d love to see high speed rail from Atlanta to Nashville, Savannah, and Charlotte! The dream would be to be able to visit friends in Indianapolis direct from Atlanta (without having to go to DC first)
The Michigan Wolverine line is where Amtrak can really run a high speed rail line.The tracks are already owned by Amtrak and MDOT @ 90% of the trip. Improve the tracks more and run the entire segment at 110mph or more.
The rust belt is a great place for HSR expansion. The major cities of the rust belt are all in optimal HSR range of each other.
I agree! Would love one between Chicago and Milwaukee too! That is the busiest route outside of the NE or California and would make it possible to commute from Chi to MKE (currently 1.5 hour trip with 7-8 trains per day)
'The western hemisphere' that does really set a standard
Actually (most of) the Spanish AVE is west of Greenwich too, so in the western hemisphere.
Also some TGV services. (Rennes and Bordeaux)
And the Al Boraq in Morocco
How is acela the fastest train in the Western hemisphere when french cities like bordeaux are also in the Western hemisphere and have TGVs?
took acela from nyc to providence and had to head back to penn station after we got to the bronx and then once we got up and going again we were stopped in new haven for 2 hours. Supposed to get in at 9 PM and got in at 2 AM. we need better service
Bring it on! Also, New Orleans to Los Angeles. That track is in deplorable condition between Baton Rouge and Lafayette. Passengers don't need to have dinner with the gators, yet the sway is just that bad -- secondary track, at best. The desert conditions out west also favor high-speed rail service. Houston and Tucson would be good intermediate stops. Now, this: East-west service is desperately needed between either Atlanta or Raleigh and Hutchinson with intermediate stops in Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, and Oklahoma City. In Hutchinson, the trains could couple with the Southwest Chief for the remainder of the way to Los Angeles. Talks have been held about such a route for many years. It's time to get the ball rolling. One more thing: Emphasis needs to be placed on more joint routes (states / Amtrak) for intermediate runs. Baton Rouge to New Orleans would be ideal, for I-10 is a madhouse and, as you said about I-45, a dangerous road. Please give these ideas your very serious consideration. Thank you.
HSR is not a cross country thing in a country as large as the US. The optimal distance for HSR is 150-300 miles and is a viable alternative to air travel up to 600 miles, beyond that air travel reigns supreme. HSR is best used for linking cities within a region like the Northeast, California, Texas, Florida or the rust belt.
@@mrvwbug4423 Thank you for the information.
Train daddy, please come to Canada and fix Via Rail when you're done at Amtrak 🙏
Can't wait to see this in the USA. Being on a train going 187 MPH is jaw dropping and exciting.
Inspiring video. I'll be happy to ride in the new Avelia Liberty train.
Acela isn't necessarily high speed rail considering it only goes up to 150 MPH in certain sections. Many sections especially in NYC and Philadelphia have tight curves that restrict such speeds.
Yup, only 56 miles of the NEC have 150mph line speed
Train daddy loves you very much
Thanks for this, Andy! You are still missed at the MTA. When will these beautiful new Acela trains actually start to run? There's four or five of them at 30th Street in Philly just hanging out for well over a year now. The people want the new trains, please.
"In the year 2000, Amtrak introduced Acela, the first high speed rail service in the Western Hemisphere."
I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry. Come on, it's the first sentence in the video and you got it wrong.
We NEED this and this is the perfect route to make it happen. Just make sure to retrofit Shinkansen seats with Amtrak coach seats as those are way more comfortable
I would likely expect something similar to what is going on the new 2nd gen Acela trains, which are supposed to be pretty good. Also quite similar to what is on the new Amtrak Venture cars and Brightline.
Welcome back to the states Andy
Vancouver-Seattle-Portland next please 🙏
We love Train Daddy
We always talk about Washington DC north, but it'd be great to see HSR down to Atlanta-ish.
I still enjoy the current seating, very cushiony and relaxing.
I’m very interested in those Japanese style high speed train sets for Texas.
so, apparently the Western Hemisphere doesn't include mainland europe?
Or Morocco for that matter
I 💙 Amtrak
Sounds fantastic!
