The $140BN Race to Build America's First High-Speed Railway

it's become a bit of a joke the US still doesn't have High-Speed Rail a country that enjoyed some of the world's best Railways a century ago has not a single bullet train and the only one being built hasn't exactly gone well but there's a new company trying to bring highspeed rail to the US in just a few years time and it might actually work if that weren't surprising enough the whole project got it start in Orlando Florida this is the story of America's struggle to get highspeed rail up and running and why this latest idea might just be its best chance yet if you were to plan a trip between two major cities in the US most Americans would tell you that there are only really two options get in your car and drive even if that would take hours or if the distance is simply too great hop on on a plane convincing people here to travel by rail instead is not an easy thing to do godamn trains never Carol them huh in some ways you can't blame them there's no denying the US is far behind the leaders of today when it comes to Railways but let's not forget this wasn't always the case its first railroads were built almost 200 years ago and for more than a century afterwards America had one of the most advanced and well used Networks works in the world but towards the middle of the 1900s everything changed Along Came the jet age allowing people to travel long distances across the country much faster it's just a matter of boarding the plane and enjoying the trip at the same time Americans began their love affair with cars and in the 1950s the interstate highway system was born once the 60s came around car travel had increased almost fourfold since the mid-40s and there were nearly 15 times as many plane Journeys when the auto and the airplane sort of took off a lot of the engineers that worked on Railway shifted over or they retired and they were replaced by Engineers who were studying Aerospace and so the talent pool also diminished and yet even though rail travel was in Decline the US still had big ideas for it in 1965 After Japan launched the shansen system president Johnson planned an immediate response I will ask for funds to study High-Speed Rail transportation between urban centers we will begin with test projects between Washington and Boston for over a decade highspeed tests were carried out along the so-called Northeast Corridor achieving speeds of over 150 mph by 1969 there were Services running at speeds of up to 120 mph not that much slower than the ones in Japan but in the half cent that's passed since the Gap has widened others have entered the race and have catapulted ahead right now these are the fastest trains in the US M TRS a Cellar line which runs along that same Northeast Corridor they can go as fast as 150 mph but only for a short distance compare that to the highspeed lines in China France and Spain capable of around 200 mph and there really is no contest okay before we go any further how fast does a train have to go before it can be considered highp speeed well although there's no official definition the international Union of Railways considers 155 mph to be the minimum requirement sorry Amtrak your Flagship service just misses out but the US is trying to catch up in December 2023 the Federal Railroad Administration announced over $8 billion in new funding for passenger rail projects including High-Speed Rail one of these is California High-Speed Rail underway between LA and San Francisco which has had more than its fair share of troubles 8 years after construction began less than half of it has been built and none of it anywhere near the two main cities as for the costs we're now looking at more than a hundred billion and acquiring all the lands has been a serious slock if someone knows you need their land and you already sunk a bunch of money into your project and you've tendered a contract you know it's not incumbent upon the property owner to quickly satisfy your problem when they can hold out and get more money especially when you know something like eminent domain is still a hot button issue in the US then you've got Texas Central still going through early studies and Cascadia which has only just secured Federal funding for the planning phase neither is happening anytime soon so is it just a case now of waiting for the California scheme to finally drag itself over the Finish Line whenever that may be well not if this has anything to do with it that's right another plan has been put forward and it's making rapid progress now before we get into the details what does it take to be an engineer on something like a high-speed Railway well a strong track record of stem subjects to begin with but if these have a tendency to derail you there's a new way to learn that's fun easy and free to start mechanical skills are essential for any Railway engineer and this week's video sponsor Brilliance has courses that easily break down complex Concepts into Quick lessons that are simple to follow and will get your cogs turning in no time it's a great way to visualize problems and solutions such as how to make big things like trains move very quickly take classical Mechanics for example with this course you'll learn all you need to know about matter in motion from drones and locomotives to even skyscrapers but if mechanics doesn't drive you brilliant has thousands of lessons on subject areas like coding and geometry all of which are ideal for leveling up your career or setting yourself a new challenge to get going try a free 30-day offer by visiting brilliant.org slthe b1m or by clicking the link in the description the first 200 people to sign up will receive a 20% discount off their annual subscription now let's get back to that new High-Speed Rail plan so what is it that's so interesting about this new proposition well first of all the company behind it has just completed another Railway