Posted By HR Partnership on August 9, 2009

U.S., Virginia serious about developing high-speed rail
‘Commuter Crossroads’ by Steve Dunham

“We’d be going berserk if 43,000 people a year” were being killed on American trains or airplanes, Gil Carmichael told the Virginians for High Speed Rail conference in Charlottesville on May 8. High-speed rail is an ethical transportation system, he said: It doesn’t kill, it doesn’t waste fuel and it doesn’t pollute too much. (Japan has never had a fatality on its 130-mph bullet trains, in service since the 1960s.)

Carmichael is a former head of the Federal Railroad Administration. Ten years ago, he presented his case for “Interstate II” or the “Steel Interstate”–a 20,000-mile network of high-speed and upgraded rail lines knitting the country together.

Trains would be electric, and some of the system is already in place, such as Amtrak’s 450-mile all-electric Northeast Corridor between Washington and Boston, on which Amtrak’s Acela Express travels (at least for a few miles) at 150 mph. Most of the corridor has top speeds of over 100.

Now, Carmichael thinks that the transportation renaissance is dawning. By working with railroads to construct additional tracks and upgrade others, we can move toward a new interstate transportation system. The $8 billion in federal money for high-speed rail will move some routes toward 110-mph service–a speed, he said, compatible with faster freight trains.

Virginia, he said (to my surprise), is in “high gear” and “moving rapidly toward high-speed rail.”

Three weeks later, Amtrak President Joseph Boardman echoed that thought at a high-speed-rail meeting sponsored by the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce. “Amtrak can run at” high speeds–he mentioned 200 mph–”if states are serious,” he said. “Virginia is serious.” He cautioned, though, that one of his jobs is to manage expectations. The country is taking the first steps toward creating more high-speed rail, but the “first step isn’t 110″ mph.

Reliable 90-mph service between Washington and Richmond would be good, he said, a thought seconded by some business people who mentioned the difficulty and expense of traveling between Richmond and Washington by air or highway. CSX and other freight railroads are saying that 90, not 110, should be the top speed for express passenger trains sharing tracks with freight and commuter trains.

Right now, the top speed for trains between Washington and Richmond is 70, which is the cruising speed for Virginia Railway Express trains between most stations. To go 90 would be a nice improvement, but it’s only 11 mph faster than what we had 40 years ago, when the train service was more reliable, too.

Boardman noted that European high-speed rail is very high-speed–the French TGV goes 180 mph or better. But even the Northeast Corridor speeds of up to 150 (an average of about 80, counting station stops) are much better than driving, and are even competitive with flying. Since Amtrak introduced the Acela Express in 2000, he said, Amtrak’s share of combined rail and air travel between New York and Washington has gone from one-third to two-thirds.

That kind of transportation seems a long way off in Virginia, because our rail service doesn’t have the frequency, the speed or the relative reliability of the Northeast Corridor. But Carmichael and Boardman think it will happen.

As promised, Obama has included $1 billion for high-speed rail in his proposed fiscal 2010 budget. But following the precedents of decades, he proposed $41 billion for highways. If we keep funding highways versus rail at a 40-to-1 ratio, we won’t get a national high-speed rail system soon.

Steve Dunham of Spotsylvania County commutes on Virginia Railway Express to Arlington. He chairs the board of directors of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons. Write him c/o Commuter Crossroads, The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401, or email: sgdunham@verizon.net.

Provided with permission from Fredericksburg’s Free Lance-Star
Original date of publication: 6/21/2009

Categories: Transportation
Tags: Rail, Transit, Transportation