Ok, here are several massive problems for the NEC: Amtrak doesn't own the entire corridor, CT owns almost all the rail within, capping the speed limit as it is controlled by local politicians that want to say their random small town has Acela service, so they'll need to build their own ROW to get around that. To continue, the longest stretches of the corridor where higher speeds could be possible, are effectively boxed in by development on both sides. So, unless NJ, PA, MD are suddenly going to use eminent domain to permit for 200mph track construction that is a non-starter. One possibility could be to take Japan's approach and build a viaduct over the existing rail lines to different specifications using prefabricated sections of bridge to keep the cost down. It will still be expensive but you don't have to factor in the cost of land acquisition then. Naturally there are other issues like tunnels and bridges-permanent infrastructure that already exists which presents not only a point of failure but a bottleneck in the entire system. If any projections are to be believed then adding a single rail tunnel into downtown NYC is the bare minimum of what is going to be required, one might need four tunnels to handle capacity. Just one is already going for near $20 billion. Now, in the past 30 years, there has been nothing stopping NY, NJ, PA, MD, DE, CT, RI, MA from getting together and establishing the NEC interstate compact authority specifically designed to enhance and upgrade the NEC, with contributions made from their state budgets directly to the line. In this way, the people that support the expansion fund it and have authority over the budget overruns. Projections estimate the entire upgrade for the line to cost north of $150 billion, and that's if it gets built in the lifetime of my grandchildren. For how HSR construction will go in the US, California is the poster child. 80% over budget, 60% longer timeline, and half-baked projects. Just phase 1 is funded, there is no funding currently for phase 2 and the entire project is held up in red tape. That is a micro-chosm for how the US builds transit projects.
Will it be its own dedicated rail or will they still have to share and defer to cargo trains?
On behalf of all of Toronto... Please for the love of GOD COME BACK FOR TWO MONTHS AND FIX EVERYTHING
Happy 53rd birthday, Amtrak!
Amen brother!
We need Andy back in Toronto so badly...
I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that you hired Andy Byford. New York screwed him over. He deserved this. Hold onto him!
Amtrak will finally release a new high speed rail train like the Acela soon! Finally, high speed trains are coming soon all over the U.S.! It's better late than never!
Very delightful, Americans and their Geography Knowledge 🙂 "The first high-speed rail service in the Western Heimsphere"... I guess the Spanish don't count, running Trains with over 200mph since the 90ies 😜
The rolling stock doesn't matter when it can only go 50mph through most of CT. We need a new ROW between NYC and Boston.
Good luck building new ROW in CT with all those rich NIMBYs.
Oh the Anime fans of Houston will be so happy about using the Shinkansen :D
As a Texan, this highspeed rail connection cannot come soon enough!
Byford was president of N.Y.C. Transit & received accolades from passengers, transit advocate groups, & the employees of the system. The problem was, for whatever reason, the governor of NY @ the time didn’t like him & pushed him out. Amtrak’s gain.
I would love to see high speed rail come to the Pacific Northwest🙏🏼 pleaseeeee
Amtrak is so, behind they need to get on it real quick!
when will we see more train options in the Midwest?
Pittsburgh-Columbus-Cincinnati-Indianapolis-St Louis-Kansas City-Denver.
Use the Acela services to go between Boston and New York. Amtrak seriously needs independent rail because its ridiculous that you fly from Boston to southern Rhode Island and then crawl at 75 mph the rest of the way through Connecticut and into the NYC area, kinda makes it not worth the 100-200 dollar tickets.
"Western hemisphere" does a lot of heavy lifting here.
Wait if you said Acela is launched on 2000 then wouldn't it make it not the first HSR in western hemisphere? Because there is a HSR line connecting Madrid to Seville that operate in 1992. And as of now Spain HSR clocking at 300 kph.
Going to Virgina Beach this weekend.
We need a true HSR replacement for the Pacific Surfliner. The current tracks are falling into the ocean and causes months long closures that inconvenience passengers on America's second busiest passenger rail corridor. We need a fast and reliable solution now and I think HSR would be that
MY GOAT BYFORDDD
Dallas and Houston are too suburbanised and low density for a significant modal shift from air/road to rail. The north east between DC and New York and on towards Boston is where the tree real potential is, a dedicated high speed line on that corridor would be extremely expensive but the returns could outweigh that not just in terms of wider economic benefits but also by turning an operational profit. It really could be the US equivalent of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the busiest and at the time of writing the only high speed line in the world that isn't subsidised.
Want to come back to the TTC, Andy?
It’s nice to see Train Daddy again. I just find the background music annoying.
Kind of expensive to build that sort of infrastructure. Not to mention building a terminus far enough into the city center to make it a significant advantage over flying, or public transportation systems connecting on each end
If the US can build one HSR system successfully that should make future projects easier and cheaper to build. France builds HSR for about the same cost as conventional rail in the US, just because they have it down to a science even with the high labor costs of unionized French workers.
@@mrvwbug4423 Yes, but as China's system has shown building a line doesn't mean it will be successful or a good investment. Air and road travel took over much of the travel market for a reason; The NEC, or the Florida east coast corridor for example, have the sort of conditions that might make HSR viable, but there are an awful lot of proposals floating around right now that couldn't make back their cost.
@@andrewreynolds4949The airline industry spends tens of millions of dollars a year lobbying against High-Speed rail. Almost every airport is publicly owned in the US. That's the opposite of Europe, where airports have to survive financially. Clearly, it is not a level playing field. We have to be careful about comparing the perceived popularity and anticipated viability of different modes.
