This has been a pretty depressing week for news, so I thought I'd cover something nice today. I may make a point of covering good news on Thursdays.
As something of an amateur railfan, a news item that came up on a Facebook public transportation page caught my eye. Evidently the 123-mile (198 km) rail corridor between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, VA has been identified for upgrading to allow higher speeds and better service between the two cities and to ease traffic on I-95. Today, trains are limited to just 70 mph (113 km/h), but after the upgrades are completed speeds will reach 90 mph (145 km/h). This would mean taking the train would be faster than driving, something which is depressingly rare in the United States. For comparison, the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) considers 110 mph (177 km/h) to be the minimum for true high-speed rail.
Addressing this corridor also makes sense as an extension of something closer to Northeast Corridor service south from the current terminus at Washington.
Unfortunately, the work is scheduled to take until 2025, but any progress on passenger rail in the U.S. is more than welcome. Republicans seem to have some kind of pathological hatred of trains, which I find baffling. Maybe it’s because most rail passengers live in the liberal Northeast? Or perhaps they think having to share transportation with other people is socialism? Of course the endless dollars poured into the Interstate Highway System since Republican Dwight Eisenhower created it have all been well spent, and people who do not want a highway widened or a new one built--maybe through a low-income neighborhood--are just plain wrong.
Still, I cannot help but envy the Japanese. They have been blessed with 50 years of service that makes even Amtrak Acela look poky, and around the time the improvements on the Washington-Richmond corridor are completed the new Chūō Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Nagoya will be opening. This line will be 178 miles (286 km) long, and the trip will take 40 minutes, reaching speeds of 310 mph (500 km/h). These speeds are achieved through maglev technology, rather than conventional rail.
Well… at least there’s California’s HSR plan.