BacktotheFuture has it about right.  There will be a lot of rich consultants before there are any high speed passenger rail operations - in Nebraska or anyplace else, for that matter.

"BacktotheFuture has it about right.  There will be a lot of rich consultants before there are any high speed passenger rail operations - in Nebraska or anyplace else, for that matter."

  Dunno about rich.  Studies that involve large amounts of political issues take disproportionate amounts of time, at least when you compare them to a straightforward private job, or an internal public job.  Want to rebuild the tracks on an army base, double track some mainline?  All you have to do is figure out the best way to do it.

  Want to get 10 public agencies, a good chunk of the electorate, a simple majority of a couple state legislatures, eyc, etc, ad naus., to support it?  Better still, without blatantly mentioning some of the less savory/more controversial reasons why they should support it?

   That takes some real planning.

Good consultants will tell a client what it may not want to hear.  They will point out the pitfalls, the lack of economics, etc.  There are plenty of not-so-good consultant out there who will tell a client what it wants to hear.  My cynicism aside, you make some good points, anmccaff.

"Maybe my sarcasm hides my frustration that I'm not an HSR consultant."

  You could be, no?  Face it, the track design is the easy part.  It's getting right-of-way that doesn't mess too much with the abutters (or existing freight) that's the real problem, and an operating background means a lot in that.  From what I've seen, many transit design firms expertise is on the inner city to middle suburbs part, not the open areas, where they'll see what for them are new issues.   (I could be wrong, and I know I'm oversimplifying.)

"$10M to study 300 miles distance.  After subbing out most of the survey work MHSRA is gonna have plenty left in the bank."

   Oh, I don't doubt that there's a couple of bucks left over in O&P.  If you want to see costs go down, though, I think the real problem to tackle is needlessly repetitive EIS (environmental impact statement) work.  Yes, every site is a little different; it'd be a lot better if firms could use admittedly standardized references for the stuff that is common, rather burn a certyain percentage for each job (as is done in some public work.)

I'm obviously not anmccaff, but I think I can help on the eminent domain question.  To the best of my knowledge, eminent domain is a function of government, not of the actual use to which property is to be put.  That is, there is no eminent domain, per se, for HSR, but a unit of government, depending on state law, can take private property for public use, subject to fair compensation to the private owner.  So, short answer, HSR would have access to eminent domain to accumulate the properties necessary to build a system.  If this is not so, I'm sure others will let me know promptly.

You raise some good question/points, anmccaff, proving once again that things rarely (never) are as simple as they may at first appear.

On the face of it, I would say that a private entity would not have eminent domain authority to acquire land.  But, I also know of a number of non-transportation cases where government has conveyed eminent domain authority to private entities.  This has been done in urban renewal, where the government agency declares a site "blighted," conveying ED authority to a developer, which in turn condemns the land and proceeds with the renewal project.

You may not know what the "high level thinkers have in mind...", but I'd cynically question whether there has been any high level thinking done yet.

"On the face of it, I would say that a private entity would not have eminent domain authority to acquire land."

   In a great many states they do, as either a practical matter, or de jure.  Don't remember cites offhand, but some of this goes back early, to the canal movement of the early 1800s, with further developments in the Progressive Movement (late 1800s-merging eventually into some New Deal ideas. )  Utilities took the idea and ran with it; the amount of power some have for easements is scary.   Get down to it, the phone company owns the first 5 feet of my yard almost as much as I do.

"But, I also know of a number of non-transportation cases where government has conveyed eminent domain authority to private entities.  This has been done in urban renewal, where the government agency declares a site "blighted," conveying ED authority to a developer, which in turn condemns the land and proceeds with the renewal project."

  The other thing that factors in is how old the state is.  Massachusetts still has (or had) property ownership mechanisms, mostly long disused, that go back to Cromwellian ideas of "Commonwealth".  (Then again, I think the Bay State took the bounty off non-Christian Indians within my lifetime. (A leftover from King Phillip's War, that never was formally removed in colonial times, and was carried over with all the rest of the Commonwealth's laws with independence.  At least that's how I remember it.)  So, there are several roots of the idea of taking or restricting the use of property for "the greatest good of the greatest number."

