Comment Re:A high speed railway (Score 2, Insightful) 691
The interstate highway project killed rail transit in this country, and airline deregulation sealed the deal. The highway system was built at about the same time that the train world was looking into high-speed rail. It turned-out to be cheaper to build brand-new roads for cars than it was to upgrade existing track for high speeds, and add electrification to the entire network.
Unfortunately, we have two large mountain ranges splitting the country into pieces, and everyone knows building train lines to get over/around/through mountains can get very expensive, especially if you want to add electrical infrastructure in the middle of nowhere. And even if you built the line, you couldn't run the trains at high-speeds on grades and curves in mountainous country. Building a road for cars through the same mountain range requires a lot less engineering, and the cars can actually move quickly, because they're not trying to keep hundreds of tons of cargo from derailing.
Sure, you can build high-speed lines on the Great Plains, but there's not enough passenger demand to support such a thing. In the 1950s, you only had one major destination that was not cut-off by mountains (Chicago), so there was no need for a major transit corridor. If you wanted to go somewhere besides Chicago, you would've had to switch to diesel when you hit the mountains, so what was the point?
This is why we only have one high-speed train corridor, and why it's on the east coast. There are plenty of destinations worth hitting along that major corridor, so there's enough demand to justify (and flat enough land to allow) the building of high-speed electrical train lines. The interstate highway system may be overloaded near the coasts, but it is an absolute dream to drive in the interior of the country. For those needing faster transit, the airline industry has grown to meet that demand, so there's no really no need today for train transit.