The problem with rail travel in America has always been the lack of functional local public transit at the destination, and the layout of American cities where just getting to the city center is basically useless. I've taken amtrak detroit to chicago/milwaukee many times, chicago makes sense because you can take the metra/L around the city, but most cities it just dumps you in some bumfuck downtown and you still gotta rent a car to get anywhere.

https://youtu.be/eBPqksG9nbA

https://i.imgur.com/XnCv9S8.png

https://i.imgur.com/KDf9U5L.png

sometimes it's better not to type anything and keep people guessing as to how stupid you actually are

The principle is that if I work to make money, then that's my money. I don't think a politician can decide how to spend my money better than me.

I don't really like cupcakes, so I don't have to spend any of my money on cupcakes. Those who do like cupcakes can spend it on them if they so choose, and it doesn't affect me. Similarly, if I really like ramen noodles, I don't expect other people to pay for my ramen. Other people's money belongs to them, and my money belongs to me. Those who have no intention of eating ramen shouldn't have to pay for it. It goes both ways.

Again, if you or others think trains are useful to you, then by all means, vote with your dollars by investing in high speed rail companies, or even just using America's passenger trains. There are other countries with private rail systems that are doing quite well (kind of like the private freight rail system in the US), and I'm not saying it's impossible to work. My only claim is that every public rail system in US history has gone down the hole in debt, but especially the large scale ones like the transcontinental railways and Amtrack.

The prices for passenger and freight rail were about the same in America up until 1980, but then freight railways were privatized. Now, the price for hauling by freight rail is lower than before and supports a massive trucking industry. Conversely, the price for public passenger rail rates have not decreased since 1980, and have actually increased when compared with freight rail.

taxation is theft and i hate public roads. on an unrelated note, one of my relatives has come down bad with covid and the hospital bills are really high, i would appreciate if you guys would come and donate some money on my gofundme. i also accept prayers and blessings

14 year old ancap here doesn't understand the concept of contributing to society.

tax brackets? you mean da gov takes 50% of my pay in total!

Yo, OK, why people downvoting this?

Speaking as a literal railroad signal engineer by trade, you could NOT make high speed rail happen on our existing rail network, for a number of different reasons.

The FRA classifies "high speed rail" as anything over 79 MPH, which is horrendously slow compared to Europe. But, in order to achieve speeds higher than that, it becomes quite cost prohibitive in the states. If you want to go more than 125 MPH, you have to be totally grade separated - which is something that doesn't exist in many places. If you have to build an exclusive alignment with gentle grades and curves to meet the criteria, it gets expensive fast. Not 87 million a mile (that's a ridiculous figure) but, still - quite expensive.

I think we could certainly do with a much better rail system, but the costs to make it happen are huge. All that said, our freight system is quite good... but yeah, you're not getting anything better than Amtrak out of that.

i think its cause a good chunk of people in this thread have some high level knowledge of HSR cause of the youtube algo going off on videos to the topic.

the sticking point every video drives home is that yeah, your HSR more than likely won't be compatible unless crazy amounts of planning rolling rebuilds for inevitable expansion and tech creep. It'll cost a fuck load, won't be crazy useful to anything that doesnt have massive populations.

my little take on rollout in the US would be to only hit the coasts, initially or for the first "generation". but frankly i don't ever see it happening in my lifetime for a national(-ized?) transit system with similar capabilities in the US coming around. Maybe not even local transit. I'd love to be able to take a train from one end of phoenix to the other and head on back so i could avoid traffic and gas however people are kinda shitty but the US has way more underlying socio-political issues that only exacerbate and arguably encourage it to come out.

"I have no intention of ever going to school, so I shouldn't have to pay for it."

You're also paying for a lot of federal highways you'll never use, just like others will pay for highways they won't use. It evens out.

