High -speed rail does not exist in America. Here is what is growing.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a law-high-speed transport law-which seemed to pave the way for a high-speed national rail system in the United States. “An astronaut can rotate the earth faster than a man to the ground he can get from New York to Washington,” he mourned then. Sixty years later, it takes about three hours to travel between the two cities – a period about twice more than a single orbit of the International Space Station.

The high -speed rail in the United States is still years away. But projects across the country, from the state of Washington in Texas, are proposing a growing enthusiasm for a faster train service. These efforts are relatively moderate in size, suggesting that they connect two or three cities at a time. But this can be exactly what makes them possible.

Under Trump’s administration, the high -speed railway rail is unlikely to receive additional support from the federal government. “There should be a federal program,” said Rick Harnish, executive director of the Alliance High Speed ​​Rail. “But in current conditions, states have to do what they can on their own.”

High speed rail 101

Andy Kunz, president of the US high -speed US railway union, estimates that only about two dozen countries around the world now have high -speed rails, which usually refers to training systems that go at least 186 miles per hour. Almost everyone is in Western Europe or East Asia. The only high-speed rail in Africa is Al-Boraq in Morocco. There is still no railway rail in America.

The usual pieces cannot simply be redefined for high -speed rail rails, Mr. Kunz explained. The speeds involved require a “sealed treadmill” with grade separation – features such as overpass and underground crossings that prevent cars and pedestrians from crossing in front of a sphere train. A high-speed train cannot overcome its way through the landscape is long, gradual slopes and gentle turns.

The fastest trains in the US now

At the moment, the Amtrak Acela train is the fastest railway line in the United States, reaching speeds of 150 miles per hour. Amtrak is preparing to release updated Acela Nextgen trains along the northeast runway at some point this year. But the top speed of the new train will only be 160 miles per hour.

Even if Amtrak spends billions on upgrades, Acela will never really be in high -speed game. This is partly due to the fact that Acela travels on ancient routes passing through dense population centers full of other infrastructure. Old bridges and tunnels create drowning points. Freight and travel lines for access. “Amtrak is building a rail system for the 1890s,” said spokesman Seth Moulton, a democratic of Massachusetts.

Brightline-the private railway that is now running between Orlando and Miami-is the next fastest after Acela line, which exceeds 125 miles per hour. Because it does not have a grade separation, the accidents plague the line. But as Michael Kimmelman notes, Brightline has become a popular choice for many Floridians and tourists.

Pending railways

Brightline West

In 2024, a variant of the company that created the Orlando-Miami train line broke the ground on Brightline West, a 186-mile train per hour connecting Las Vegas to cross the Rancho Cucamonga, California, which is expected to cover 218 miles, It should not go to one of its northern and southern processes. private landowners. Environmental reviews are over and completed and the passenger service is expected to begin in late 2028.

“This is extremely easy to build because it is a wide open desert,” Mr. Kunz explained. “It’s flat”, and few people live in the hard area of ​​the desert through which the train will pass.

Read more in Michael Kimmelman’s story about Brightline.

California high -speed rail

“California is the first place in our nation to see a real high -speed rail system,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, then state ruler, was sworn in in 2009.

But the problematic project is still many years since completion. At present, the state is focusing on a 171 -mile trunk through the central valley. And although California received $ 4 billion during Biden’s administration, it remains a significant deficit in funding.

At a recent press conference, Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican Congress from California, described California’s railway rail speed as “the worst failure of public infrastructure in US history”. Tom Richards, president of the California Railway Authority, said three challenges had proven persistent: the need to obtain route rights through private property, the amazing cost of moving various public enterprises and expenses involved in the transmission of environmental revisions. But train amplifiers say that the challenges are excessive.

“Everyone loves to break it in the press, but the project is about a tenth as bad as they try to make it sound,” Mr Kunz said. “When the thing really gets up and run, it is going to change the transfer radically.”

Storm

In the northwestern Pacific, Microsoft has partially funded the programming for Cascadia, a high -speed railway line connecting Portland, Ore. Seattle? and Vancouver, in British Colombia, at 250 miles per hour. The Federal Railway Administration has also contributed $ 49.7 million.

“They are really organized,” Mr Kunz said.

But engineers have not yet decided a route and planning could last another five years. Bob Johnston, who has covered the railway lines for decades for magazine trains, believes that because the northwestern Pacific is already so congested with infrastructure, it can be more reasonable to improve the service of existing AMTRAK lines than to create a completely new system.

“They have the will, it’s just an uphill battle to execute,” Mr Johnston said for Cascadia supporters.

Texas central

In the early 1990s, a company called Texas TGV proposed a high -speed network for the state only to see its funding collapse. About a decade ago, Texas Central partly revived this design with a proposed Houston-Dala line.

“Then the pandemic blow and all sorts of collapse – they were essentially closed,” Mr Johnston said. But he believes that the route has many of the same advantages as the Brightline West, calling the area the line will cross “one of the most perfect places where the high -speed railway could really work”.

Obviously reached the same conclusion, Amtrak took over in 2023. Last year, the project received a federal grant of $ 64 million and Amtrak is now looking for private companies to choreograph the complex dynamics of the projected 240 -mile rail.

The dream of a national system

The dream of a high -speed national railway line is kept alive by legislators such as Mr Moulton, the Massachusetts spokesman. By 2020, Mr Moulton has placed a high -speed rail system of 205 billion dollars, which will connect the whole country.

In an interview, Mr Moulton claimed that the connection of two major cities with high -speed rail rails would also promote a better connection between the surrounding smaller cities. “If you built a railway rail between Chicago and Boston, it would not only be great for Chicago and Boston, it would be a completely transformative for Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse for South Bend, for Albany,” Moulon said. “Suddenly, they are accessible to these big economies.”

He suggested that by compressing huge distances, high -speed rail could perform the important work of “really knitting the country back”.

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