Many cities paved over their tram lines. Sometimes they poke through during road work. We had trams in nearly every city 100 years ago yet today people tell me we can’t afford it or our population is too small to support it. If we could do it 100 years ago we could certainly do it now.
Even the rural college town my grandma grew up in had tram lines running down the main streets in the 30’s and to both colleges. If a city had more than 20,000 residents 100 years ago, they probably had a tram system that was pulled up at GM’s behest.
We’ve still got the major line going through our town, but the spurs, what connected to the mines and factories, are all paved over. I moved across town a decade ago, and the train went by a mile away at 1am at the old place. I now wake up at 1am every night because there’s no damn train. I should probably set a short, quiet, train honk alarm or something and see if that helps.
Amtrak currently runs trains on the freight tracks, but as Amtrak essentially leases the privilege of using the tracks at all from CSX and BNSF and Union Pacific and the like, their traffic gets heavily deprioritized to freight trains. You can totally catch a train from Fort Worth to Los Angeles, but it will take a few days longer than driving, will be almost as expensive as flying, and the train will be delayed many times for freight traffic.
If the federal government nationalized the rails, put them under the care of the FRA, properly funded Amtrak, and gave it a healthy advertising budget to let people know rail is the clear choice for medium length trips (like Chicago to St. Louis), there’s no reason we couldn’t send passengers on the same rails and with the same priority as freight trains. They’re perfectly safe, and the reason we’ve been hearing about so many train wrecks lately is the degradation of work conditions for rail workers. Longer trains and longer hours make for more dangerous operating conditions and more frequent wrecks.
And while the trains wouldn’t run 190 miles an hour, many long, straight stretches do exist, and it’s not unheard of for a train to be running 80-100 miles an hour on those stretches. That kind of speed is very doable for passenger rail. Hell, some Amtrak trains are capable of 150 miles an hour.
My point wasn’t to use 150 year old rails. It’s that the rails already exist so it doesn’t need to be a decades-long multi-trillion dollar project. It’s highly unlikely that any of the rails in use today are from the 19th century.
Gotta be honest, it doesn’t make sense to cross the Rockies on rail as is right now. We’ve either gotta get japan speed from Washington state to LA then over to Dallas with north south lines up to Utah, Idaho and Montana or drill straight fucking through the damn mountains. It takes 24 hours to take a train direct from Sacramento to SLC. I can drive that in 12 (breaks included) or fly that in 3 (including airport time), all for around the same cost (if I get cheap tickets). I haven’t even looked at the train from SLC to Denver or anywhere on the other side of the Rockies, but I’m sure it’s just as ridiculous.
Don’t get me wrong, the train through the Sierras can be gorgeous, but I don’t want to spend 24 hours traveling when I could be spending 3. We only get so much time off.
Bus lanes are too easy for the next politician to remove bus priority and allow cars back into the lane. At least with rails it’s a lot more costly to remove the route. Busses also still contribute to microplastics and tire waste compared to railed trams. Trams are also easier to automate which can make employing drivers and adding trams to lines less difficult compared to buses. The rails are also more effecient as there is less friction.
I’d defintely take BRT over no transit but many cities are dense enough to justify electrified trams.
On account of the election, you can basically be sure that passenger rail will not happen to any extent any time soon. Expect bigger cars and more highways instead, as this is what is outlined in Project 2025.
Going backwards while the rest of the world builds more functional and fair cities. We feel just as bad up here in Canada where our provincial premier is overstepping cities to force them to remove bike lanes that just got installed. The lanes are along a subway corridor and there are several apartment buildings planned on those roads that have extensive bicycle parking plans with much less car parking. And we’ve got big plans for new highways while we refuse to build rail along the densest part of our nation.
We don’t even need big trail routes. Just put in a small trolley that stops throughout a city. It doesn’t need to go everywhere but it could do business areas and tourist destinations
How many times will techbros reinvent the train/tram until North America finally starts laying down rails?
Don’t even need to lay down rails. The rails are already there. Built by Chinese slave labor 150 years ago. We need merely to seize them.
Or just cut a check to the freight companies.
Many cities paved over their tram lines. Sometimes they poke through during road work. We had trams in nearly every city 100 years ago yet today people tell me we can’t afford it or our population is too small to support it. If we could do it 100 years ago we could certainly do it now.