that many doubted would happen you are looking live at a historic moment here in Florida I think today bright Line's first run from Miami to Orlando it is ready to roll called bright line it links Orlando and Miami with the fastest trains outside the Northeast Corridor capable of 125 mph it might not be highe speed but building any kind of new Railway in the US has become very difficult so how was this done well one key reason is it's the first private funded rail line in the country for over a hundred years costing $6 billion instead of relying entirely on Public Funding bright line got backing from Wall Street to make these shiny new trains run that includes work on more than 50 Bridges such as the one over the St Lucy river which is almost a century old challenging construction techniques were also required to build some of the new underpasses like the Box jacking method which was used to position these 3,000 ton concrete sections under two roadways with the help of hydraulic jacks and yet most of the work involved upgrading what was already there much of it runs on tracks owned by the Florida East Coast Railway which has the same parent company as bright line for the completely new section between Coco and Orlando bright line made use of a state policy that allocates right of way next to highways for new Rail lines and they decided that okay when they were bought by a Wall Street firm that they wanted to do passenger Rail and so they decided to use that right their right of way to do that if you're a private operator and you think okay there is sort of an underused Freight rail line that I can buy and convert to passenger and it makes sense that that's you know good for you that's smart okay but what about that new High-Speed Rail plan well the company has now set it sights on a far more ambitious project right on the opposite side of the country called bright Line West it's a new 12 billion high-speed Railway between Las Vegas and Southern California connecting all the way to Los Angeles according to Bright line it'll be America's first true high-speed Railway with top speeds of at least 186 mph that's quite a bold claim when construction hasn't even started yet however there are plans to begin very soon and to complete by mid 2028 in time for the Olympics the 218 M or 350 km line will run from a station right on the Las Vegas Strip to Rancho C manga just over 40 Mi east of LA passengers can then jump onto a metr link train and get to Union Station in around an hour in total a journey between the cities will take approximately 3 hours down from about 5 hours by road driving also means having to travel on I-15 a highway notorious for congestion and yet it does carve a nice straight line through the high deserts of San Bernardino County which is why 96% of the new train route will be aligned with I15 much of it running between the two roadways again bright line has been able to secure a critical right of way alongside existing infrastructure this time signing a lease agreement with the California Department of Transportation you know they're putting most of their right of way in the median of a highway that minimizes some of the environmental impact obviously the land acquisition issues become less hairy so I think there are lessons to learn from Bright line another similarity with the Florida projects is the this won't be relying just on public funds private bonds and capital will cover most of the costs with only 3.75 billion needed from the government most of which has now been confirmed three billion coming our way to make bright line a bright new reality for our tourist Corridor that's all in STK contrast to California highspeed rail which so far has relied entirely on Government funding bright Line West has already received a $25 million Grant to help with design and construction that was awarded back in June 2023 and the project has bipartisan support from officials in both States but it's not all going to be an easy Journey aside from the funding Gap that still needs to be filled there's one part of the route that's likely to be especially challenging the kahone pass situated between the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountain ranges the pass presents steep grates even for freight trains high-speed trains really have to travel on ground that's as flat as possible so they need to slow down through this key section even so bright Line West is looking like it could be a safe bet to complete before its troubled neighbor I think there's a high likelihood based on the estimates on California highspeed rail that they you know bright Line West probably could get something built before California highs speed rails connecting certainly Los Angeles and San Francisco America's inability to build High-Speed Rail is a long-running saga and many have simply accepted it will never happen but having achieved something down in Florida that took many by surprise bright line is convinced it can do the same on the other side of the country this time going a big step further will it break down without leaving the station or is this American Dream finally becoming a reality this video was sponsored by brilliant you can join them with a special offer at the link below there's also the chance to dive deeper on this and other topics on our Channel over on the world's best construction podcast available right now wherever you get your podcasts and as always if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you subscribe to the b1m

Channel: The B1M

Views: 2,413,636

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, high-speed rail, railways, bullet train, usa, america, brightline, brightline west, california high-speed rail, california, nevada, texas, los angeles, san francisco, las vegas, highways, aviation, shinkansen, japan, china, france, spain, HS2

Id: GEFjL5KEE3c

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 27 2023