Could the US even run high-speed rail like France and Japan if it decided to?

[Bill in NC]

High-speed rail would need new track.

Acquiring land for those in the most heavily urbanized areas of the country would not be cheap (billions or tens of billions of dollars?)

Better to spend the money on improving heavy rail, especially electrifying as much as possible.

Even if they do have to run on diesel, trains ship long-distance freight by rail much less expensively than via tractor-trailer.

Save trucks for short-haul delivery.

[DRR]

If it decided to, yes. Completely impractical though.

Keep in mind that France and Japan are smaller than Texas and Montanta, respectively. A country this size would need exponentially more money and resources per mile to maintain a rail system of that size.

[Grateful11]

JoeH wrote: Their interest these days is in running freight, and they maintain their rail beds to the minimum standards needed for that.

That's just so wrong. Maybe some railroads run minimum standards but
I know at least one that runs above and beyond what the FRA says they have
to do. I work for that major railroad and I know their equipment and
their techniques for maintaining the track. Our safety record is tops.
We're won the E. H. Harriman Award 20 years in row. You are correct
however on running freight, they could care less about running passengers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriman_Award

[JoeH]

Safety record and track condition are not necessarily related. Minimum safe track conditions for freight do not make for smooth ride for passenger trains, or allow high speed operation. Many companies operate unfortunately to that level of maintenance. There are runs near here where the passenger train that operated on it had to slow to below 35 for miles. Did not bother the freight trains, they did not care if they had to run them through at slow speed. Can find more examples if you look.

[Mac1337]

I like to see a coast to coast train service, high speed or not. How hard is that?

[Ombligo]

Long distance high speed rail is not going to work economically in this country. Going from DC to Boston or NYC is one thing, going from DC to Chicago, maybe but DC to LA - no way; at nearly 2700 miles it would still be a 13 hour trip at 200mph (likely longer as I doubt it would be non-stop). An airline flight is only $220/rt and less than 6 hrs non-stop.

high speed rail is for short distance (200-300 miles) not long haul. The only way to make it truly attractive for long haul is to add a car ferry system. Then maybe longer hauls would generate interest as the traveler would save time, gas and hotel costs.

[RgrF]

Now that GM is on it's knees we might see some progress with rail. They and their lobbying arms were the single largest obstacle to the US having a balanced transportation policy.