Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
Ideally an equivilant project in the US would see an HSR corridor built from New York to Washington, with Phase 1 being NYC-Philly, 2A being Washington-Baltimore, and 2B being Baltimore-Philly.
No way that wouldn't be successful.
Amtrak is doing it's best with what it has right now on the corridor, but if it had $100 billion to sink into the corridor it could do wonders.
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A brand-new HSR line between Boston and Washington, DC would only establish an incremental gain in the existing service from the perspective of those traveling express between the major cities. A similar criticism was lobbed at England's HS2. Sure, it'll free up tons of capacity on the existing lines, but people who live along the former mainlines will still want the improvements they've wanted for many years, and with the money and attention directed to the new line, they'll be waiting another 50 years.
California HSR is building where there is virtually zero rail service today and so is a completely different situation. Also, CAHSR will integrate local and skip-stop into the high speed line, something that is not happening with HS2, where the line will collect local services north of Birmingham and allow them to run super-express to London.
The big compromise in the HS2 design is that northern trains will bypass central Birmingham instead of run directly through it. It would be like CAHSR bypassing San Jose.