>>1369797>Highspeed railGet out of here with this shit. Listen, I would love for America to have HSR, but it's too big of a task for our country given the current circumstances. Unless there was some drastic change in funding and or policies, it's not possible. I know you have to know how expensive it is to build and operate a rail line. Just conventional tracks alone cost a million dollars a mile to build today, so you have to assume that HSR tracks would cost even more. We need start small before we dream big. I have seen for several years now people talk about HSR in the US. No. Stop. In my opinion we need to simply expand on the current passenger rail system first. Just look at this map in my pic related, it's all the passenger rail destinations. It's pitiful, embarrassing, and sad. America used to have one of the greatest passenger rail systems in the world, the trains brought an economic boom wherever they went, entire towns sprung up, and part of that was because of trains. Nowadays there are entire states without passenger rail, entire swaths of land where you can't ride a train. I turned 29 last June and I never rode a train until June 25th and July 4th. In my home state of Oklahoma there is only one train line, the Heartland Flyer. It only goes from our capital to Dallas Fort Worth and back. I went on a trip to Oregon and it was there I first rode a train, to actually go somewhere. When I was a kid I rode the train at Dry Gulch for Christmas, but that almost doesn't count since it doesn't go anywhere. I enjoy riding the train, but I also know I'm not the only one. And not only that, but some people rely on it. In my region there is an effort to add passenger rail from Oklahoma city to Tulsa, as well as talks of running a line from OKC to Newton, Kansas. In the case of the OKC/Tulsa connection the rails have even been leased?/rented? Alas, they have had no luck so far finding an operator, worse still is there is more (continued)
