The US High Speed Rail System Explained

this video is brought to you by squarespace the all-in-one platform for building your online brand check out the link in the description or stay tuned to learn more hey folks welcome back to rm transit and high speed rail explained today we have one of the most requested high speed rail explained videos in the history of the channel america while the united states is often bemoaned as a place where high-speed rail plans go to die truth is early in the development of high-speed rail technology the us was much less of a laggard and even today the united states does have some fast train services both existing and under development and understanding them is important in considering why the united states doesn't have more high speed rail or more passenger rail in general and how to change that for the future especially with new funding such as from the major recently passed infrastructure bill let's take a look [Music] the united states was actually fairly early to the trend of fast trains and well before electrification was even a major consideration high-speed services were operating across various parts of the country alan fisher has done excellent videos on some such routes such as the lackawanna cut-off which have long since been out of service but things were not always the way they are today even in the 1960s and 1990s the united states took steps forward often influenced or even in connection with france with the introduction of the high-speed metroliner trains and the acela express respectively both operated in the northeast corridor now this video might feel a little unusual if you're used to high-speed rail explained because the us does not have an extensive nation-spanning high-speed rail network instead it has a few key corridors where high speed rail is either already there or developing and so i figured i'd give you a heads up the last thing i really want to say is that i have a somewhat unconventional opinion about high-speed rail and that's okay everyone sees these things differently but i want to be more transparent going forward so that the difference in definition and terminology isn't confusing the way high speed rail is usually formally defined is that 250 kilometers per hour or about 150 miles per hour is the required speed for new lines to be considered high speed while existing retrofitted lines tend to qualify at 200 kilometers per hour or 125 miles per hour i personally break things down differently in my eyes everything at or above 200 kilometers per hour or 125 miles per hour is high speed and i actually also think you qualify if you're getting within spinning distance of these numbers as well i think consider true high-speed rail to be from about 290 to 320 kilometers per hour or 180 to 200 miles per hour while the latest world record beating lions go up to about 350 kilometers per hour or 220 miles per hour now why do i define things this way well i do think that whether tracks are retrofitted or not is sort of if a train is going 125 miles per hour it's going really fast twice the typical highway speed limit so i think calling it high speed makes sense the distinction i make between around 125 mile per hour and around 200 mile per hour systems is mainly a generational thing a lot of earlier high speed rail systems and lines like the intercity 125 and the metroliners in the us maxed out at 125 and hence a lot of track was designed for those speeds and this has meant that proliferation of rolling stock tends to be catered to 125 mile per hour operations or roughly 200 miles per hour because few systems max out in the middle few anyways without further ado let's dive into the existing high-speed rail network in the united states the only real high-speed rail line in the united states and in north america is amtrak's northeast corridor which runs from washington dc to boston with stops in new york philadelphia and baltimore on the way the corridor was completed over 100 years ago and place host to a mix of intercity rail services from amtrak and commuter and regional services from other operators like new jersey transit metro north and everybody's favorite railway that's moving backwards in time mark in fact parts of the northeast corridor even have freight services but the priority of various trains is basically inverted from the rest of north america because amtrak actually owns the northeast corridor because of its age the northeast corridor is totally fascinating much of the infrastructure and structures are shockingly old and replacing and upgrading this old infrastructure has been and continues to be one of amtrak's greatest tasks with new bridges and tunnels slowly working their way along the work of strengthening and upgrading the northeast corridor and its stations is really a gold mine of interesting things to talk about so stay tuned for more videos in the future that said some elements of the corridor especially its curvy alignment north of new york city present serious barriers that can't easily be fixed not that the various tunnels and bridges of the gateway program have come easily to true high-speed rail service from boston to washington dc another fascinating element of the corridor is the varied electrification systems the section from new york to washington operates at 12 kilovolts ac while the section from new york to new haven connecticut operates at 12.5 both at different frequencies all because of the historical original builders and operators of the railways and the fact that they were electrified when electricity was still a novel thing meanwhile from boston to new haven electrification is a more standard 25 kv ac at 60 hertz this section was actually not electrified until the late 90s hence the more standard electrification and it was supposedly done fairly affordably by today's standards something that would be amazing to get back to the corridor is also very heavily grade separated with crossings completely eliminated between new york and washington and only a handful remaining north of new york in terms of actual speeds and services there are two main high-speed train services which operate on the northeast corridor the northeast regional and the acela express though other routes do also operate as high speed once they enter the corridor the acela express is an express high-speed rail service which bypasses most stations and