Discussion on:

The Morning Briefing: High speed rail

As long as they are going to high speed rail, they might as well double the width of the rail bed. It would make the cars more stable, double the passenger per car and freight capacity which might lower ticket prices. Is it feasible to use carbon fiber and polymer hybrid material for cross ties ? It seems like that could lower rail bed maintenance drastically.

Getting the government, and taxpayer subsidies, out of HSR and allowing privately owned HSR running on dedicated tracks.

The new Italian HSR trains are a departure from current HSR train designs. They use a propulsion model similar to the NYC subway system where the drive components are dispersed among the trains cars instead of being located in one large locomotive pushing or pulling the train.

The design offers better traction on grades and in wet weather, but more importantly it allows for a more efficient train design leading to a higher passenger capacity on a train the same size as current TVGs. Another efficiency of the design are the permanent-magnet motors that consume less power and have a higher power to weight ratio than the asynchronous motors used by current trains.

The compact size of these motors not only allows them to be placed in the train cars, but have an added benefit of being quieter than current HSR designs. Europe does not have as bad a NIMBY problem as the US does, but this design should be looked at by all US HSR proponents as a way to manage the inevitable NIMBY fights that will come up over noise.

Lower power use, increased passenger capacity and dedicated rails are keys to making HSR cost effective to run without taxpayer subsidies. There is no reason why California should fail to build their HSR system as anything less than a state of the art system with built in operational cost efficiency.

http://www.raileurope.com/blog/4107-new-italian-high-speed-trains

On a side note. The propulsion layout of the new Italian trains provides better traction and would be a safer design for mountains than Chinas conventional layout ICE train.

...to what it did 150 years ago: It should obtain the right-of-way for proposed routes, and then lease that right-of-way to private companies that would then build and operate the lines. This would overcome the primary obstacle of building a line while assuring that those lines would be built and operated profitably.

At any rate, the US has a dramatic problem with lack of Rail infrastructure, not to mention light rail and tram services. (how do I know? http://igg.me/p/236714?a=1362962). Time for a bit of broader forward thinking towards rail, and away from flights. Short distance flights are, with the state of fossil fuels and climate change, pretty stupid in every sense. As for profitability of rail services, apart from the fact that I consider public transport to be a PUBLIC SERVICE for which we pay taxes, not a for-profit business endeavor, profits are easily calculable with increased use at every inevitable rise in petrol costs, until driving becomes undoable altogether. Investment at this point is essential.

...if it weren't for the fact that you are expecting a government that manages to loose money selling burgers and soft drinks to run such a system in any meaningful way.

Heck, the Federal government even manages to loose money selling booze and sex.