C'mon ride the (high speed) train, hey, ride it, woo woo!

Of course ports which the feds also send funding too obviously are not in every state.

 

And the steps to fund a HSR would probably work on a similar way.

The economic benefit from a port is more straight forward. More/bigger ports, means more competition for products being shipped out or shipped in, so people in Iowa do see a benefit, so voters may more easily swallow paying for a port in Maryland.

Now we are not going to get many republican votes for HSR, we may get some from states or districts that represent cities that may have HSR.

The funding will have to come from Democrats if democrats gain control back of the purse stings. So getting funding for HSR from congress people from large cities may be a easier sale.

I just do not want them to fund white elephants on tracks.

A San Diego-LA-San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland fast train may work economically if the ticket price is high enough (maybe around $200-$250 for the full trip) Now politically maybe Sacramento gets added, but if they start adding more stops (say Fresno) then the project becomes more and more of a money pit.

For me the against arguments are one political (how to get people in Iowa to vote for this) and economical (I do not want this project to become a military industrial complex style tax payer fund for the construction industry).

Other that that, I am all in favor, shit I would love to ride the train after is completed.

 

ok, more from the article above.

It looks like a ticket price of 20 cents per mile may come with heavy subsidies.

A more realistic price may be over 45 cents per mile. Now is this price this high to pay back debt service?

I said before, I am ok with just spending federal money with out paying back the construction cost (would be very difficult politically).

So my question would be, does 20 cents per mile at least cover operating expenses?

Here is another study, but too dang long to finish reading.


https://ec.europa.eu/transport/site...ce-quality-rail-pax-services-final-report.pdf

 

If such a thing were possible, I'm sure Robert Byrd* would have figured out how.

*See, the joke is that Byrd rather famously and rather aggressively used his power within the senate to get all kinds of goodies in West Virginia. Which is landlocked.

 

Ah yes....Senator Byrd. He was well known for his fiddling.

 

You've probably seen it, but for anyone who hasn't, the list of things named after Robert Byrd is prodigious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_named_after_Robert_Byrd

No port, but there is the National Maritime Center for the US Coast Guard located in Kearneysville, WV.... And that's not a joke.

 

So them ticket prices will need to go up again in the California High Speed choo-choo

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cost-overrun-20180116-story.html

 

Gee, who could have foreseen this?

 

The Federal Railroad Administration narrowed its list of possible routes down to two for a high-speed magnetic levitating train that would travel between Baltimore and Washington in just 15 minutes.
https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimo...-reveal-finalists-for-maglev-train-route.html

 

Hey....estimated 6,000,000,000+ smackers for a 40 mile 15 min ride sounds like a winner. Same as original estimate for the 120 mi Ca Choo Choo. What are the odds the estimate is close?

 

Take it from the money Mexico is paying us for the wall.

 

How much is nada dinero en ingles?

 

The 4014 Big Boy rebuild should be finished by early/mid '19. I'm booking my ride ASAP.

 

No tienes lana guey?

 

Que?? I googled for the translation.....
"Guey you not have wool?"

That made me feel a bit sheepish!

 

Guey is the way many semi-literate Mexican-Americans spell buey.

Lana/wool is slang for money.

 

I never took you for one of the sheeple... but lana means bucks in some Latinamerican countries... Hopefully not a horny issue..

 

Half right... Guey means dude, dude...

 

Just because it's been bastardized from the original buey so often. Same as, in English, "literally" has been misused so often that it literally can mean figuratively.

 

Hyper-loop coming to a town near me:

https://wsvn.com/news/local/miami-t...-proposed-hyperloop-train-moving-forward/amp/

 

Uh...The article said the distance between Miami and Orlando was 257 mi and a 3 hr drive by car. Does everyone in Florida drive Corvettes and Shelby Mustangs?

 

Yes.

 

Here's a pic of what it would look like. I guess it would pay for it's self if you could also use it to transport natural and hi-octane gas at the same time.

 

The Turnpike’s speed limit is 70 mph, so obviously everyone drives 80. So yeah, it’s more or less 3 hours.

Unless you have kids and they decide they have to pee 10 miles after the last service station and there’s 30 to the next one. Never happens to us.