has a maximum speed of about 150 miles per hour that said speeds in excess of 125 miles per hour are mostly limited to sections of track between new york and philly and in rhode island the northeast regional is a regional service which stops at more stations than the acela and has a maximum speed of 125 miles per hour the northeast regional is actually amtrak's most used service with the acela slotting in at number two the gap between the surfaces isn't absolutely massive either with only a few sections of the northeast corridor being capable of speeds of more than 125 miles per hour hence the acela gains a lot of its speed simply by bypassing stations as an aside the mark penline is also a service i wanted to mention as its regional trains hit top speeds of 125 miles per hour traveling on the northeast corridor respectable for a regional service even around the world now the northeast corridor is great but it only serves a segment of the united states both in terms of population and geography so what do we have to look forward to the obvious first project to talk about is california high speed rail i talked about some personal issues i have with the project in a previous video but for better or for worse the project is continuing to march forward with a lot of very impressive high-speed rail infrastructure mostly viaducts and great separations in california's central valley which will be connected to the san francisco bay area as part of the initial phase of the project that said caltrain's modernization project is also a stepping stone for high-speed rail which will piggyback off it to reach san francisco's transmate terminal now the lovely footage you're seeing is courtesy of john from the channel the forefoot which is the quintessential place to go for transit and railway construction and development in the united states nobody not even massive news outlets have the coverage john has so make sure to go check out some of his videos which includes stuff from coast to coast now beyond the initial phase california's high speed rail is set to extend down to los angeles and beyond this major link to sacramento and san diego on the north and south sides respectively the line will see current world-class top speeds of 220 miles per hour though portions of the line such as those shared with caltrain will be slower completion dates for high-speed rail are really uncertain at the moment but it's unlikely we see any proper services operating before 2030. now before we look at the next high-speed rail lines in the us i'm going to quickly tell you about this video's sponsor squarespace if you're interested in creating an online presence like i did you won't find another platform as comprehensive and easy to use as squarespace which i used to create my new website i particularly love the built-in blogging tools as well as the powerful email campaigns i can create to better connect with everyone and of course the in-depth analytics tools that give me insightful feedback on how the site is performing start building your online brand for free by heading to squarespace.com and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com rm transit and use code rm transit to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain the next high-speed rail line is brightline in florida which already exists but is not currently high speed right now services run between beautiful modern stations in miami and west palm beach and hit top speeds of 80 miles per hour or around 130 kilometers per hour somewhat unusually brightline is a privately owned railway and is not operated by amtrak brightline is quite an interesting case study and is using a mixture of revenue streams such as real estate to recover construction costs which could be a promising way of getting more intercity and regional rail built in north america in the future more interesting is the currently well under construction like north from west palm beach and then west to orlando with a station located at the city's international airport this leg of the route will have top speeds from 110 to 125 miles per hour which will make it the second high speed corridor in the united states by my definitions perhaps more exciting much of the lake inland from coco florida which is 125 miles per hour capable will be built in a highway right of way which seems like a promising way for which we could expand north american high speed rail in the future this will enable roughly three hour trips from miami to orlando beating car travel times brightline also has planned extensions to port miami and disney and tampa in the future which could connect many of florida's largest population centers transportation hubs and tourist attractions my only hope is that we someday see electrification and other improvements like more great separations along the line as it turns out brightline is also working on a line between las vegas and victorville which is the city east of los angeles this project is in its early stages but major land acquisition has already begun similar to the orlando phase of the original brightline project brightline west plans to run a great deal of service along a major highway corridor i-15 in this case unlike a brightline east brightline west will be electrified and will operate transit up to 200 miles per hour dura also plans to integrate with california high-speed rail and metrolink expansion plans in the future to bring trains to downtown los angeles allowing a one-seat ride from union station to the las vegas strip which feels really important to this project's success the last major project i need to talk about is texas central which is a planned high-speed railway between dallas and houston texas while construction hasn't started on the project a number of very reputable international companies and organizations are involved including renfe the spanish national high-speed rail operator and hitachi whose n700s shinkansen will be used on the project along with lots of other japanese high-speed rail standards the project like brightline is privately funded and has been moving through approvals in recent years the roughly 90 minute service would be provided at top speeds of 200 miles per hour and would be highly competitive with flying or driving between the cities and an intermediate stop would be provided in the brazos valley while some have questioned whether the project will ever