BIRCHES has spoken quite often in favor of development of fast train transportation in the U.S. and we have run pictures and descriptions of fast train travel in other countries.
Now that the airlines industry is in collapse and the price of gas has gone loopy, it's time to give more thought to this. Other countries have already invested in bullet trains, including Germany, France, Spain, and Taiwan. The train pictured here is America's fastest train, ACELA, which runs the Northeast corridor from Boston to New York at 88 miles an hour, although it is capable of faster speeds on short stretches of straight track. We could do much better.
Barrack Obama has said a good word for the future of train travel:
RECENTLY in Indiana, Barack Obama had lunch with an Amtrak machinist who feared losing his job. Obama said, "The irony is, with the gas prices what they are, we should be expanding rail service."
We have to begin thinking of tracks devoted to passenger travel which, like the interstate highway system, has no crossings, and where computers control safety to avoid rear-end crashes. Speeds comparable to those of airliners are feasible.
This will require investment, construction and new industry, all of which would benefit this country.
-Bud
3 comments:
Oh my - another reason he gets my vote. I've got a book for you to read - it's by an Australian author who travelled around the US in late 2006 by Amtrak.
I'd like to read that, too. What's the name please. I've ridden Amtrak and it was a wonderful ride trough the Rockies. Alice
We rode on the Avia, which is a bullet train, in Spain- from Barcelona to Madrid. When we were going 180 mph, the ride was smooth and comfortable and not at all scary. There were NO crossings.
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