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Originally Posted by M II A II R II K
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The Japanese are talking about an express service with just the two terminating stations, that takes just 15 minutes to run from end to end. That's a twice and hour round trip, meaning headways every 30 minutes over just one track/guideway. That single track automatically means half the construction costs over double track. So, an $8 Billion cost seems reasonable vs a $16 Billion cost for an alternative double track HSR train in an entirely new corridor.
Baltimore to D.C. is approximately 39 miles. If the train took 15 minutes to travel that far, it's averaging 156 mph. I thought a meg-lev train should be able to go twice as fast. So 15 minutes should be easy to maintain.
Additionally, $8 Billion/39 miles= $205 Million/mile. I think that might even be high for construction costs, I would think a single track elevated guideway could be achieved cheaper assuming the route chosen was over an existing freeway, highway, tollway, or railway which didn't require significant land purchases.
What would be interesting is whether there is or will be sufficient traffic between these two cities to warrant express services.