If you could take a Maglev train from NY to LA in 10 hours, instead of fly

[Flaxbee]

...would you?

I want high speed trains in this country, dammit! I wanna take a cool bullet train or Maglev from Boston to Chicago, or Raleigh to Miami, or NY to LA. I don't want to fly all the time. I want TRAINS! NOW!

Frickin' corporate greed, pushing cars over trains. Ridiculous.

Of course, there's legislation for high speed railway bonds, but will the trains ever come about in my lifetime? Probably not. How can others who favor trains make this happen?
******

High-Speed Rail Bonds Advance

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also approved, on June 25th <2003> H.R. 2571, the Railroad Infrastructure Development and Expansion Act for the 21st Century (RIDE-21). The bill would authorize $24 billion in bonds and $35 billion in loans to states over ten years to build rapid rail lines. Similar legislation was introduced in the 107th Congress but fell victim to labor disputes. These issues were addressed prior to the introduction of H.R. 2571.

[benburch]

1. Hell yes.

We need that done with Manhattan Project priority.

[WindRavenX]

2. that would be so effin' cool!

How much would do you think a cross country ticket would cost compared to a plane ticket?

[HeyManThatsCool]

3. that would be so flippin SWEET

I hate flying. HATE. IT.

[serryjw]

5. Agree with all

I hate flying. I have inner ear problems and if the plane is not pressurize properly it is very painful. I think trains are a kick!

[BrklynLiberal]

4. I would love it. I wanted to take the train to Chicago the last time I

visited my son..but it is soooooo much more expensive than flying!!
I wish they would do something to make the trains faster and cheaper.
It would be wonderful. I would get on the train at night and wake up in Chicago.

[Flaxbee]

7. Or, leave NYC at 10am and get into LA at 5pm ...

of course, you always have the time benefit traveling west, but you could leave LA at 10pm and get into NYC at 11am, having slept most of the way there.

I would love it. The rest of the world is doing it and Detroit or whomever keeps pumping out dumbass 4 ton monster vehicles and lobbying against railways along with the oil giants.

The old rail bonds allowed regular citizens to buy bonds that funded the building of the railways AND whenever you sold the bonds, any profit you made was tax free. An incentive, nice and simple. So the rails were built, of course allowing tickets, etc., to be much less expensive b/c the carriers didn't have to make up the cost of the infrastructure -- it SHOULD be a gov't project, anyway, not stupid wars. But I digress.

It could be done very easily, and I think quite economically, if only there was the political will do to so. Ha ha, fat chance.

But I'm going to research all this - funding and maintenance issues, etc. - and would love to get an enthusiastic group to start pushing legislators to move on it.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. And watch the country go by as you travel..........

[HeeBGBz]

6. I love trains! Fast or slow

Wish we had a line that went through here.

[Ellen Forradalom]

9. Nothing else makes as much sense in the Northeast Corridor

A maglev line from DC to Boston, through Baltimore, Philly and New York, is in order.

Out west, the distances are great and the property-rights crowd too ornery to make it practical. Remember there were bitter fights over Rails-to-Trails conversions because of claims of adjoining property owners.

[jmowreader]

10. Maglev east-west cross country makes no sense

The construction expense of going over the Rockies is what kills the idea.

I think the most commonly cited run is from Boston through NYC to Washington, DC. That run makes a lot of sense--as does, say, a DC-Atlanta run, a LA-SF run, maybe Seattle to Portland.

We often say that other countries run high-speed trains between their major cities so we should too. Those other countries aren't going the distances we are talking about. In fact, there are only three other countries/country groups that have these kinds of distances--the former Soviet Union, China and Canada--and NONE of them are running ultra-high-speed rail across those longer distances. They use standard-speed rail where the rights-of-way for the lines have been established for scores of years, and use aircraft for their high-speed lines of communication.

[Flaxbee]

12. Nah, just follow the roads. No need to tunnel or

any of that expensive stuff. Have a kick-ass Maglev zip alongside the freeways/highways across the nation. We could do it, we SHOULD do it as the "greatest nation on earth", regardless of whether or not Russia or China are doing it. That's what American ingenuity is supposed to be about, something fantastic and exciting.

Screw the property rights groups. The gov't did it before for road creation and maintenance; we don't really need to acquire much new land, if any. East to west coast is doable and should be done. We need to kick start public works in this country again!

And you could use the railway for movement of goods, too -- get extra use from the lines, reduce trucking (and let the truckers monitor the freight/create jobs that way so no one hollers about jobs) as well as gas consumption. No heavy, long freight trains, but 2-5 car pods that use the rails, too.

[DS1]

11. 10 hours sounds like a long time, but lets break down a typical coast to

coast flight.

All time approximate, and yes I'm being generous in some areas, and not in others

Parking at airport: 15 minutes
Standing in line at security : 60 minutes
Standing in line to check in : 30 minutes
Waiting to board : 15 minutes
Sitting in plane waiting to move : 20 minutes
Taxiing and waiting for a clear runway : 10 minutes
Flying to Chicago, or some other centrally located airline hub : 180 minutes
Getting out of plane : 15 minutes
Checking in for connecting flight : 30 minutes /security
Waiting for rest of hour layover that you scheduled in case your first flight was late : 60 Minutes
Repeat same wait in plane / taxi / takeoff routine : 30 minutes
Flying rest of distance : 150 minutes
Circling and landing : 15 minutes
Waiting for the dummies in front of you to get their shit and move : 15 minutes

Total time : 10 Hours 45 minutes

OR. I can get in a train, have some REAL fucking food instead of those insulting bags of pretzels, be able to move around without the possibilty of "looking threatening" and tasered by the Air Marshals. Sleep to the gentle hum of the magnetodrives and the rushing of the air around the cabin.

Hell yeah, sign me up, and "Fuck you", airshits.

[Flaxbee]

13. Exactly! Even if you have a direct flight...

it still takes at least 5 hours flying, depending on weather, plus all the farting around at the airport preboarding, waiting on the runway for clearance, shuffling and mooing waiting to get off the plane, blah blah blah. Even a 5 hour direct flight ends up taking at least 7 hours. I'd much rather be on a train, watching the countryside, eating good food, moving around, maybe seeing a few movies, whatever. Soooo much more freedom and comfort! The extra time would be more than worth it.

[LynzM]

14. I'd love it

Even if it were just the eastern part of the country, or localized, regional trains. It's one of the things I miss most about Europe. Whoever posted about hills is partly correct, but Europe has lots of hills, too... not sure how it's dealt with, but it is. In terms of the distances being an issue... even if we had the Boston-NYC-DC line and a few others like that, it would be SO nice for that kind of travel. We did trains from Indiana to Chicago, though, and they sucked. Waiting to board was like waiting in the airport, security and all, and what should have been a 3.5 hour trip took almost 6 because of conflicts with the other trains. Plus, we had 'assigned' seats, things like that. That stuff needs to get figured out, and I think it's part of why train travel hasn't caught on as much here. But still, it would rock, if it were an option.