Germany gets contracts for american highspeed train system

[IbrahimFahim]

i see, does that mean you see us in a negative light?

You are going to find a lot of close-mindedness in Americans. For some reason the thought of another nation doing something differently terrifies them. I mentioned that several European countries have excellent public health care systems, and the US system is terrible, and you would not believe how quickly the tirade against European systems hits.

"We don't want to be Europe!!!"

Now, the individual had no idea what the system was, how it operated, or how bad their own system was, but they did not want to be Europe.

This is common. It only applies to government initiatives, however. American companies have no qualms about adopting foreign technology, equipment, labor, etc... it is only government where this bizarre incompatibility exists.

If Germany had a way to make Microsoft more productive, they would jump on it in a heartbeat. If Germany has a government program to fix a social issue..."We don't want to be Europe!!!"

 

[ErikSteiner]

It means I see some of the things the German government does as detrimental to those ruled.

At a very basic level- When the nation rests upon the government, if the government crumbles, then the nation falls. When the government rests upon the nation, if the government falls, the nation rebuilds.


See what I'm saying?

Well in our case our government is just a unit of the nation

 

[RETS]

You are going to find a lot of close-mindedness in Americans. For some reason the thought of another nation doing something differently terrifies them. I mentioned that several European countries have excellent public health care systems, and the US system is terrible, and you would not believe how quickly the tirade against European systems hits.

No one asked you.

Well in our case our government is just a unit of the nation

Which is all well and good. My point is that if your government collapsed, because so many of your people rely upon it for things that could be privatized, the collapse could effectively destroy Germany.

With a nation such as the US, where there is a hybrid of government and private services, businesses, etc., if the government did collapse it would not be destroyed. Shocked and stunned, yes; but not weakened to the point of no return.

 

[Umaro]

Which is all well and good. My point is that if your government collapsed, because so many of your people rely upon it for things that could be privatized, the collapse could effectively destroy Germany.

With a nation such as the US, where there is a hybrid of government and private services, businesses, etc., if the government did collapse it would not be destroyed. Shocked and stunned, yes; but not weakened to the point of no return.

You do realize Germany has collapsed completely and completely rebuilt itself to one of the worlds top economies twice in the last hundred years, right? Doesn't seem like having a strong government impeded them at all.

 

[Goodtry]

Shouldn't be any surprise, when Amtrak is publicly run. When there's no opportunity for a company to make money doing something (it is illegal to compete with Amtrak) is it any surprise that there's going to be stagnation. Market competition breeds investment and development. We haven't had that with rail and trains in quite some time.

Laws can always be changed or overturned given enough political will-power. The reason new expanded rail lines would have to be publicly operated (at least initially) is that the government has eminent domain. That comes with a host of problems but these were the same kind of problems they dealt with when Eisenhower enacted the Federal Aid Highway Act. Most Airports and their dependent structures didn't magically appear without government intervention either. I think we can agree that the highway system and municipal airports have contributed greatly to our success as a nation.

Back when the locomotive was the cutting edge of technology there was a time when America kept-pace with Europe. "Amazingly" the rail system started to fall out of favor after WWII when the "Two cars in every garage" post-war meme started becoming popular. "Conveniently" this was about the time American auto-factories lost their military contracts and stopped making bombers and tanks. And lo-and-behold! American vets returned triumphant and started making babies, moved to the suburbs, and worked in said factories. Its a long story.

 

[chaz345]

Honestly, no. I've been here for about a decade, and what I have noticed is that most Americans are grossly undereducated on issues like this, but refuse to admit the deficit. High Speed rail is cheaper, cleaner, and generally more comfortable, but they will never understand because they will never try to understand.

Here is what you are going to hear...

"It won't work here"

...this is the mantra by which America exists now. Everywhere else in the modern, industrialized world some form on national health care exists. THe people are healthier, live longer, etc... but when it comes to America?

"It won't work here"

Everywhere else in the modern industrialized world national educational systems exist with union involvement and government standards. In America?

"It won't work here"

Nothing works in America.

High Speed rail will not work either, not because it cannot, but because Americans will not permit it to.

Well there is one very significant difference in that in Germany you have a country that is, in land area about half the size of Texas.

