Tyro writes:
I suspect that the nature of the transcontinental rail system did a lot of long-term damage to rail's prospects. Because the system had to traverse long distances at a relatively slow pace, a sort of culture grew up around this (see the song "City of New Orleans"), and that became associated with the "romance" of rail travel.
Well, most people engage in travel because they need to get from point A to point B, and when advocates for rail were needed to push for faster, more efficient connections between cities within 200-400 miles, the only members of the "train lobby" around were people pining for the days of slow-moving scenic traips over purple mountains and amber waves of grain. And while southern senators were more than happy to earmark money to keep these sorts of trains running through their districts, the political will never materialized to start investing in rail when it came to building serious transportation infrastructure.
It would be as though the auto lobby was full of people who wanted the government to support more projects like the pre-Eisenhower Route 66 when it came to spending highway dollars.
Don't know if that's true, but it's fascinating. Here in the Northeast Corridor, there was an investment made into high-speed rail (the "Acela" trains). These trains can haul ass, pushing 200 mph, in theory. The problem is, we lack the rail infrastructure for them to do so. I've heard that's because of a boneheaded engineering error when the tracks were being laid, but according to Wikipedia, the issue is outdated infrastructure. "South of New York, Acela Express is limited to 135 mph (217 km/h) with many stretches of 125 mph (201 km/h). Although the track is straight enough to allow 150 mph (241 km/h) in several areas here, the overhead catenary support system was constructed during the Great Depression. As such, it does not have the constant-tension features of the new catenary east of New Haven, and it cannot support running speeds over 135 mph." Sounds like this is exactly the sort of thing transportation subsidies should be fixing.
Update: See Ryan Avent for more, and then see Ryan Avent again, for even more.
