Journal Entry
High speed rail in Spain
PBS has an interesting article here on high speed rail in Spain:
Spain plans to build 6,200 miles more of high-speed track by 2020 — positioning nearly everyone in Spain within 30 miles of a high-speed rail station. In that same time, California, with a population about four-fifths the size of Spain’s, will have just opened its first high-speed route — 432 miles of track built over nearly a decade.
I like that the article compares California and Spain. Not the entire US and Spain. Spain and a state like California, or Texas, are comparable in size, area, etc. Little comes from comparing the vastness of the US with a more compact European nation.
But the fact that Spain is spending more on infrastructure is pretty damning. $100 billion expected over 10 years. That’s $10 billion a year, versus the US initial $8 billion for passenger rail and we’re not sure what the followup commitment is beyond that.
We’re going to let Spain outspend us?
I’ve been meaning, since I took a train trip from Windsor to Montreal, to post details of the massive amount of train research I’ve done over the past 4-5 months. I went from dismissing passenger rail in the US, to realizing that the US historically had a decent system (old folks in my area tell me they used to hop on a train to Chicago to go Christmas shopping or catch a ball game, the generation after them hardly leaves the state) that it gave up on, and that if done right, it could be something very positive for the US.
I also learned the US has more overall track than most countries, and when it comes to moving goods by train, the US moves an order of magnitude more than Europe does. Which doesn’t fit the Europe-civilized with rail US-backward story quick so easily. It’s more complicated than that. The US is actually pretty good at moving stuff around by rail.
As for the people incensed about the ‘waste’ of $8 billion of investment in rail by ARRA, I’m curious as to why they’re just now speaking up. During the previous administration $30 billion was pledged toward freight rail companies.
Whether its goods or people, rail is a pretty good idea, I think.
Filed under the topic Journal on January 19th 2010 at 7:30 pm. You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this entry to keep track of comments. You can also use to trackback.
Comment policy: this is Tobias' blog and space. Like a guest in his house, accord other guests and your host respect and polite discourse while feeling free to engage in debate or comment. Failure to do so results in comment ban or deletion.
8 Responses so far
Your host:
Tobias is a Caribbean-born SF/F novelist who lives in Ohio.
Contact me:
tobias@tobiasbuckell.com
AIM: tobiasbuckell
Latest Comments
Anonymister on Underwater Skyscrapers (3)
Stephen Watkins on China ups the ante on rail (8)
Steve Buchheit on Colonialism 2.0? (3)
Sophy ZS Adani on SF Hall of Fame inductees (2)
Tobias Buckell on Friday’s latest chapter of It’s All Just A Draft: On Rejection (5)
Popular this month
In the ER
Repeat
Why my books are no longer for sale via Amazon
Introducing...
That (not so much) crumbling core of Western Europe's military might
Words words words 15 hrs ago
iPad preorders online are looking healthy: http://bit.ly/aBF6Iq 16 hrs ago
Someone emailed with a jiassen@ email address, with a dumb ass publishing question. I thought jlassen was punking me at first #yaydsylexia 1 day ago
Hmmm, http://rudder.com/ looks like it does a lot of stuff I did in http://bit.ly/df5E6Z but more automated. Nifty. 1 day ago
Ya'll have about 1/2 hour to hit me with more questions before I go silent ;-) 1 day ago
Currently Reading & Enjoying:
Free Fiction
Novels
Read the first 1/3 free of:
-Crystal Rain: First 1/3 [RTF]
-Ragamuffin-First 1/3 [RTF]
-Sly Mongoose-First 1/3 [RTF]
Short Stories
Toy Planes
The Fish Merchant [pdf]
Her
The Shackles of Freedom (with Mike Resnick)
Necahual
Four Eyes
Aerophilia
Shoah Sry (with Ilsa J. Bick [pdf]
Audio
1. TheExpatriate on Jan 19th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
I’m with you on this, Tobias. Based on my personal experience, I found the trains and buses offered in European nations to be superior to their American counterparts.
Personally, I prefer trains and buses to planes as a means of transport. Not only are they cheaper, but in regional travel they can be quicker. For example, when you factor in layovers, it is quicker to travel from Pittsburgh to Washington D.C. by greyhound than by plane.
2. James A. Hetley on Jan 19th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .
One of our Maine railroads wants to abandon a couple hundred miles of track in northern Maine. Can’t make money running trains up there.
3. Steve Burnap on Jan 19th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
I’ll believe that California can get its act together enough to get any high speed rail in operation by 2020 when I see it.
4. Philip Brewer on Jan 19th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Train travel still works okay in the US, if you pick your spot.
From Champaign, for example, I can still make day trips to Chicago. Catch the train around 6:00 AM and you arrive in Chicago early enough for a late breakfast before the museums open. Spend the day at the Art Institute (or shopping, or whatever). Then you can head home either at 4-ish (and get home in time for supper) or 7-ish and get home by bedtime.
Of course, there are only so many towns from which that’s possible. The fact that Champaign is one of them is part of the reason I live here.
5. Tobias Buckell on Jan 20th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Philip, if I lived in Cleveland or Toledo, trips to Chicago would actually be fairly straightforward by train as well, actually. I could be up to catch a 6:15am, be in Chicago for brunch, then catch a late dinner train back to be in Toledo late at night.
6. Joseph Charpak on Jan 20th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Spain is a country. It doesn’t have to balance its books each year. California is a state that’s in a huge economic crisis. Not a fair comparison.
7. Chris Gerrib on Jan 20th, 2010 at 10:59 am
When you say “It’s more complicated than that” it’s true about most things.
8. Craig Johns on Jan 21st, 2010 at 12:14 am
Yep. I would love more travel by rail options, especially in the days of pain-in-the-arse air travel. With high speed rail tech, we could eventually have much greater convenience and freedom of travel within the States. Also, if a large high speed rail network is implemented, it will help in cutting down on the amount of harmful vehicle emissions.
I doubt it will happen here though like it is in Europe and Japan. I would bet that people here (the majority, and politicians at least) would say, “trains, that’s too old-timey for me.” Of course, we would get the usual answer of, “it’s unnecessary and it costs too much to implement.”