I'll grant that high speed rail could be useful on a national basis here but it won't happen. Not because it can't work but because "environmental concerns" will prevent the needed tracks from being built, probably somewhere through the desert where it would disturb some species that no one has ever seen.

 

[chaz345]

You do realize Germany has collapsed completely and completely rebuilt itself to one of the worlds top economies twice in the last hundred years, right? Doesn't seem like having a strong government impeded them at all.

DO you think it is at all possible that a strong government in a country with 1/4 the population of the US in an area about half the size of Texas may have a different effect that it would here?

 

[chaz345]

Back when the locomotive was the cutting edge of technology there was a time when America kept-pace with Europe. "Amazingly" the rail system started to fall out of favor after WWII when the "Two cars in every garage" post-war meme started becoming popular. "Conveniently" this was about the time American auto-factories lost their military contracts and stopped making bombers and tanks. And lo-and-behold! American vets returned triumphant and started making babies, moved to the suburbs, and worked in said factories. Its a long story.

And the infrastructure and cultural attitudes that this created will need to change before any rail system has any chance. It makes little to no sense to build the rail system and let it sit virtually unused for the decades that it's going to take to change attitudes. Especially when we're not really that far from the cliff of an economic implosion. Yes we're (slowly) moving in the right direction but still there's much economic healing still to occur and even more systemic changes that need to be made before anything like a workable national high speed rail system can be built. We're talking about a project, that if done right, would dwarf the inflation adjusted cost of the interstate highway system. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, or shouldn't consider it, I'm saying it should wait a decade or two until we can get our financial house into something resembling order that's sustainable on a long term basis that doesn't threaten to fall off the cliff at every natural down cycle.

 

[Steve Petersen]

A little more perspective on high speed rail vs. autos:

In short, high-speed rail is more than five times more expensive than any of the alternatives. Since most high-speed rail stations will be in downtowns, the main users will be downtown workers such as lawyers, bankers, and government officials. Yet less than 8% of American jobs are in central city downtowns, meaning all Americans will subsidize trains used by only a small urban elite.

High-speed trains in Europe and Asia may be a boon to American tourists, but they haven't proved transformational in those regions either. France and Japan have the world's most extensive high-speed rail networks, yet their average residents ride the high-speed trains less than 400 miles a year.

Germany has legal restrictions on urban growth and strictly limits development. It does not have sprawling suburbs like the US. As noted above, most American jobs are not in densely populated urban environment but in the suburbs. Most job related commuting is between suburbs here.

 

[ErikSteiner]

When i hear all that then it seems that your country has gargantuan structural problems that you really need to solve.

 

[Steve Petersen]

When i hear all that then it seems that your country has gargantuan structural problems that you really need to solve.

I guess most of us don't see travelling on our own terms as a problem.

 

[DeathMagus]

When i hear all that then it seems that your country has gargantuan structural problems that you really need to solve.

It does. We've been coasting along on an infrastructure that's a half century old and older.

 

[ErikSteiner]

I guess most of us don't see travelling on our own terms as a problem.

It is not traveling. Its your country be complete immune against modernisation. Your political class is paralysed. Your country needs massive reforms to come back on its feet but it is unable to do so.

 

[ErikSteiner]

It does. We've been coasting along on an infrastructure that's a half century old and older.

I don´t want cause panic, but if that is the case, how does your country plan to modernize it? USA is virtually bancrupt at the moment. You need a strong economy to have the money for modernisation of infrastructure. To have a good economy you need good infrastructure. Its like a death cycle.

Germany has much less land mass than USA and i´m aware that it is easy here to install state of the art infrastructure, but your country face the problem, that in some years large parts of the country will just rotten away.

 

[Steve Petersen]

It is not traveling. Its your country be complete immune against modernisation. Your political class is paralysed. Your country needs massive reforms to come back on its feet but it is unable to do so.

Building high speed rail for the urban elites is now being equated with opposition to modernization?

Here in Minneapolis we just completed a major rework of a very bad interstate highway intersection used by scores of thousands of people every day.

We just have different priorities when it comes to transportation than you Germans.

As for politics: when a country has reached the condition that politicians are a 'class' something has gone terribly wrong. In that instance, paralysis is preferred rather than overlordship.