And let's not forget railroads - this being a railroad blog site - which have eminent domain authority granted to them in many states, particularly in the East, where there wasn't so much public land available when the railroads were being built.  The last time I checked, railroads were private entities, although a fair number of their customers seem to want to make them into government entities.  CP's DME subsidiary still is battling for the legal right to use eminent domain authority in South Dakota to acquire land it needs for the build-in to the Powder River Basin coal fields, even though CP has not said whether it plans to undertake the project or not.  So, I guess we can safely say that private entities may have eminent domain authority, but it must be conveyed to them by a state agency.

"I agree on the repetitive EIS stuff.  I been involved in several capital projects where I was asking out loud "so how many more core smaples do you need to take?"  what about the last 2?  if they're in different locations, why didn't you take them the first time xx months ago?"  "

  Well, the other thing is, if the samples all came back the same, and the surface topography suggests that is probably meaningful, you might get to stop with the first run.  You get one oddball, you have to see if it's a fluke, or a bad test.  You get two different sets of results - like half your site is on clay, and half is on sand- it gets important to find where the dividing line is, exactly.  Gets worse when the people on site take the cores, but don't or can't really interpret them...but that can be cheaper, some of the time.

Looking for work as a consultant, will do anything and or say anything in order to secure funds for me.

Does your firm need expertise in emminent domain come to us.

Oh your firm needs a senate seat to pass legislation, we can do that.

Here at the Land O' Lincoln Consultant service we can make it happen, it must be in the water.

Land O' Lincoln Consultancy LLC

Offices thru out Illinois

And even in Federal Penitentaries.

Call when you need it bad.

PS We vote early and often too.

We can all do our own study by turning our heads to the left as we drive along the (publicly owned by us,the taxpayers) many State & Federal 'DIVIDED' highways and the 'INTERSTATE SYSTEM'. There is enough space in the medians for double tracking and many of the exits which are grade separated above the roadway could become transit stops for park & ride, bus or tram-train stops. On some urban streches subterranean, below grade or elevated track would be necessary. Metro Chicago has already started this in a limited way...

Rails & Roads could be an integrated network by re-connecting people, places, industry, commerce and surface travel in a more efficient manner.

You don't have to abandon your automobile in favor of the train---both can be utilized.

Just one question, RAILWAYIST:  Who will pay for this?

LK>Just one question, RAILWAYIST:  Who will pay for this?

    Even if he answers that, he's still ignoring at least 3 fundamental problems.

   First, rail and auto have different characteristics.  Rail is very sensitive to grade, cars and trucks aren't.  That's a fundamental, since the whole reason rail is more efficient has to do with reduced power requirements.  Less losses to heat in the wheels, less need for excess HP to climb every hill in sight.  Many highways aren't suited to median or parallel rail for this reason.  (Some are, of course, and it's used in some of them)

  Next, getting grade seperation isn't trivial.  Look at the places it has been done.

   Finally, the whole reason we got into this mess is badly drawn limits between private and public actions and property.  Mightn't this make that worse, rather than better?

Reply: Who will pay for this-auto-rail-combo?

Roll it all into the new 'Highway/Railway/Transit/Trust-Fund-Infrastructure Bank'. 'If' the USA can spend around 2 billion dollars a day on personal credit with petro-credit cards, Mastercard,Visa,Amex,Diners etc... on OIL - 'it' can attempt to slice that imported-juice-bill in half with a better surface transport system.

All transport modes need to function and connect through physical integration and time/communications synchronization.

Just remember the human signal tower operators employed by the New York Central Railroad System---they were in tune with their duties and did their best to make things work with technology that would seem primitive today---but millions of people traveled daily and on-time on close to 300,000 track miles of the US passenger railways with the 'old stuff'.  

It's time to get moving here---the USA could soon finally go broke because of it's oil appetite, thirsty BIG BOY needs to go on a diet---with 251 million cars on  4 million miles of (taxpayer subsidized) pavement---'RAIL' barely has a slice-of-a-slice-of-the-pie.

