China is building a floating train that could be faster than air travel
weforum.org
weforum.org
China isn’t the only country experimenting with maglev technology. Japan, a pioneer of high-speed rail, broke its own world record, hitting 603 km/h during a test run of an SC Maglev train in 2015.
The country is building a new maglev line between Tokyo and Nagoya, scheduled to open in 2027.
In some countries, long-distance travel is even already 100% renewable https://gruen.deutschebahn.com/en/projects/ice
It’s mostly the US, the UK, and other countries with third-world infrastructure that still heavily rely on diesel in long-distance train travel
The US is second only to china in terms of ton-kilometers of freight transported and moves nearly an order of magnitude more freight by rail than the EU.
With the exception of China, which has both massive freight and transport rail systems, most countries tend to trade off between transport of freight. The reason the US's transport rail is awful is because it's freight rail is incredible. And though it may be diesel it is a remarkably efficient use of is (as opposed to the trucks necessary for transport if you don't use trains)
Why focus money on developing a hyperloop++, when we could have something almost as good with technology that currently exists?
It's more than a little myopic, considering many of them commute via car into the city, and getting people onto the train would reduce their commute. But hey, the individualistic "I'm not going to use it, so why should I pay for it" is an accepted attitude in the states.
American's have accepted that the status quo really cannot be improved much due to a variety of factors including cost, politics/NIMBYism and environmental stuff. We can still innovate on the tech and make a profit by selling it to other countries even if we are utterly incapable of adopting it ourselves.
Basically, America is done advancing it's infrastructure for the foreseeable future.
I do not understand why there are not many private minibuses for short distances and nicer(private) buses for medium distances, from what I read here it appears like US has no private transport companies. At least those would work oh the high demand routes. Are there regulations that prevent this or is something more cultural (like only poor guys would use a bus or train).
There is the issue that people in HN may live in larger cities and have more money then the average person.
> Are there regulations that prevent this or is something more cultural (like only poor guys would use a bus or train).
Mostly this. Busses are seen as transport for the poor and American's hate to identify themselves with poverty.
I live in a village 10Km from a city, there are private companies with buses or minibuses that operate on this route but that also go to villages that may be 50Km away from the city (people work in the city but own houses in the villages, some will do this route daily others only in weekends if they own an apartment in the city )
Many students in my area are studding in larger cities, maybe 300+ Km away (6 hours with a bus or 8 with a train) , there is a large number of private companies on this routes , you have a lot of choices like starting from 4AM until 16PM at every 2 hours there will be a bus (again from private companies). The trains are not as often, maybe only 1 direct train to one of the major cities.
Hopefully more will spring up around the country, but I'm not holding my breath. Florida is ideal because both parties are largely pro-development / pro-growth, so the regulatory hurdles are set much lower, and the geology is flat with large amounts of unused land.
Are there no profitable routes where private companies can make money? the fuel does not seem to be expensive there, so instead of Uber for a short distance you would have some minibuses for medium distances that you share with 10-15 other people, I know is not for everybody and there are disadvantages but I am curious why won't be profitable
In the end China/Japan will be selling this technology to us, not the other way around.
God forbid you have an opinion other than US transportation is the best, US healthcare is the best, US education is the best...you can’t even look at other countries models or actual global rankings showing the US outspends every other country in those area yet our outcomes are nowhere near the top.
throw in that within just the boundaries of one state and they could not even build a high speed rail without tripling of costs and involvement of hundreds of parties who all wanted their piece of the action.
in some sort of perverse way we should be thankful for all the political hamstringing that public transportation suffers because it has forced private industry to innovate around that.
the public transit bus is the most affordable and flexible means to move the people throughout the city yet it is regularly slighted in funds to promote rail which has more prestige attached to it.
A generation of Americans were brainwashed that infrastructure equals communism. Nothing will happen in US infrastructure until the baby boomers retire from politics.
Not to mention the train station being central and the experience just being all round more fun!
Until a fuse blows. That will be fun at 600 km/h.