High Speed Rail (2023)

FAQs

Will us ever get high-speed rail? ›

As of 2023 the California High-Speed Rail Authority is working on the California High-Speed Rail project and construction is under way on sections traversing the Central Valley. The Central Valley section is planned to open in 2029 and Phase I is planned for completion in 2033.

Population Density. The US simply does not have the density to have the need for high speed rail. There are a few regions where this is actually a viable thing, and one region in the US already has a high speed rail line, called the Acela Express. It runs from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, DC.

Maximum train speeds will be about 220 miles per hour (350 km/h) in the dedicated HSR segments, and about 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) in the blended segments.

While there is no single international standard for high speed rail, new train lines having speeds in excess of 250 kilometers per hour (km/h), or 160 miles per hour (mph), and existing lines in excess of 200 km/h (120 mph) are generally considered to be high speed.

The distance between New York and Los Angeles is approximately 2446 miles, or 3936 kilometers. The average train journey between these two cities takes 78 hours and 58 minutes, although the absolute fastest you could get there is 67 hours and 20 minutes.

California's plan to link Los Angeles to San Francisco by high-speed rail is expected to cost $68 billion. Critics argue that such services cannot survive without public subsidies and that the United States has few of the dense urban areas that have made such train services successful in places like France and Japan.

The fastest train in North America is the Acela which hits 150 mph in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Amtrak is upgrading track in New Jersey for 160 mph.

Train travel is often cheaper than flying, in part because you can generally take more with you before paying extra baggage fees. It can also be more convenient and relaxing than driving, especially if you'd be driving in an unfamiliar place or driving for many hours nonstop to get to your destination.

High-speed rail is generally regarded as the pinnacle of attractive and green transportation. But all too often, it makes train travel more expensive and less flexible. In the end, costly high-speed lines may just push more people into cars.

Collectively, they turned a project that might have been built more quickly and cheaply into a behemoth so expensive that, without a major new source of funding, there is little chance it can ever reach its original goal of connecting California's two biggest metropolitan areas in two hours and 40 minutes.

Can trains go 400 mph? ›

China Has Debuted 400-MPH 'Super Bullet' Maglev Train, Mass Transit Design. Japan's Chuo Shinkansen broke records with 374 mph, but both maglev trains face serious challenges.

How long would it take a bullet train to cross the US? On China's top-of-the-line "bullet train," the journey takes 4.5 hours. If I wanted to travel a comparable distance in the US by train — at 712 miles, New York to Chicago is the closest — it would take 22 hours, with a transfer in Washington, DC.

The Little Engine That Couldn't: California's High-Speed Rail Costs Rise To $200 Million Per Mile. California's high-speed rail (HSR) pencils out to around $200 million per mile for the San Francisco–Los Angeles route. And this cost is almost certainly too low if the main attraction of the project is ever built.

Those loops propel the train forward, like a rail gun, at speeds upwards of 804 kilometers per hour (500 miles per hour), which is about the average cruising speed of a plane.

Maglev top speed

The train was clocked at 603 kilometers per hour or 375 miles per hour. This is much faster than the Maglev trains already operating in Shanghai, China, and in South Korea, which run at speeds of 268 to 311 miles per hour and 68 miles per hour, respectively.

Dive Insight: High costs are almost synonymous with rail projects in the U.S., especially in the California region. That's because costs around healthcare and pensions are incorporated into the direct capital cost of a project, according to the Eno Center report.

Your time is yours. With high-speed rail, train travel is always faster than driving. In many cases, it's even faster than flying, once you factor in the whole air travel song-and-dance.

The 2022 business plan estimates that the full, 500-mile high-speed system between Los Angeles and San Francisco will cost as much as $105 billion, up from $100 billion two years ago. In 2008, when voters approved a bond to help build the railroad, the authority estimated that the system would cost $33 billion.

While flying on an airplane is the safest mode of long-distance travel, according to the International Air Transport Association, trains are your best option on the ground.

Trains are three times more dangerous than flying but safer than traveling by car (which is 40 times more risky than flying), according to Savage. Yet many folks are still clearly afraid to fly.

Will California high speed rail ever finish? ›

OAKLAND, Calif. - A new review of California's high-speed rail project said it may never be finished. A report from the New York Times found that political compromises over the years resulted in difficult routes for the train, adding billions of dollars in costs.

The average freight train is about 1 to 1¼ miles in length (90 to 120 rail cars). When it's moving at 55 miles an hour, it can take a mile or more to stop after the locomotive engineer fully applies the emergency brake. An 8-car passenger train moving at 80 miles an hour needs about a mile to stop.

Unlike during a flight, train rides are not only relaxing and turbulence-free, but under most circumstances, it is stress-free. There are no take-off, landing, or seat belt signs, and for most of the journey, you are free to get up and walk around instead of being stuck in your seat for endless amounts of time.

High Speed Rail is the world's safest form of transportation proven by decades of operations all around the world. Japan was the first nation to build high speed rail in 1964, and has since transported 10 billion passengers without a single injury or fatality!

Users could drive their cars — presumably Teslas, Musk's electric-car invention — into pods for the ride. At that speed and travel time, the electromagnetic-powered Hyperloop would be light years faster than the high-speed rail, which has people riding on trains and speeding along at just over 200 mph.

On average, California's electrified high-speed rail will keep more than 3,500 tons of harmful pollutants out of the air – every year. We have planted more than 7,100 trees to offset emissions produced through construction. We have avoided over 420,000 pounds of criteria air pollutants during construction.

High-speed rail lines, which can be used for both passenger travel and freight service, are generally characterized by speeds of at least 200 miles per hour — providing convenience, safety, lower environmental impact and higher community benefits when compared to driving.

Building high-speed rail systems require steel and concrete, the manufacturing of which typically generates greenhouse gases. Trucks, bulldozers, and other construction site equipment also consume energy. Thus, during their long construction phases, high-speed rail projects add greenhouse gases.

The 2022 business plan estimates that the full, 500-mile high-speed system between Los Angeles and San Francisco will cost as much as $105 billion, up from $100 billion two years ago. In 2008, when voters approved a bond to help build the railroad, the authority estimated that the system would cost $33 billion.

Expands Travel Choices and Improves Mobility:

High-speed rail can deliver people from one downtown to another as fast as or faster than air travel. The addition of HSR as an integrated part of America's transportation system will help airports work better and highways work better.

Will Texas get high-speed rail? ›

It is estimated that 6 million passengers in 2029 and 13 million in 2050 will use the high-speed train between Dallas and Houston. The total investment for the Texas High Speed Rail is expected to be approximately $16 billion and represents one of the largest infrastructure contracts in the United States.

The system will run from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin in under three hours at speeds capable of over 200 miles per hour. The system will eventually extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles with up to 24 stations.

While many of those trains run at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour, the fastest line in the U.S. is Amtrak's Acela service between New York and Washington, topping out at 150 mph.

It Takes Decades to Plan and Build

However, because of cost overruns and the pandemic, the authority now projects completion no earlier than 2033, nearly 40 years after planning began. Not all high‐​speed rail lines may take this long, but two decades seems a likely minimum.

Sure, you could fly, but once you factor in traveling to the airport, going through security, and sitting on a taxiway, the high-speed train is still faster. It would also be cheaper. A lot cheaper. That high-speed train ticket would cost about $75, compared to more than $200 to fly or drive.