@@YourLocalGP Yes, we do have to be careful; and it's my strong belief that current political opinion swings too far in favor of it. There are absolutely some places where it would work but even the NEC struggles to get funding at the moment. Amtrak really doesn't need more money pits CAHSR style, they have enough routes that make enormous losses as it is
Y’all better get with the program brightline is very up and coming I must admit
The Train Daddy!
Let’s make it happen
I’m excited for this expansion but we need to be talking about the political component of all this too. The California project has revealed just how much the little fiefdoms of state and county government get in the way of economic development in this country. The French company SNCF, makers of the famous TGV, had advisors in California and were so appalled at the overlapping jurisdictional authorities and managerial bloat, they pulled out entirely in order to focus on Morocco, which they claimed had “less political dysfunction than the US.” Despite all the politicians boasting about budget cuts and “living within our means” for the last 40 years, the US now has the most overinflated construction costs of anywhere in the developed world. These are the fundamental problems that have to be addressed and that citizens have to be more aware of if we’re gonna develop a proper railway network in this country.
It’s good to see Texas as the first candidate for Shinkansen-type system in the US. But there are so many other corridors where we could build that too. Why aren’t they being proposed? In New England Amtrak just proposed a 14 hour route between Boston and Montreal - 14 hours is literally almost 19th century travel times. I’m just afraid Amtrak and US politicians are using these shiny new single projects to mask the overall stagnation elsewhere. We need to get bold with a nationwide vision for rail.
we need to replace car-centric infastructure with rail yesterday
Petition to use more ACS64s
Siemens isn't building any more. The ALC-42E is going to replace the ACS-64 on the NEC by the end of the decade, that will be a dual mode diesel/electric that will eliminate locomotive swaps on a lot of their routes that change power modes. The retired ACS-64s will likely be sold to MBTA, MARC, SEPTA and NJT. And they are planning to use a dual mode Diesel/battery version of the Charger on the Empire corridor (the battery will give them enough juice to get out of Penn station and also extra power for acceleration then it will charge off the diesel when cruising basically like a hybrid car).
@@mrvwbug4423 an Mbta acs64 will be so cool!
What ist the reason NEC trains are so short? In Europe Long distance trains tend to bei 400m
Why there hasn’t been an LA Phoenix route is baffling.
I'm not seeing a comment by RM Transit yet.
I so much, agree! !
We need a rail system that allows us to tear down urban freeways and make America feel like America again, making neighborhoods more close knit. Make cities walkable again. Everyone is so isolated in their cars and driving sucks a lot of the time and it's driving is a potential death sentence every time you drive. I would love to see the U.S. build a passenger rail system that is better than China, Japan, France, Italy and Switzerland(....insert country with great trains here....) combined. It would be cool to see every town connected by efficient electric trains. 250+ mph high speed lines between major cities, 155 mph local rail, quality subway and tram networks in cities and towns. Let airports connect to the rail network seamlessly. The old Interstate and U.S. highway system will be fun to drive on for those who still love driving because most people take the train. I feel like this push for superior rail transport in the U.S. will be a project that rivals the Interstate highway project. I'm sure at this point we could use AI to help figure out a profitable solution. I would love to work on a project like this and I imagine many others. The U.S. needs to get this right, no half ass attempts with trains hitting cars at grade crossings. Eliminate those.
The US needs more high speed rail!
The Acela has a design problem, it's 6" too wide to tilt correctly. The Acela 2 is thin enough, but the windows pop out, along with leaky hydraulics and other things. The Aero train sets don't fit in the maintenance bays, costing $3 Billion for new facilities before they are even produced. The Charger locomotives have an engine problem with cylinder scuffing that makes the engine go boom, and the Venture passenger cars are too light to set off crossing signals on several lines. There's probably more, but I am going to bet on Brightline if you don't mind.
This is why we need dedicated non street crossing routes and rolling stock. Because we are 30 years behind where we should have been, it offers the opportunity to eliminate all the design and engineering shortcomings of previous efforts, and build actually reliable trains here in the US.
Let's go!
Well you can't blame the Charger issues on Amtrak, that's an issue with Cummins who makes the engine for Siemens. Siemens had little choice but to use Cummins engines because CAT owns Progress Rail/EMD and isn't about to sell train engines to a US competitor (they do sell train engines to Stadler for use in Europe). And MTU would have to set up a US factory to build their engines here, though Siemens usually uses Cummins engines even in Europe
Okay but can we build it in a place with a reliable power grid?
ERCOT could be a major thorn in the side of this project haha
He's right this should have happened centuries ago.
Faster than trains in Canada and Mexico then. Great achievement.