Is an ultra high speed rail service along the entire length of our Western states feasible?

[Yavin4]

I'm talking running a train from near our Canadian border to our Mexican border. Is something like that feasible?

The benefits to such a train would go a long way towards relieving the housing crisis in our Western cities, Seattle, Portland, SF, LA, SD, etc. as it would give people more options on where they can live and still commute to work. The HSR would stop at transportation hubs where people could take other means of public transport, buses, trains, etc., to get them to their place of work.

It would also be good for the environment as there would be less flights along our West coast.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Feasible? Engineering it should be straightforward, but paying for it is not.

[Yavin4]

2. Paying for it is a separate question.

I'm more interested in the feasibility of the idea.

[Downtown Hound]

3. They built one going across the entire United States well over a hundred years ago

If they can do it back then, we sure as hell can do it now.

[dalton99a]

9. +1. And Japan has had high-speed rail for over 50 years

[California_Republic]

4. We were trying to build San Francisco to LA so will help

[Yavin4]

5. If CA pursued a joint project with Washington and Oregon...

would that have made the project more feasible and possibly less expensive?

[California_Republic]

12. We should've just ran it along the coast

[msongs]

16. CA rail was rerouted to meet the wants of local politicians. it should have gone

up the west side of the valley non stop in a straight line LA to SF but got hijacked and routed to the east side of the valley with lots of local stops, thus making it not high speed rail anymore

[tenderfoot]

6. I find it interesting that we able to sent people to the moon but can't build a decent rail system.

And the excuses with COSTS!!!!

[California_Republic]

13. China is doing fine

[pwb]

7. I would think, yes.

.

[caraher]

8. Even a modest speedup proved hard in Washington

The derailment south of Tacoma in December 2017 came from an effort to cut Seattle-to-Portland travel time by not following the water along Puget Sound as the existing route did. The first passenger run came to grief at a spot along the more direct route where there was a sharp curve and the train did not slow in time.

Local plans to extend commuter rail have proceeded at a glacial pace. Everyone seems to want it, but nothing much seems to happen, or so I hear from those who have lived here longer than I have.

So for true high-speed rail around here there would need to be a huge investment. Probably entirely new rights of way, expensive construction...

[RockRaven]

10. If you just mean from a technology standpoint, sure.

Check out how extensive the bullet train network is in Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen

The big barriers are cost of initial construction and getting consumers to change their behavior.

[brooklynite]

11. How much land can you provide

For high speed rail, you need separate tracks, designed for high speed banking and turning. That land is almost all in private hands. How much time, money and political capital can you spend acquiring it?

[shanti]

14. I'd prefer it underground

They have the machine for it too.

[hunter]

15. The big advantages of high speed trains is that they can be powered by electricity...

... and provide downtown-to-downtown service.

Electricity can be generated without using fossil fuels.

Jet fuel can be synthesized using non fossil fuel energy sources, but it would be much more expensive than fossil fuels. For example the U.S. Navy has developed a process to make jet fuel from the carbon dioxide in seawater using nuclear power, so that aircraft carriers might make fuel for the planes they carry and the smaller non-nuclear support vessels accompanying them.

If planes were required to use carbon-neutral synthetic fuels then the cost of flying would be comparable to the cost of high speed rail. High speed rail might be preferable for its downtown-to-downtown service, comfort, and convenience.