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A comment on Maglev Train Seen Making Washington-to-Baltimore Trip at 311 MPH. Parent comment

Re:Maglev Train Seen Making Washington-to-Baltimore Trip at ... by mikeash on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @10:11AM (#8492752)
The Silver Line is pretty expensive for what it is, but I think you're overstating it. If I understand the Wikipedia page correctly, the $6.8 billion figure is for the full 23 mile extension, not just the 11.6 miles built so far. That cost also includes constructing all of the new stations. The urban nature of the line also means a substantial elevated section and a tunnel, both of which will increase costs quite a bit compared to an inter-city line.

Given that the Silver Line is proving extremely useful by finally hooking up Tysons Corner, a major city center, to the DC metro system, and given the general uselessness of shaving a few minutes off the existing Baltimore-DC routes, I'd hardly call $10 billion for a maglev line a "steal".

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Re:Maglev Train Seen Making Washington-to-Baltimore Trip at ... by incision on Wednesday October 22, 2014 @12:35PM (#8493473)
>"The Silver Line is pretty expensive for what it is, but I think you're overstating it. If I understand the Wikipedia page correctly, the $6.8 billion figure is for the full 23 mile extension, not just the 11.6 miles built so far."

You're right, I did mistate the length.

In general though, I think you're misunderstanding my thrust here. You're talking about value, I don't think this project is a good value at all, quite the opposite [1].

I'm just thinking about engineering and construction...

The Silver Line is a demonstration that building 23 miles of 45 mph commuter rail line costs at least $6.8B despite the benefit the benefit of 40 years, 100+ miles and 90 stations worth of experience doing the same.

Given that, actually building a first of it's kind 40 mile 300 mph rail line through the same sort of aerial and tunnel requiring [2] suburban counties around DC for 'only' $10B seems completely implausible.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8492525

2: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-maglev-train-i...

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