 

[DeathMagus]

I don´t want cause panic, but if that is the case, how does your country plan to modernize it? USA is virtually bancrupt at the moment. You need a strong economy to have the money for modernisation of infrastructure. To have a good economy you need good infrastructure. Its like a death cycle.

There is no plan. We make the absolute bare-minimum fixes we possibly can to keep the old system usable, and any additional funds are shuffled off to another project that's more politically lucrative.

 

[ErikSteiner]

Building high speed rail for the urban elites is now being equated with opposition to modernization?

Here in Minneapolis we just completed a major rework of a very bad interstate highway intersection used by scores of thousands of people every day.

We just have different priorities when it comes to transportation than you Germans.

As for politics: when a country has reached the condition that politicians are a 'class' something has gone terribly wrong. In that instance, paralysis is preferred rather than overlordship.

To say the truth we see USA becoming weaker and weaker. From our point of view your countries influence and economic power erode dramatically. In germany the railway system is not just used from the elite but from all classes. If you have no city concepts, then your cities will become like the Favelas in Brazil. You can´t just let evrything out of control. In germany we have city plans. Evry new house that is build needs permission of the administration. In many areas like historical city parts you must follow strict rules. You can´t paint your house pink or that. Something is going wrong in your country. We want a strong USA as partner. And if you follow your path that you just go, there will be a time were we germans must decide if we still want be allied with u.

 

[Steve Petersen]

To say the truth we see USA becoming weaker and weaker. From our point of view your countries influence and economic power erode dramatically. In germany the railway system is not just used from the elite but from all classes. If you have no city concepts, then your cities will become like the Favelas in Brazil. You can´t just let evrything out of control. In germany we have city plans. Evry new house that is build needs permission of the administration. In many areas like historical city parts you must follow strict rules. You can´t paint your house pink or that. Something is going wrong in your country. We want a strong USA as partner. And if you follow your path that you just go, there will be a time were we germans must decide if we still want be allied with u.

I am OK with declining American influence in the world. Let the rest pick up some of the slack.

We do indeed have regulation on city growth and permits are required for most structural modifications.

Politically, there is a different picture. The Democratic Party's constituents are nearly all urban. Republicans, nearly all suburban or rural.

So you can see that politicians have a real stake in getting the government to support their particular geographic constituencies and enlarge them.

 

[ErikSteiner]

Do you have already a post oil plan?

 

[Goodtry]

Well there is one very significant difference in that in Germany you have a country that is, in land area about half the size of Texas.

I'll grant that high speed rail could be useful on a national basis here but it won't happen. Not because it can't work but because "environmental concerns" will prevent the needed tracks from being built, probably somewhere through the desert where it would disturb some species that no one has ever seen.

Probably not to a degree that would be any worse than a comparable volume of car or truck traffic passing through the same region on highway. Trains could also pass through it at a much higher rate of speed with fewer overall emissions of pollutants, which further minimizes the impact. In particularly sensitive areas perhaps special types of tracks could be built to protect wildlife. All these problems can be overcome. Replacing caravan after caravan of cargo trucks with relatively less-polluting trains could persuade many environmentalists to sign-on.

Will train travel catch on with the average consumer? That's debateable. The business traveler who has to leave NY and be in LA before the meeting the next morning won't be inclined to take the train. The college students, the tourists, the holiday traveler, and others who don't necessarily have to be there the same day, may opt for the slower (and hopefully cheaper) train. I think where passenger travel by train could REALLY catch on is in the realm of commuter-rail travel.

I live in Colorado Springs and a couple times a year I need to go to Denver International Airport, a mere 85 miles. Driving there is fine in the summer, takes about an hour and a half or so depending on traffic. Driving there in winter time (like Christmas) can be a hair-raising experience. Getting there in a timely fashion (or at all) in winter depends on: whether the freeway over Monument Hill has been plowed, how many cars are in the ditch attended by state patrol causing rubber-necking slow downs, and how fast I can drive before my "all-weather" tires start to wobble like a top about to fall over. I only dare such a trip because I have no other choice.

I'd love to be able to go to the train depot in downtown Colorado Springs, hop on the high-speed rail to DIA, and just relax the whole way. Traveling in a warm quiet cabin, able to browse online, maybe have a nice latte while still getting there in half the time.