At PJ Media, Charlie Martin does a good job of showing why the fast, efficient passenger railways of Europe are not replicated in the US and Canada:
… the usual story is something like “the United States should have a world-class passenger train system, with high-speed rail like the French and Japanese have.” @AOC’s official-no-fake-no-just-a-draft-Republican-conspiracy-theory-why-are-you-all-being-mean? Green New Deal FAQ wanted one so good that air travel would become “unnecessary.”
Sounds great, and I love the covert “MAGA” aspect of the pitch, but it has one great big, pretty much insurmountable problem: America.
Not the country, the geography. People living on the coasts just don’t realize how big this country is. I was discussing it on Twitter with a Swiss who lives in Zürich who was telling me how great the Europeans trains are — and they really are comfortable, pretty fast, have great scenery to look at — but, well, let’s compare Colorado and Switzerland. Similar climate, mountains, pretty scenery, cranky natives who are suspicious of newcomers. But let’s go to the maps:
Colorado is 6.5 times as big, has 60 percent of the population — and, it happens, about two-thirds of the gross “national” product per capita.
Compare the lower 48 states with all of Western Europe:
The truth is, we’re in flyover country out here. The coastal clerisy don’t realize that on their five-hour flight from LAX to LGA they’re traveling 2,500 miles. Now, back in the days of the Super Chief and the 20th Century Limited, you could make that trip by train in only 76 hours, not counting changing trains in Chicago. (It takes longer on Amtrak.)
So, let’s say we could get high-speed trains for the whole trip that averaged 200 miles per hour, and could travel as the crow flies: that’s 12.5 hours.
Except of course you couldn’t because the crow is flying over some of the highest mountains in the country. You’re going to need rights of way, and you can’t use the rights of way that exist because they’re not suited for that kind of speed and they’re pretty full anyway. Also, it wouldn’t do to interrupt the existing freight lines, which actually are about as good as anywhere in the world.
Yep. Pesky mountains getting in the way. Alleghenies, Rockys, Cascades. Appalachians, Sierra Nevada, Ozarks, Sangre de Cristo… Well, here’s the list per Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_ranges#United_States. Lots of blastin’ powder there, amirite?
Comment by JC — February 15, 2019 @ 21:20
I’m sure that the Green New Green Deal Green has totally satisfactory answers, probably involving cow farts, to these minor geographical barriers.
Comment by Nicholas — February 15, 2019 @ 21:38