Well should anything ever come of this I would hope for a daily Sunset Limited, a long distance connection between Texas and Colorado, an extension of the HF to Kansas City and some corridor trains in the Texas Triangle(DFW, SAS, HOU) at any speed. 79mph would be a good start. That would be the bare minimum if anyone is really serious about a resurgance of passenger trains in this part of the country.
The HSR and intercity rail proposed funding is aimed at corridor services, not long distance (LD) trains. But a significant revival of corridor services should benefit LD trains. Faster corridor trip times, more stations, and more routes that LD trains can run over without being the only passenger train on the route, larger rail passenger base. But I expect the first few years of any revival will be concentrated in the Northeast and east coast down to NC, FL, the Mid-West states supporting passenger rail, the west coast states. Texas and the core red states are likely to resist the Obama administration push for HSR and passenger rail. Texas may get serious about the T-bone HSR plan, but it could take some years. A daily Sunset Limited, if Amtrak can get cooperation from UP, an extension of the Heartland Flyer, and maybe some limited corridor services are likely all the improvements you may see in Texas, but don't hold your breath for it.
While I agree that there are a number of areas where HSR projects are necessary (FL is, IMHO, a good example of where such a project makes sense...enough of the population is in two areas (the East Coast/I-95 corridor and Orlampa) that a project makes sense there), the problem is getting folks to swallow the price tag, which is considerable to massive in different cases. I guess what I think needs to be managed, ultimately, is some sort of split in the definition of HSR: You need to expand the amount of Class 5-7 track in the system, and I consider that to be a higher priority than worrying about gobs and gobs of Class 8-9 track. Yes, you need some fancy "peacock" lines (in the sense that you show them off for the public, with no comment on their usefulness intended by the term), but I'd rather see "normal" trains get an extra 10 MPH on their average speed than see a few more express trains at 150 MPH.
In the long run, a standard 90-110 MPH line with decent CR ratio will be a candidate for upgrading to "real" HSR of 150 MPH, but I do worry that jumping straight to the HSR line invites a disaster if you don't have a good market to tap into (either in the form of an existing rail service or a place where you've got a decent amount of research to back up that one exists). There's always a chance of a misfire, true, but the more of an established market you have, the less likely you are to see a major disaster happen where a line opens up and you're stuck with a bunch of empty trains running after spending $5 billion to get the track.
What is probably important about Obama's plan is that he's spreading the money around so that it's not "just" the NEC and California getting the money. Doing that, notwithstanding public opinion on rail travel, just invites a nice mixture of Red vs. Blue and sectional squabbling. Not that we're likely to be spared that show anyway, but getting Texas and Florida on board would go a
long way towards breaking up the straight "red state coalition". Also, as much as I hate to say it, but a Congressman who has only an LD train in his district has no real reason to support rail projects and every reason to complain. And let's face it: You're not going to get Cali HSR on California's votes alone.
FWIW, I think Atlanta-Washington
is a valid market for some form of HSR, but you need to have trains making the Washington-Richmond-Raleigh-Charlotte-Atlanta run first. And yes, I think this could be paired in interesting ways with the Acela and, ultimately, with the Florida project (remember, the Silver Service is going to share Washington-Raleigh and I believe Orlando-Jacksonville with the new upgrades, and that's been one of Amtrak's steadier LD markets). Likewise, upgrades to the lines going east from Chicago will benefit the Capitol Limited and the Lake Shore Limited, at least in terms of running times (even if they don't get to go
super fact, they'll get incremental improvements over segments of their routes), and you get that over more of the system if you focus on more lower-level upgrades than getting a new peacock.
JJJJ,
Thanks for reminding me of the irony that the major country in the world with purportedly the most left-wing social objectives in the world also currently has the "hardest" monetary policy of any country I know (albeit alongside Brazil, also ruled by a left-wing government...when did hard money banking policy become a hallmark of the left wing?).
