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

Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by Retric on Saturday July 01, 2017 @08:30PM (#14679997)

Compare that to the 49+ million people in the northeast which would take about the same rail to cover and 17 million really is small. The problem is it's a triangle which means the maximum distance someone travels is minimized while still needing a lot of rail. You could make it a little shorter by making the trips take longer which kind of defeats the purpose. Further, there is not a lot to directly connect to it.

However, once the northeast networks expands eventually adding Texas would be reasonable, just not from day 1.

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Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by enraged_camel on Saturday July 01, 2017 @09:27PM (#14680251)

You can leave Austin and San Antonio out and still have 13 million people on the Dallas/Houston straight line.

And keep in mind that the terrain between Dallas and Houston is basically all flat and sparsely populated, so building rail there would be a lot cheaper than the northeast.

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Re:As the U.S. fantasizes, the world builds high speed rail by Retric on Saturday July 01, 2017 @10:31PM (#14680515)

Rail only going to a fewe small city's would be underutilized. Ballpark 1/3 of the people going from A to B using high speed rail and you need a lot of people going from A to B. However, if B is on the way to C and people from A and B also go to C... etc you start to see massive network effects.

Sure, if Texas wants to spemd their money go for it, but this would be a relative ware of federal funds.

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