High Speed Rail





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Rail Bite #7: Tom White on Bu…

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Rail Bite #7: Tom White on Bullet Train Hype and the Need for Better Conventional Passenger Service

How decades of subpar service have distorted our standards and made us forget what real service even means

 



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Why is it that many Americans suddenly seem obsessed with building high speed rail, when most of us don’t even use the 21,400-mile passenger rail system we already have? It’s not as though regular passenger trains are incapable of going faster than the cars we choose to drive instead. Many Amtrak trains can top 100 miles per hour, given the right track conditions. And who can claim that being stuck behind the wheel in traffic is enjoyable?

According to Tom White, a veteran rail planner and author with nearly 60 years of experience in the industry, the problem is that we have forgotten how to make good use of the trains we have. Current U.S. intercity passenger rail service is often so unreliable, infrequent, and inconvenient in its scheduling, that most people who take an Amtrak train once or twice are given little reason to do it again. Top speed is just a number when you’re stuck behind a parked freight train for thirty minutes; and even overall trip times count for little when the only available trip starts or ends in the middle of the night.

It’s not that Americans will only ride bullet trains—it’s that we will only ride trains that actually meet our transportation needs. And 54 years into the Amtrak era, few of us are even aware that this is a possibility on our existing system. As Mr. White says, we need to create  “a much better picture of what could be before people are going to want it, rather than trying to convince people they want more of a bad product.”

International consortium wins C$3.9 billion Canada high speed train contract
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Reuters / February 21


An international consortium including Air Canada, AtkinsRealis Group and France’s SNCF has won a C$3.9 billion six-year contract to help develop a high-speed passenger rail network in eastern Canada, Ottawa said on Wednesday.


The contract covers the first stage of planning the network, which would span approximately 1,000 km (620 miles) from Quebec City to Toronto and allow trains to reach speeds of up to 300 kph (186 mph). The government says current travel times would be halved, with a Montreal to Toronto trip taking three hours.


Ottawa did not say how long the network would take to build and how much it would cost. Governments have talked for decades about a dedicated line for passenger trains, which have to share the track with freight trains and often suffer delays.

St Pancras plans for direct trains from UK to Germany


Charlotte Edwards

New direct train routes from London to Germany, Switzerland and France could open as part of plans to boost passenger numbers at St Pancras station.

London St Pancras Highspeed, which owns the station and operates the track to the Channel Tunnel in Folkestone, has already set out proposals to increase capacity for international train travel from 1,800 passengers per hour to almost 5,000.

It now wants to attract different train operators to offer a range of services in Europe.

Eurostar currently holds a monopoly on the trains through the Channel Tunnel with routes to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

London St Pancras Highspeed and Getlink have signed an agreement that will help them to commit to expanding rail connectivity between the UK and Europe.

"Many European cities could be reached directly by train in under six hours which we believe is really competitive with short-haul air travel," said a spokesperson for London St Pancras Highspeed.

Yann Leriche, chief executive of Getlink, which owns Eurotunnel, said: "We are keen to drive forward attractive opportunities for low-carbon mobility with a range of new destinations in Germany, Switzerland and France."

Getlink believes it is possible for train services to Bordeaux, Cologne, Frankfurt, Geneva, Marseille and Zurich to be created.

No set timeline has been revealed as yet.

Eurostar dropped services between London and Disneyland Paris in June 2023, and no longer has routes between London and the south of France.

Virgin Group and Evolyn are two companies developing plans for rival services to Eurostar that could take passengers to the newly proposed destinations.

Virgin acknowledged that it would be a "huge undertaking" to establish a new cross-Channel operator but said the route was "ripe for change with plenty of room and potential for new competition at St Pancras and through the Tunnel".

Competition between different companies on the route would benefit all customers, a spokesperson added.

London St Pancras Highspeed and Getlink have signed an agreement that will help them to commit to expanding rail connectivity between the UK and Europe.

Robert Sinclair, chief executive of London St Pancras Highspeed, said demand for international train travel was growing.

He said his company would work with Getlink "to encourage new and existing train operators to expand capacity and launch new destinations unlocking the potential of a fully connected Europe".

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