Even the rural college town my grandma grew up in had tram lines running down the main streets in the 30’s and to both colleges. If a city had more than 20,000 residents 100 years ago, they probably had a tram system that was pulled up at GM’s behest.
We’ve still got the major line going through our town, but the spurs, what connected to the mines and factories, are all paved over. I moved across town a decade ago, and the train went by a mile away at 1am at the old place. I now wake up at 1am every night because there’s no damn train. I should probably set a short, quiet, train honk alarm or something and see if that helps.
I’d be very concerned about the state and safety of those rails.
Amtrak currently runs trains on the freight tracks, but as Amtrak essentially leases the privilege of using the tracks at all from CSX and BNSF and Union Pacific and the like, their traffic gets heavily deprioritized to freight trains. You can totally catch a train from Fort Worth to Los Angeles, but it will take a few days longer than driving, will be almost as expensive as flying, and the train will be delayed many times for freight traffic.
If the federal government nationalized the rails, put them under the care of the FRA, properly funded Amtrak, and gave it a healthy advertising budget to let people know rail is the clear choice for medium length trips (like Chicago to St. Louis), there’s no reason we couldn’t send passengers on the same rails and with the same priority as freight trains. They’re perfectly safe, and the reason we’ve been hearing about so many train wrecks lately is the degradation of work conditions for rail workers. Longer trains and longer hours make for more dangerous operating conditions and more frequent wrecks.
And while the trains wouldn’t run 190 miles an hour, many long, straight stretches do exist, and it’s not unheard of for a train to be running 80-100 miles an hour on those stretches. That kind of speed is very doable for passenger rail. Hell, some Amtrak trains are capable of 150 miles an hour.
My point wasn’t to use 150 year old rails. It’s that the rails already exist so it doesn’t need to be a decades-long multi-trillion dollar project. It’s highly unlikely that any of the rails in use today are from the 19th century.
Gotta be honest, it doesn’t make sense to cross the Rockies on rail as is right now. We’ve either gotta get japan speed from Washington state to LA then over to Dallas with north south lines up to Utah, Idaho and Montana or drill straight fucking through the damn mountains. It takes 24 hours to take a train direct from Sacramento to SLC. I can drive that in 12 (breaks included) or fly that in 3 (including airport time), all for around the same cost (if I get cheap tickets). I haven’t even looked at the train from SLC to Denver or anywhere on the other side of the Rockies, but I’m sure it’s just as ridiculous.
Don’t get me wrong, the train through the Sierras can be gorgeous, but I don’t want to spend 24 hours traveling when I could be spending 3. We only get so much time off.
I love this Adam Something classic where they keep optimizing the tech bro idea until it turns into Thomas the Engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eHWVjUAukU
The US has so much tarmac they don’t even need rails just turn some of that tarmac into dedicated bus lanes. And put one of these long boys on them
Just lay rails in the lane. Turn it into, I dunno, a fuck you I’m a train lane
The danger with trains is that they have low traction.
Bus lanes are too easy for the next politician to remove bus priority and allow cars back into the lane. At least with rails it’s a lot more costly to remove the route. Busses also still contribute to microplastics and tire waste compared to railed trams. Trams are also easier to automate which can make employing drivers and adding trams to lines less difficult compared to buses. The rails are also more effecient as there is less friction.
I’d defintely take BRT over no transit but many cities are dense enough to justify electrified trams.
On account of the election, you can basically be sure that passenger rail will not happen to any extent any time soon. Expect bigger cars and more highways instead, as this is what is outlined in Project 2025.
Incredibly bleak.
Going backwards while the rest of the world builds more functional and fair cities. We feel just as bad up here in Canada where our provincial premier is overstepping cities to force them to remove bike lanes that just got installed. The lanes are along a subway corridor and there are several apartment buildings planned on those roads that have extensive bicycle parking plans with much less car parking. And we’ve got big plans for new highways while we refuse to build rail along the densest part of our nation.
“Just one more highway bro, the 413 will fix it this time”
I can’t even afford to use the last one they made.
Soon, many of us won’t be able to afford to drive at all, it would be nice if we had other options
We don’t even need big trail routes. Just put in a small trolley that stops throughout a city. It doesn’t need to go everywhere but it could do business areas and tourist destinations