Could this be a new rail revolution, or has the media in the US found something new, and kind of exciting) for those who get to travel on high speed trains somewhere in the world) to write about instead of the problems that they keep finding.
Wired is running a fabulous article about the projects in the US, detailing the issues that they face, but also the expectations. Interesting to read is that only the California system is being held up as a true ultra fast system from the outset. As previously mentioned, the most interesting one will be the Florida system that will probably being the first one to get started, and given its short distance for the first phase, will end up being the first one completed.
Christian Science Monitor also extols the virtues of high speed rail. The main arguments in “pro-rail” articles tends to be on the subject of avoiding the relative hassles of flying; certainly flying across the US, or covering long distances that separate the major cities in the US, is faster by plane, but there is always the relative issue with security checks, the having to be there three hours (or so before) , and just the general hassle associated with air travel. What a lot of these articles do not seem to consider, so maybe it is just my opinion, is that rail travel simply provides a third alternative for making intercity travel which, whilst having disadvantages, has a lot more, attractive advantages associated with such elegant means of travel (not being in a tube floating at 30000 feet is one that springs to mind). The simple perspective I can see from all this is that there is an increased awareness that the rest of the world is moving ahead with high speed rail, it is time the US got in to this game and develops its own, home-developed, system.
Kent (England) isn’t exactly in the US, but it does have a shiny new high speed rail line running through it; someone even had the bright idea of having commuter trains running along it when Eurostar isn’t. Kent serves as an example for US regions unsure about the arrival of high speed rail in that they see this new line as being crucial for the future development of the area. It could be argued that the plans for future improvement for the area would have happened anyway; however, the High Speed 1 link is being seen as the vital catalyst that is propelling the area forward. Once the Midwest line gets built, for example, I can see more people living well outside the immediate area and making the commute in to Chicago each day. We’ll see.
Could this be the moment the US hasn’t realised it has been waiting for? Today, Pres Obama will be presenting which of the 13 high speed corridors that have been proposed will be getting federal funding. In total there is expected to be 13 such routes that will be getting money together with a number of other routes that will be receiving money for upgrades. Unless he has a secret stash of cash, the money on offer is unlikely to see the US criss-crossed with a fabulous new high-speed rail network, but it is at least a start.
At the same time, the Florida corridor has been receiving much attention in the (local) news, even going as far as suggesting that the state will be the first in the Us to be running high speed trains. I like the proposed route and the idea of linking up the major points (i.e. the airports, downtowns, and major sites along the way, like Disneyworld). They key to success, at least in my humble opinion, is that for any new high speed rail links to work they need to include airports, main downtown areas (this gives you the additional benefit of feeding incoming people to the downtown areas), and then key places along the way. Even more important is to consider integration at the main stations – do you really want to get somewhere and find you can’t actually get anywhere else after that, like local metro lines.
Let’s see what is announced today, and then whether or not the routes are delivered. or even how long the things will take to build.
The announcement will see California, Illinois (Minneapolis-Milwaukee-Chicago-St Louis) and Florida getting huge buckets of cash heading their way. The document below details all the winners, and the consolation prizes (smaller chunks of cash)
Reports floating around the web yesterday would suggest that Riyadh is in advanced planning stages of their monorail based mass transit system; the plans include two lines totalling 42 km, one on a north-south route (around 25km) and the second on an east-west route (17km), and are now awaiting budget allocation. With many cities in India constructing or planning monorails, many other new projects already completed in the region, these are exciting times for monorail construction and one that I hope gains further momentum elsewhere.
It isn’t often that one gets the chance to read a good, healthy debate on a subject that one believes in. Debate seems to have given way to vociferous argument that is more often than not heavily biased without the chance for counter argument or balanced reply. The Guardian has been host to an interesting “debate” over the requirements of high speed rail in the UK.
In the original article, Simon Jenkins argued against high speed rail not necessarily (I believe) as an argument against high speed rail per se, but rather from the position of spending the money that would be put in to such projects and pumping in to much needed improvements in other rail services, and even urban transport.
Train services cross-country or to coastal Britain are deplorable. Stations are mostly miserable places. The Hatfield crash – the 9/11 of the railway – led Whitehall’s hyper-safe inspectors to panic. They raised the cost of track maintenance by five times (according to Modern Railways magazine) as against British Rail. Meanwhile, 15 years after privatisation the west of England track is still not electrified, a contrast with Europe that is more glaring than the absence of a bullet-nosed glamour project. The trouble is that making services run on time is politically boring.
Today I found the response to this article by Mark Bostock. Whilst fundamentally arguing against the points of the original article, the main point is that the UK’s rail network is built on a railway system that was created by the Victorians for the Victorian era. Patching up the system to bring it up to modern standards can’t be as effective as building new ones. Additionally he cites many examples from across Europe where new systems can be built within budget, benefit the country as a whole and would certainly address the issue of the current deplorable state of the UK’s rail network.
The biggest danger to delivering the high-speed network is not funding but cynicism. We need confidence to get this major investment right, giving the next generation the benefit of a rail network we do not currently enjoy
I find myself agreeing with both sides, at least to some extent. On the one hand the UK finds itself in a position that the old systems, created well over a hundred years ago that didn’t envisage high speed anything, nor the current levels of demand for use, need to be replaced; this requires a fresh start with new rail lines providing with the capacity and infrastructure it badly needs for now and the immediate future. A fundemental flaw in the UK’s rail network is that the combination of weight and dimension restrictions means you can’t run standard European rolling stock on the UK network. The practicality of this is that you won’t be seeing double-decker trains on the network any time soon, the introduction of such units would see and increase in capacity without the need to change station lengths, this is just one example.
At the same time there is a need to provide local and regional transport improvements; in this case I would argue that needs an innovative approach that updates the current systems but from the perspective of replacing these with new designs and approaches; this is not necessarily a case of digging up the whole lot and starting again (but then again why not apply this to some routes), but at least look at the problem as a whole and find a balance. Cost is an issue, but the long term advantages need to be considered as well as negative impacts in the future of not making these changes.
The biggest issue facing the UK is mentioned in the above quote: cynicism; this is a problem the UK faces regardless of the ideas or intent – arguably this is a problem in the US as well. Too much is made of headline grabbing events that make more about rail failure than is necessary (for example the delay to Eurostar services during the period of bad weather the UK experienced) and not enough is made of the positive news (like Eurostar running without issues every day of the week, and cutting out the hassle you get when trying to make the same journeys by air, or even the new Javelin high speed commuter services that have been introduced in the South East of England). Ultimately this will need a strong, confident decision made by the government to actually get on with the project in a way that benefits the country now, during the construction (source locally) and ultimately in the future when the system is operational.
Regardless, it is good to find such debates taking place. I look forward to reading more.
23 Dec 2009 saw the opening of a new circle line route in the city of Toyoma, Japan. The Centram route circles the city center starting from and ending at the city’s main railway station. Interestingly this is a one-way route, so no getting on the wrong tram.
Japanese Trams (this website is a new find and a very good find at that)
Mumbai
02 Jan 2010 saw the delivery of the first set of monorail cars from Scomi, in Malaysia, to Mumbai. The first set of cars will help ensure the monorail works when it is scheduled to open in mid-2011. Looks like the first trial run will take place end of Jan, with the first phase opening around November 2010. I really hope this works out to be a success and they get to expand the system.
_sml.png)
Could this be a new rail revolution, or has the media in the US found something new, and kind of exciting) for those who get to travel on high speed trains somewhere in the world) to write about instead of the problems that they keep finding.
