Travel&Vacation

Ed Perkins on Travel

SNCF-French National Railway made international news this month with a new world speed record of 357.2 miles per hour. Given the sorry state of railroading in the United States, the news caused many Americans to wonder if and when we could ever enjoy high-speed rail travel in this country. The short answer is that neither we, nor the French, will routinely travel at 357 mph anytime soon. But existing European and Japanese rail technology currently does 200 mph, with 250 mph on the near horizon. Our failure is a failure of will and money, not of technology. Here are some specific lessons we can learn from overseas.

250, not 350

The record-breaking French run was a test of the new TGV Est roadbed and signaling under extreme conditions, not a proving run for actual service. The train was specifically modified for the test—a design that will never see revenue service. But TGV and similar trains in other parts of Europe already routinely cruise along at close to 200 mph, with speeds up to 250 mph coming soon. And for most applications, that’s plenty fast enough.

Forget maglev

In recent years, some experts have touted maglev (magnetic levitation) as an alternative to conventional high-speed rail. To me, the new French test is the final nail in a coffin that has been ready for burial for some time. Conventional rail can be almost as fast as maglev; it’s less expensive to build and maintain, deals with intermediate station stops more easily, and integrates more smoothly into current transportation infrastructure. Maglev, today, is what monorail was to the 1950s and 1960s: a gimmick with lots of hype but limited application.

It’s the short haul, stupid

The sweet spot for high-speed rail is in distances between suburban and 300 to 350 miles.

At distances up to 350 miles, travel time by high-speed rail can beat flying time, city center to city center. Also, rail can serve suburban and intermediate-city station stops, while flying can’t. And even second-class rail is vastly more comfortable and hassle-free than flying, with its difficult and expensive airport access, long check-in time requirements, and cattle-car accommodations. It’s no surprise that the Eurostar Chunnel train has grabbed most of the London-Paris and London-Brussels travel markets.

High-speed rail requires new or vastly improved roadbeds, which are hugely expensive. The investment can be justified only where traffic can support high-frequency service (every hour or so) and that means heavily traveled short-haul corridors in populous areas. There is simply no place in the high-speed rail spectrum for the once-a-day (or fewer) long-haul services that Amtrak now provides.

The U.S. disadvantage

Unfortunately, high-speed rail works better in Europe than it would in the United States. European populations and employment centers are much more concentrated in and near city centers than is the case here, where suburban housing sprawl and office parks have become the norm. Low-end, high-speed rail is working already in the one part of the U.S. best adapted to rail travel: The Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington. Transportation mavens cite a California Corridor linking Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as a likely prime target for new high-speed rail, along with some routes radiating from Chicago. But even those are a bit of a stretch. Elsewhere, it’s hard to find corridors with enough city-center demand to fill those hourly trains.

Public support needed

High-speed rail can’t be supported out of the fare box; it requires big public investment. But there is a rationale: High-speed rail can ease what will otherwise be inevitable congestion problems and inadequate capacity at many of our major airports, and it can substitute for massive new highway construction. Moreover, rail is more energy-efficient than flying or driving. Ultimately, you, the taxpayers, will have the final say. If you support the idea of high-speed rail, let your elected officials know.