Amtrak

[Allen]

Perhaps a better term would have been "takes a long distance to stop all that weight especially at high speeds" but I was trying to keep it brief.

My father was hit by a train. He was in his brand new (at the time) 1947 Chevrolet. The car stalled while crossing the tracks and would not restart quick enough. I guess he didn't have time to run from the car. Perhaps there was no cross arms or other warnings, maybe he was trying to beat the train. This time I wasn't there. He was not injured but the train slid him sideways for about a mile before it could stop.

[dryheat]

I have never understood how people "stall" on the tracks and manage to get hit by a train. Just a a story; when I was in jr. high the school bus we were in was approaching the tracks. The coal train traveled it a couple of times a day. We were about to cross in front of a moving train when one kid spoke up: Bus driver, are you going to stop! The driver slammed on the brakes and swerved into a snowbank. That kid might have saved our lives. Inattention causes a lot of accidents.

[clintonhater]

...maybe he was trying to beat the train.

You think?

[RED]

One reason for the recent train crashes is the amount of training required to drive a train. An airline pilot is well trained and it takes months and years to have enough training and experience to sit in the Captains chair in a commercial airliner. Yep, a airline pilot makes more money but there is a bigger demand for them and they should be paid a lot, but the truth is the RR engineer undergoes weeks of training... not years and receives almost as much (90%) money.

The airliner pilot has spent 1,000's of hours in the co-pilot's seat. There ain't no co-pilot on a railroad train.

But with that being said, the real problem with railroads is the unions. There is a us versus them relationship that is poisonous. The RR companies work the ass off their employees. Long hours, always on call, no set work hours, that destroys family life, and the unions actually promote and sustain the abuse.

Talk to a real down to earth honest Engineer and he hates the union and fully understands why the company does what it does. Too many RR guys are afraid to buck the unions and are scared they would lose their $50+/hour job.

[ray55classic]

Trains have some pretty efficient air brakes but when you consider that most rail cars whether a flatbed , a boxcar , tanker or gondola have a 100 ton [200,000lb] carrying capacity ,
add in the weight of the cars themselves , add the locomotives weight , steel wheels on steel tracks and trains at times miles long
it's a wonder they can stop at all with that much mass moving at speed.

[jon_norstog]

The public doesn't own the tracks, but they were built with public resources - huge land grants in the 19th century, and then big federal money during WW II when practically all the track in the US was refurbished as part of the war effort. Here's a test for you: those rails have dates cast into the web. Check them out, see how many are dated 1942, 43, 44, 45.

the railroads treat those tracks as if they owned them, but it was the American people that paid for building them.

Why am i posting this? Ask yourself that when your Amtrack coach is sitting on a siding in the middle of Montana waiting for a freight train to pass by.

jn

[RED]

Here's a test for you: those rails have dates cast into the web. Check them out, see how many are dated 1942, 43, 44, 45.

Link???

Just because a railroad was built in the 1940's doesn't mean the rails are that old. They are continually being replaced and upgraded. BTW none of the 3 most recents wrecks was caused by old worn out rails. In every case, human error was to blame and in the most recent case it looks like a incorrectly positioned switch was the case and not the fault of the Amtrak crew that paid with their lives.

[Mark in Ottawa]

High speed trains have to have their own dedicated line and need to be elevated over all road intersections to avoid interactions with cars, trucks or pedestrians. This makes their cost prohibitive unless there is a very large passenger demand. The reason for the dedicated track is that the track must be super-elevated (i.e. banked) to suit the design speed of the train. If the train speed and the banking of the track are coordinated, the train can safely manage the curve and the load from the train is at right angles to the rail and there is no wear on the rail. If the train is too fast, then the rail wears out on the inner side and if the train is too slow, the rail wears out on the outer side of the curve. Cargo trains travel at a much slower velocity than high speed passenger trains and depending on the deign speed of the track, one side of the rail or the other will wear out if both types of train are using the same track. About 40 years ago there was an attempt to deal with this by building a passenger train that could use cargo track by having the superstructure of the rail car tilt. It was not a technical success. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAC_TurboTrain. Financially high speed trains are a difficult proposition in North America because of the long distances and the somewhat sparse populations compared to China, Japan or Europe.

[clintonhater]

the railroads treat those tracks as if they owned them, but it was the American people that paid for building them.

The principal reason railroads lost freight hauling revenue after WW II, and many went bankrupt, was competition from long-distance trucking; who paid for the highways those trucks travel on? (And, by the way, destroy in so doing.)

[Vern Humphrey]

The Japs (who I think first developed them) have been running them for decades and love them. They've been copied in France & Germany, where they're also hugely successful. Now the Chinese are building what will be the longest high-speed tracks in the world, with the fastest trains. Why can't the same be done in this country?

The simple answer is, there isn't a high-speed rail system in the world that makes a profit. They all operate at a loss.

If they WERE money-makers, private enterprise would build them. Since they're losers, governments build them, and syphon money out of the taxpayer's pocket to pay their huge losses.