“Nobody’s going to want to sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours to get from New York City to LA.”
Me. I will sit on high-speed rail for fifteen hours. I’ll sit on it for days. I’ll write and read and nap and eat and then do it all over again. I’ll stare out the windows and see America from ground level and not have to drive. I’ll see the Rockies and the deserts and cornfields and the Mississippi River and your house and yours and yours too. I’ll make up stories in my head about the small towns I see as we go along. I’ll see the states I’ve yet to see because driving or flying there is a fucking slog and expensive to boot. I’ll enjoy the ride as much as the destination. And then I’ll do it all over again to come the fuck home.
Me getting slammed with notifications on this post in particular:
Americans will drive 15 hours, why the hell wouldn’t we take a 15 hour train ride.
God, I’d love to be hired to drive that if it’s built.
Right now, a trip between New York Penn Station and Union Station in Los Angeles takes 41 hours by car. Assuming the average speed is about 60 mph, that’s still nearly 2 days to do the 2,791 miles between the two stations.
Imagine if we specifically built one HSR route between those two stations. To do that trip in 15 hours, you’d need a trainset that could go on average 186 mph for the majority of the trip - and guess what? We already have those, just not in the US! As an example, the E5 and H5 Shinkansen trainsets can max out at 200 mph. So this timeframe is actually 100% doable. The hardest part would be actually getting the funding and convincing Americans to get on board.