We are in a national emergency...need to put our heads together...not bicker about petty political differences and now obsolete economic analysis and forecasting models, otherwise we will all be losers.

riptrack.blogspot.com/.../congrats-to-new-mexico-rail-runner.html

An example of in the median rail is New Mexico's RailRunner.  Much of that system was paid for by New Mexico tax dollars.  Instead of spending billions to study HSR, here is a solution that could work in many areas.

Reply: Who will pay for this-auto-rail-combo?

Roll it all into the new 'Highway/Railway/Transit/Trust-Fund-Infrastructure Bank'.

   That's not an snswer, you know.  All that says, in effect, is "borrow it."

     The real reason we got into this mess is that we created a new system of moving things, that opened up new areas for development, off money borrowed from the "old" economy.  The old "rust belt" paid the taxes that set up the highway trust fund, and, except for travesties like the Big Dig, they never got most of it back.

   This looked great at the time, and, as long as we could still coast on being the only big country with an intact work force, intact factories, and an intact economy, we were able to make it function for nearly 30 years without tweaking.

RW>"'If' the USA can spend around 2 billion dollars a day on personal credit with petro-credit cards, Mastercard,Visa,Amex,Diners etc... on OIL - 'it' can attempt to slice that imported-juice-bill in half with a better surface transport system."

   No, the two aren't comparable.  One is people spending mone directly; the other is people spending money indirectly.  To get that indirect use of money, you've gotta either tax them, or inflate the money supply (which has the same effect in the long run.

  More importantly, your argument seems to boil down to "What we are doing now is stupid, so lets be stupid in a new way!"

RW>"All transport modes need to function and connect through physical integration and time/communications synchronization."

   I believe the technical term for this is "glittering generality".  Yeah, that's true.   So, what, specifically, should we do to implement it?

RW>"Just remember the human signal tower operators employed by the New York Central Railroad System---they were in tune with their duties and did their best to make things work with technology that would seem primitive today---but millions of people traveled daily and on-time on close to 300,000 track miles of the US passenger railways with the 'old stuff'."

  They also did it with a lot less pay than the equivalent worker expects now, and they did it without as much direct, subsidized competition.   What, specifically, should we do about that?

It would be helpful, RAILWAYIST, if you had even a modicum of understanding of transportation and could ge beyond buzz-words and superficial theories.  I won't bother you, besmerkena or myself with specific comments on your post.

In my next life I plan to be a HSR consultant!

Rule 1: You can't go any faster than the train in front of you therefore you have to get exclusive trackage by diverting freight in a way that doesn't cost the shipper anything more or delay his freight. Usually this can work where there are parallel freight rail lines and someobe else (the government) pays for the track connections and signalling to make it work.

Rule 2 : You have to have volume to make it pay. To get volume the fares have to be less that the cost of gas or better, about 1/2 the cost of gas. (So two passengers can take the train for the cost of the alternative of taking their own car)

Rule 3: Look at electrification but you have to find a designer who knows how to do it economically. If properly done, and the volume is high enough, its not only ecologically better even where electricity is generated from coal fired power plants, but it will also be cheaper including amortizing the capital cost.

Conclusion: so there's the recipe, rules 1, 2 & 3.

GF>"Rule 1: You can't go any faster than the train in front of you"

  You know, there was some loon who patented a device to get around this: a tracked ramp system, with rail on top of the cars, so one train could go over another.  At least, I've seen a drawing.  Can't remember where, so it might have been a xerox-lore joke.

Actually, Rule 1 is not valid in many cases.  With computer-aided dispatching (CAD), and the proper location of sidings and passing tracks, it is not at all difficult to pass a slower train in front of you.

Rule 2: Volume only makes passenger service pay if, like freight, there is sufficient density and the pricing was done properly in the first place.  Some of us who predate the Staggers Act can remember when rates were so low relative to cost that increasing volume only added to the losses.  Railroading is a very high fixed cost industry, which requires that prices not only cover variable cost but make a sufficient contribution to fixed costs to ensure net earnings - and that the railroad remain in business.

