Transportation Bill Sets Aside $45 Million For MagLev Train 402
tbischel tips us to news that the MagLev train project which would run from Las Vegas to Disneyland has received approval for $45 million in funding. The project has been in the planning stages for quite some time, and it was delayed further by a drafting error in a 2005 highway bill.
"Derided by critics as pie in the sky, the train would use magnetic levitation technology to carry passengers from Disneyland to Las Vegas in well under two hours, traveling at speeds of up to 300 mph. It would be the first MagLev system in the U.S. The money is the largest cash infusion in the project's nearly 20-year history. It will pay for environmental studies for the first leg of the project."
Bizarre (Score:5, Informative)
drop in the bucket (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Critics (Score:2, Informative)
Such a rail between LV and LA would be useful. This is a popular commute, both for recreation and business.
Re:Critics (Score:5, Informative)
Cheers,
Greg
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:5, Informative)
The French LGV Est [wikipedia.org] is 300 km and cost 4 billion euros - $6 billion. $21 million a mile.
Or if you look at the British London-to-channel-tunnel rail link, it cost £5.2 billion ($10 billion) for 108 km [wikipedia.org] - $100 million a mile.
Even if economies of scale get the price down to $10 million per km the cost will be $4 billion.
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:1, Informative)
I really don't think the desert around LV has the same constrains.
Of course, by choosing maglev instead of conventional track it's very possible they'll manage a higher per-mile cost in the desert than the European paid to cross posh Riviera lands.
Re:Infrastructure problems in the East prohibit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Informative)
I read Trains magazine religiously each month. This month there was an article about a train (Amtrak) that Missouri pays for to run between St. Louis and Kansas City (IIRC). Ridership on the train was very good, but unfortunately the track it uses has a lot of freight trains as well, so the Amtrak trains are frequently late, and ridership is declining. Missouri did a study and found that it'd cost $45 million to improve the line, and they allocated $10 million to double track a few sections.
Meanwhile, as the article points out, if Missouri instead decided to build a 6-lane highway, the federal gov't would kick in 80% of the funding.
Sanity. It just won't happen.
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that you have to buy a ticket for you car that's already more expensive than food, fuel, and lodging for the trip. Then you have to also buy a ticket for yourself, which is half again as expensive as the last ticket. Then you still have to take care of your meals.
And it gets much, much worse if you are a group of people.
A family of four would pay almost an order of magnitude less to travel by car.
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:1, Informative)
Of course, cars get all the subsidies so we can go fast in them. To put subsidies in perspective, Amtrak could run for a decade on the money spent on just the "Big Dig" in Boston. All the public money they have ever gotten is about the same as the loans given to the airlines since 9/11. Six days of the Iraq war is about the same as their federal subsidy.
Cars pay their own way though right? Well, they pay that gas tax, which of course doesn't cover the costs of state and local roads. There are registration fees, but those don't usually cover all the costs either. They certainly don't pay for the policing of the roads. Highways are a huge money pit. Nationwide car users underpay by 20-75 cents per dollar, depending on the state. The rest comes from the general fund of the state. So, perhaps what we should do is make drivers pay the full cost of their transportation through direct fees and taxes. Then perhaps we would see the true cost of driving, and perhaps people would drive less. At the very least, people who don't drive much, like myself, would pay fewer taxes.
Amtrak has been crippled on purpose. I think you're right, to make trains look bad to americans. It happened too late, but GM was brought before congress to answer for their part in systematically destroying trolley service in Los Angeles. The auto industry has been waging a war against trains for decades and they are at least a big part of the reason that Amtrak looks incompetent.
The MARC trains (Balt -DC)are quite crowded (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lots of trains in the USA (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel-electric_locomotive#Diesel-electric [wikipedia.org]
Re:Lots of trains in the USA (Score:4, Informative)
There's no drive between diesel engine and wheels.
I also wouldn't consider a mechanical link between the engine and the wheels a disabling factor for calling it a 'hybrid'. That's how GM is proposing the volt be set up, actually.
What would disable it is that, unlike car hybrids, current generation diesel electrics don't have any significant levels of alternative storage - they can't store energy from stopping to get started again.
Instead, the reason they use the electronics is that it's replacing the transmission - which would actually be more costly, less efficient and break sooner than the electronic setup. Oh, they'll use the electric motors to help them stop, saving brake pads, but instead of going to a battery the energy goes to a resister net on the roof of the locomotive.
Personally, given that trains normally go for non-stop travel, I wonder if it might be better to leave the batteries in the station so the train doesn't have to haul them and electrify the rails, at least in switching yards and such, instead.
Re:Trains, US? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.bts.gov/publications/freight_in_america/html/table_01.html [bts.gov]
The US moves (by weight):
Truck: 60%
Train: 10%
Boat: 8%
Pipeline: 18%
Mixed-mode: 1%
Other 2%
The interesting thing is the ton-miles table where Trains are much closer to Trucks.
I used to work at a mid-sized auto parts company. We had a fleet of about 20 trucks that would move things from Minnesota to about half of the country, mostly on the east side. I always thought it was fairly in-efficient that we had trucks that would go all the way to Texas instead of driving it into Minneapolis (55 miles), then shipping it via train to Dallas where a local truck would take it to a warehouse for store distribution.
Re:Lots of trains in the USA (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-diesel_locomotive [wikipedia.org]
They use them quite a bit in Europe. Europe also has a plethora of voltages (and a choice between 0Hz, 16.7Hz and 50Hz depending on the line). There are locomotives that can tap into any combination. The general trend in the Europe is for electrification reduce the noise and raising the voltage to increase the available power.
Re:Lots of trains in the USA (Score:4, Informative)
I think GE and EMD are working on hybrid switchers, too, but along the line of the Chevy Volt: engine runs generator, which keeps battery pack charged, or can provide additional on-demand electrical boost, but running on battery is main source of power, which is opposite of current car hybrid systems, where the battery pack provides the boost.
Re:Infrastructure problems in the East prohibit (Score:1, Informative)
Re:DC-to-Orlando Auto Train (Score:3, Informative)
We got a 2-bunk cabin, which is much nicer than trying to sleep in the standard coach seats. Overall costs were about $1600 (in 2003,) not including the additional drive from Sanford FL to Sarasota FL. The main benefit of the auto train is being able to do something else - get up, walk around, sit in the lounge car, have a meal, etc.
However, the economics make this a very expensive trip. Travel time is comparable to driving. In today's costs: our Toyota minivan gets 24 MPG. Round trip is about 1200 miles, using 50 gallons of gasoline. At $4 per gallon, fuel costs are $200. The kids won't sit still for 16-hours of driving, so we split the drive into two days. Hotel costs us $150 or so. If we ate at restaurants for three meals each day, add another $200 in food. So driving costs me about $550, or about 1/3 that of taking the Auto Train. It's less expensive to purchase coach seating on the Auto Train, but that's not really an option if you have small kids.
As a straw-man, I'll check prices for a flight+car from DC to Orlando. AirTran will get me four round-trip flights (2x adult, 2x kids) hopping through Atlanta for $900. Total flight time is about 4 hours. I can rent a mid-sized sedan from multiple vendors for under $300/week.
Hopping over to Amtrak's website
Re:Critics (Score:3, Informative)
The worst time for a bomb is in a tunnel, when an explosion is forced along the length of the train, rather than out.
Would that convince politicians that they don't need as much security? Who knows.