The train wreck in California this week illustrates some of the problems of our current outdated rail system. Amtrak, for example, must currently operate on freight lines, because the track is not owned by the government and the freight companies have the first right of passage. Future wrecks like this one, which killed at least 25 people, are no more acceptable than airline crashes. Every effort must be made to reduce these events to near zero.
In a transportation system designed for future fast trains, the following investments will have to be made:
1. Passenger train lines have to be like divided highways. One way only.
2. Passenger train lines will have to be like expressways: no crossings.
3. Passenger trains will have to have a 'sleeping driver override,' so they will stop automatically if the track is blocked.
1 comment:
Sorry, only poor people ride Amtrak and so nobody cares. Even if they did, there's no money left to build railroads because it's all been spent propping up banks and squandered in Iraq.
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