Rule 3 appears to be nice round words.  You know, round words have no hard edges or handles on which others can get a good grip.  If electrification were easy and if it were economic do you not think some of the main line territories would have been electrified by now?  Again, there is a reliance on volume, which brings my reminder that unless the pricing is right in the first place, volume may only increase losses.

   Henry Latimer Simmons.  Patent 536360.  Seems to have been serious, and to have it work even when both trains were moving.  

Have worked on HSR programs in UK and now in middle-east.

Global experience is HSR net-work must have Federal Support and be driven by HSR authority that has Power and Funding; States will do a piece at a time job, not as a national strategy; need a 10 year minimum program like FHWA that built Interstate Highway System.

Amtrak, Commuter Rails are operating/maintenance organizations; can not deliver a major HSR program.

Unless you have a long-term vision,funding and authority, it is waste of time; so here I am enjoying HSR delivery on international scene. Debate in US is on-going too long; it does not deliver timely results. Look at France,Japan, Uk and now China (building 300 kmh train sets! 6 major lines under plan!)

Interesting comments, MudholkarV.  You might just as easily have pointed out that in most other countries, even democracies, the government can make decisions and make them stick.  Here, we have various ideologies and different economic comprehension and advocates of all sides can talk an HSR proposal to death - and do.  

I presented a brief summary before HSR forum held at Rayburn House on March 22, 2007; describing how HSR can be delivered from my experience.

In US, NASA programs, Interstate Highway programs were deliverd by Feds with a strong presedential will and driving agencies behind; we can repeat our successes for HSR network for the nation and not go fragmented State by State.

Many democracies like France,UK,Japan,Germany,Korea have done it and are expanding their networks for efficiency/speed.

We have too much debate and not a cohesive strategy for long term future to become energy independent for transport.

To begin with, no one questions whether HSR can be delivered in the United States.  Many people, however, do question whether it can be delivered within the bounds of our economic system.  Germany, France, the UK, Japan, and Korea all have state-owned infrastructure and their HSR systems only have to cover direct operating expenses, if that much.  I dare say if this country had a comparable system of government, we'd have a lot more rail passenger service, both HSR and conventional.  We don't.  Get over it.  

Adron Hall:  why are you not participating in this discussion?  I'd appreciate your help, knowing your regard for rail passenger service of any kind.

The USA & CANADIAN rail industry with their respective departments/ministries of transport need to get some passenger trains going to more than a few measly origins and destinations that are presently in use. The North American passenger fleet moves less people than the Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg combined!

LK>"To begin with, no one questions whether HSR can be delivered in the United States.  Many people, however, do question whether it can be delivered within the bounds of our economic system.  Germany, France, the UK, Japan, and Korea all have state-owned infrastructure and their HSR systems only have to cover direct operating expenses, if that much.  I dare say if this country had a comparable system of government, we'd have a lot more rail passenger service, both HSR and conventional.  We don't.  Get over it. "

   Economics, politics, and geography.

   The US is still, in some ways, a genuinely federal system, while the others have a much more centralized model, in fact if not in name or law.  The kind of log-rolling it takes to get agreement on a national system here drives the price up enormously.

   Although I doubt anyone here has forgotten it, but the fact that many other countries have most of their domestic trips inside the distances that rail can successfully compete at is no small part of it, either.

MW>"The USA & CANADIAN rail industry with their respective departments/ministries of transport need to get some passenger trains going to more than a few measly origins and destinations that are presently in use. The North American passenger fleet moves less people than the Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg combined!"

    I was wondering if you could back this with numbers?  Or even define what you mean by "more people?"  Passenger-miles?  Riders?  Transit as well as long-haul?  Oh, wait, over most of those countries there is no long haul, is there?ty

    If you manage to get past that stage, how about looking at density, average trip distance, etc.   Hows it look then?

   Benelux is very similar to the BosWash: a fairly densely packed area with a long passenger rail history.  Does that describe all of North America?