#40
If you want the actual reasons why it can't happen, it's very simple:
Step 1: Try and fail to regulate the railway companies into some semblance of usefulness, because if they are allowed to abandon any route that is mildly unprofitable or even just not profitable enough, and price gouge on any route with no competition, the system will quickly implode.
Step 2: Wait until everyone is bankrupt before stepping in.
Step 3: Consolidate that mess into a quasi-public corporation and operate it as for-profit. Hint: It was never going to become profitable over night.
Step 4: Let the real estate market become a cancerous price inflation machine because "the stock market demands it"
Step 5: You have now ensured that no one can ever build a HSR network anywhere near a population center without paying ridiculous sums for just the land, and that the only one still in the business of passenger railway will never have any money to spare to even consider it.

For comparison, here's a look at Spain:
The most expensive project is going to cost 12.5 billion euros, which works out to a bit under 25 million USD per mile at current exchange rates.
The last bit towards the Pyrenees (not even in the mountains, just to reach them) cost them 52 million USD per mile. The actual mountain part ended up slightly cheaper at 47 million.
They did it anyway, because connecting the rest of the European HSR network was worth it.
Yes, on other routes it's more around 20 million, but it's still a lot. The trick is to not whine about it and build it anyway.

#41
Yes, HSR is more of a midrange thing. If you need to travel 1000 miles you'd need a maglev or hyperloop or something else to come closer to the speeds of a plane.

Time for boarding/security checks, start, landing and all that even out with the lower speed of a train compared to a plane, so the two real advantages of HSR are that you can put a train station right in the middle of a city and even multiple, which drastically cuts down on detours to and from airports, and the sheer volume you can push through.
Both are only really relevant for reasonably densely populated regions, not for a section of a cross-continental route through North Dakota.

theres a lot of differences from the bigshot war profiteers and the average joe, theres no "they" where both fall in the same group. plenty of war lobbies but no 'peace' lobbies, publics got no sway. ur hearts definitely in the right place tho which is what matters most, free Palestine.

Commuter rail networks were a big reason city populations dispersed into the suburbs. If high-speed rail means it's easier for people from Boston and New York to interact with me, I want this country running on horse and buggy.

The Amish are way ahead of you.

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

guys! guys! I (ME) dont LIKE trains and also it costs MONEY!! therefore we should NOT do it!!!!! I AM THE MAIN CHARACTER!

i dont understand how you people are so unbelievably selfish that you are willing to propagate human suffering so you can save like 250 dollars on your taxes every year, does your fellow countryman's quality of life mean nothing to you?

Brainlet mentality here not realizing that a functional HSR network would reduce traffic 10x more than the "add another lane to highway" project that is tried every year and he happily funds (assuming this poster isn't a 14 y/o ancap). If you care so much about where your taxes are going then transportation should be pretty low on your priority list.

fun fact: car culture is so ingrained/integral here in California that our state police is called the "Highway Patrol"

hey Jw, ever heard of the downs-thompson paradox?

It's quite a good read!

Scholor paper if you can read here

Ah yes, the 80s, when corporations like the Union Pacific Corporation realised that for over 100 years they had actually been run by the state in secret, and became privatized by chanting "Reaganomics" until they became publicly traded companies.

just lol if you think this is remotely worthwhile let alone possible

I thought I'd never see the day when not wanting to spend 500 billion dollars on trains is called "propagating human suffering."

go high speed rail some bitches

Don't worry, we'll stop building roads soon because some guy in New Jersey doesn't own a car and doesn't want to keep paying for roads.

you must love sitting in traffic

You won't have to pay for it if we just start taxing churches!

widespread car reliance precludes HSR being useful. current urban design and planning causes car reliance. cities need to be rebuilt, first and foremost, to:

1) have major amenities and necessities (food, housing, entertainment, and to some extent office/industrial space, etc) walkable or bikeable (especially bikeable) in "hubs" / central places
2) have transit "spokes" connecting these to the center city and to one another

then we can have HSR that actually means something. what's the point in constructing transit nobody's going to use since they're more used to driving and driving is easier, since either way you'd have to drive to the central station?

edit: looks like mikemat already mentioned this, +1 to them

you realize HSR (publicly funded) benefits you too through supply chain cost benefits, as well as increasing productivity and decreasing housing costs in major cities/economic powerhouses. rail isn't just a passenger/tourism thing, it's a long term investment in

1) commuters

2) logistics

3) and least importantly, tourism

that benefits everyone.

I’m glad I started a thread where I can see JW get clowned on :)