Sasha's railfan commentary for March 7, 2014: Bullet trains and New York's high speed aspirations

Finally, after years of talking about it, the State of New York is finally putting its nose to the grinder in getting the Empire Corridor upgraded. I've had my issues with the project, but for the most part, it's a step in the right direction. I need to emphasize: I am against the Empire State Passengers' Association's support for the Alternative 110 plan if it means that future upgrades and a potential dedicated right of way are precluded. Overall, Alternative 110 is a start, and if all works out, we will need a dedicated right of way between Albany and New York City. We'll be back where we started twenty years from now. I am pretty sure of it. And $6 billion is far cheaper than $14 billion, and once ridership has demonstrated it can support that, we'll move to the next rung. I hope to head to Poughkeepsie next week to give testimony about the HSR project.

And I strongly disagree with Daniel Herrling. Driverless cars probably won't be perfected for another twenty years, will require more energy usage while high speed rail is environmentally friendly. I'd like to see the Northeast Corridor completely powered by solar and other forms of renewable energy. Also, there are tons of ways to make mass transit friendlier: for instance, making bus transfers simpler is a start. (The Post-Standard's web poll showed that a plurality supported high speed rail!)

In Texas, talk of high speed rail might finally be coming to fruition. The Texas Central Railway group is trying to privately finance a high speed rail system that would serve Dallas and Houston. In part because of Southwest Airlines, earlier initiatives in the early 1990s failed to get off the ground, no pun intended. There were some other reasons as well. However, the people at Texas Central seem optimistic, so I think they have a winner, hopefully. And I also hope that if Texas' project succeeds, California's high speed rail project will be restructured and will get back on track. High speed rail can be successful and profitable (or at least break even) if done correctly and with the right amount of frequencies.

I wish President Obama's mass tranist plan funded new (and more) railcars for Amtrak. Nothing about new Amtrak equipment. Overall, it looks good, but it's still lacking. It is however a step in the right direction. In general, the Republicans have become anti-infrastructure. Ukraine's infrastructure is lacking, which is part of why no one wants to do business over there. $302 billion. It's a steep price tag, but I'll be writing to elected officials on the matter. And it's $302 billion over four years, which is $75 billion a year.

Fred Frailey, one of the columnists for TRAINS Magazine, had a good article (and I agree with him) on why the Kansas City Southern Railway won't be purchased by any other railroad. And if there's merger talks, I'm going to write to my legislators about it. Too many big railroads.