Todays New York Times has an editorial on Trains. So, why does all of Europe, Japan and China have such great train service while the train service in the US is terrible. I live in central California. To go 220 miles south to Los Angeles or San Francisco by train I leave my home in a nice shiny train and then switch to a bus for the last part of the ride.
100 years ago, we our emerging economy on the rails of the best train system in the world. What happened? How are we going to compete in the next 100 years. A single train car gets the equivalent of about 400 miles per gallon and carries the same load as a Truck getting 10 miles per gallon. Where's the logic?
“It’s happening now,” he said. “The problem is that it is happening elsewhere.” Japan, Spain, China and Germany are among those with superspeedy trains that rival air travel and easily eclipse the irritations of a car trip. Yet America has only one high-speed corridor, from Boston to Washington, where the Acela Express is often forced by conditions to slow down to average speeds of around 70 miles per hour. Europe’s bullet trains can run at an average of about 130 m.p.h., and Japan’s zip through the countryside at an average of 180 m.p.h.Read the entire editorial here.
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