be built the fact that things have not completely stalled gives me some hope and i think this has the potential to be the first truly high-speed railway in north america which would be incredibly important and its location between two major cities with natural future extensions to austin and san antonio means that it would likely also be incredibly successful of course there are also significant plans to expand and improve the northeast corridor though these are primarily in the form of reliability improvements and speed ups coming as part of projects like replace bridges and tunnels beyond all of these corridors there are also constant discussions about other potential high-speed railroads particularly in the northwestern united states connecting seattle and portland with vancouver and canada that said compared to texas which is fairly flat by comparison i do wonder if many other routes would be simply too expensive to justify in north america now the moment you've all been waiting for the trains the first train model i need to mention is the asela express trains currently deployed on the northeast corridor these trains were first introduced in the early 2000s and have a maximum in-server speed of 150 miles per hour they were manufactured by a consortium of alstom and bombardier and are an odd hybrid between the lrc coaches originally created for via rail and the tgv power units used on the original tgv trains all augmented significantly to meet onerous crash safety requirements that made the trains very very heavy even relative to the tgv which is already heavy in the world of high-speed trains the acela trains are capable of operating on all three voltages used in the northeast corridor and feature six passenger cars with active tilting as well as two power units with the original acela trains growing fairly old new trains are currently being built to replace them the new trains are also being manufactured by allston and will have 9 cars with 2 power units per train with amtrak also ordering significantly more trains than with the previous acela fleet this will enable far more service with more seats per trip and better yet trains will be able to be extended to up to 12 intermediate passenger cars to accommodate growing demand which will finally give the united states the same large high-speed train seen in asia and europe along with capacity improvements the new trains are also significantly more powerful and efficient while also being significantly lighter enabling a top basic service speed of 160 miles per hour from day one and the potential to grow top speeds all the way to 220 miles per hour as long as the included tilt system is disabled perhaps the most exciting part of the new trains is that they're part of the modern avalia family from alstom which means they're much more similar to the new tgv horizon trains than previous models of vesela have been to their respective counterparts the acs-64 is either the american city sprinter or amtrak city sprinter i've heard both it's a 125 mile per hour capable locomotive based on this siemens vectron platform which pulls the trains on the northeast regional and other northeast corridor services much like the all stem trains for the acela express these have been modified for american crash standards the last major high-speed rail rolling stock in the united states is the siemens charger locomotive and siemens venture coach combination the siemens charger is 125 mile per hour capable tier 4 diesel locomotive which has been ordered incredibly widely across north america including for various commuter railways as well as amtrak via rail and brightline in total well over 200 sets are being manufactured these trains share significant features with the acs-64 locomotives and have typically been ordered along with siemens venture coaches which are a modern spacious passenger coach the charger has also been ordered in numerous variants including more aerodynamic ones for vrl and brightline and long distance capable ones for amtrak it's really cool to see a modern attractive locomotive widely deployed across north america especially since they're more than capable of 125 miles per hour operation which means that with track upgrades high speed rail could potentially be deployed much more extensively i also want to make passing mention to the siemens velaro and shinkansen and 700s trains which are planned to be used on brightline west and texas central respectively while we haven't seen orders placed yet it would be incredibly exciting to see world standard high-speed trains finally making it to north america the united states is also a unique and uniquely challenging place for high-speed rail as i've already mentioned in this video strict requirements regarding crash worthiness and freight railway ownership of most rail lines have traditionally made trains heavier and hence made high speeds more difficult fortunately regulations are changing to become more accepting of standard designs from overseas which are already allowed on isolated systems there's also a general challenge around understanding while in europe or asia you're unlikely to ever be a long distance from a high-speed rail system a large proportion of north americans have never experienced high-speed rail and so don't understand the benefits and changes that are necessary to implement it the construction engineering sector is also poorly adapted to providing solutions for high-speed rail which makes projects expensive and slow to complete that said there is significant potential in the future for one the standardization around top speeds and siemens rolling stock should make design and planning much easier at the same time the lack of high speed real development means a number of very promising routes remain unserved so that's it high speed rail in america while underwhelming it's not non-existent as we sometimes suggest in the transit community truth be told though the future is what is most exciting thanks for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: RMTransit

Views: 86,422

Keywords: transit, transportation, rail, railway, railfan, high speed, high speed rail, hsr, us, united states, usa, amtrak, acela, avelia liberty, brightline, california high speed rail, cahsr, northeast corridor, florida, texas central railway, america

Id: qUf5_zwWbPQ

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2022