Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
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Germany's area is 137,988 square miles, the USA area is 3,797,000 square miles.
If, to make this size comparison simple, we made both countries squares in shape, each side of that square would be (x) miles long.
Germany (x) = about 370 miles
USA (x) = about 1945 miles
Using one side of this imaginary square is a close approximation of traveling from one side of a country to the other side.
A fast train averaging 100 mph could travel 370 miles in 3.7 hours within Germany
The same fast train averaging the same 100 mph could travel 1945 miles in 19.45 hours within the USA. Alas, the long distance trains in America do not even average 50 mph.
Here's the question most Americans ask before taking a trip:
Would you ride a very fast train for 19.45 hours and the over 40 hours with our slow trains,
or fly on a plane averaging 500 mph for less than 4 hours?
And so many around the world wonder why the US government and private industry invests so much on airlines and so little on trains?
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Whoa...........
You're using very misleading statistics there.
At the minimum, could we please remove the State of Alaska from the US area figure, since no one is contemplating train service connecting the 'lower 48' to Alaska, at any speed?
That slashes the land area from 3,700,000 sqm to just over 3,000,000 right there.
If we equally acknowledge that 'Hawaii isn't getting served either', and nor is Big Sky Country getting more service, and has very few people anyway (Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas etc.)
Then we have a much more accurate picture of where the majority of Americans live, and where serious rail service might contemplated.
By the time we're done, were looking at 2,700,000sq miles tops; and even that's a very expansive area for consideration, much of which would not be proposed for serious rail investments in the next 25 years.
Yes, what's left is still about 20x the size of Germany, but also has about 4x the population.
That does make some markets less serviceable than others; but doesn't paint the picture of this chasm-like gap in viability.
In point of fact, the US. North-East Corridor has a population density of over 900 per sq mile; which is almost 50% higher than Germany!
The Bay area, combined with Southern California achieve similar densities, albeit with a lower-density connecting area through Central California.
There are real reasons why the US can't have high-speed rail to everywhere.
But let's not oversell those to the point where the concept isn't viable in some key sub-regions, which collectively represent 1/3 of the US population.