As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail

Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by phire on Saturday July 01, 2017 @07:32PM (#14679720)

NYC to SFO in 12 hours is an average speed of 215mph, assuming the most direct route possible.

Practically you would require a top speed of ~250mph, and current current generation of conventional rail trains max out at about 190-210mph. But they could easily do NYC to SFO in 13-14 hours.

The Shanghai Maglev Train reaches a top speed of 268mph (during it's short 7min trip to the airport), so it could do the trip in less than 12 hours. But I'm not sure it's theoretically practical over distances that long.

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Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by DrScump on Sunday July 02, 2017 @12:45AM (#14680942)

  NYC to SFO in 12 hours is an average speed of 215mph

With zero stops and no delays.

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Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by vacri on Saturday July 01, 2017 @07:38PM (#14679754)

That's a hell of a lot of infrastructure just to link two end-points at opposite ends of the continent. Any train going that route is not going to be an express, and more stops significantly affect average speed.

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Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by bennettfeely on Sunday July 02, 2017 @12:52AM (#14680969)

Getting downvoted for bringing up completely reasonable points?

And who is gonna pay for this magical high speed railroad that never breaks down and is never delayed?

High speed rail in California is costing around $90 million per mile. A perfectly straight line from NYC-SF is 2,572 miles. That's nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars. All to allow costal elites to increase their travel time? Sure.

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