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I've been yelling about high speed rail between LA and Vegas for 25 years. It's so dumb to not have it. First off, that's mostly empty desert, so the biggest hurdle is environmental impact. Secondly, I would think the casinos would self-fund this, since it would be so much easier to get the rich people from LA out to Vegas than by flying. LAX fucking sucks to drive to/from (though it's pretty good once you're inside), so being able to hop on a train with no security and not braving traffic and be in Vegas in a couple hours would probably entice a lot more visitors.
That said, 15 years after we voted to fund high speed rail from LA to SF, they are 15 billion over budget with nothing to show for it.
Give it a casino car with gambling that opens right as you pass the Nevada border and the thing might actually pay for itself
Ah, so you're that person on the corner yelling about trains. Nice to meet you!
I mean, that is a really big hurdle in and of itself. Or, at least, it should be.
But also? Assuming they go roughly as the crow flies (just dodging mountains), that is a LOT of territory where a train breaking down is a very serious issue. Not "death valley" bad, but still a case where rapid response is needed.
I personally think this is a good idea and will be a great way to demonstrate why improving rail infrastructure is a good idea. But there are a LOT of problems that need to be solved with this.
I don't know how many people are regularly going from LA to SF, but i think that is also going to be a much more realistic challenge. Because the area between those two cities are actually fairly populated. So you have the usual high speed rail issues of not being able to run at full speed for significant amounts of time, needing to use local tracks where available (ha, local tracks in the US?), etc. Which is probably why it is taking so long.
Also, nitpicks:
They're building it in the median of the interstate.
You also have the CA valley high speed rail facts completely wrong. They're building 100% new tracks and it has to nearly all support insanely high speeds >220mph.
... Yes, because there are no existing tracks*. Hence the laughter. Apologies if I was too subtle.
And building in the median of the highway is going to be interesting for how much this angers people over the next few years. But better for responsiveness.
As for high speeds: Yeah, time will tell on that one. Because highway and road noise is already bad enough. And looking at the gold standard for high speed rail (the Shinkansen): When you are in "rural" Japan, you are going insanely fast and it is glorious. When you are in cities or even towns, you slow down considerably. Still faster than local trains, but (not having looked at the numbers) I would assume comparable to the express trains that skip a lot of stops. And that is perfectly reasonable. I spent a few weeks in Japan not too long ago and my hotel was literally next to some above ground tracks. I grew up in a city so it barely bothered me, but the person I was traveling with acknowledged she would not be able to sleep until the trains stopped for the night.
*: Just because I am inevitably going to deal with some pedants. Yes, there actually are a lot more tracks than people would expect. But, generally, there is nowhere near enough redundancy or flexibility for it to matter. Because if you need to clear out the cargo trains to pass some passengers through, it actively costs money. And if your passengers only have a ten minute window, same problem.
I don't think any of the initial operating segment uses existing tracks. It's been taking a long time because funding is constantly being withheld so they don't have enough money to go any faster.