High Speed Rail (Bullet Train) Infrastructure Plan

Economy
1

Bullet trains in select places as an alternative means of travel between large cities for tourism, business, and distribution, as well as across large expanses of the middle of the country could help to alleviate the cost of travel via Air.

Japan Capitalizes on this form of travel and the arguments for the inclusion of these as a part of the American infrastructure are as follows.

All statistics are from Japanese High speed trains in the following:

SUPERIOR SAFETY RECORD
For over 60 YEARS and over 10 BILLION passengers there have been ZERO fatalities or injuries due to accidents!

SUPERIOR PUNCTUALITY
You will know the EXACT minute your train will leave the station and the EXACT minute you will arrive at your destination! The average departure time AND arrival time is not even a minute, mere seconds, off scheduled time!

SUPERIOR COMFORT
From the moment you can quickly board and sit down (usually takes 2-3 minutes for passengers to get off and on the train) until the minute you get up to exit, you can: recline your seat, use the pull down tray, use high speed internet, eat, drink, get up to use a roomy bathroom, get up to walk around and use your cell phone in an appropriate area in between the train cars for more privacy, and there’s so much leg room, you can easily press a lever and spin the row of seats in front of you so you can sit face to face with your friends, family, coworkers to visit, play games, work, etc, etc… THE WHOLE ENTIRE TRIP! Oh, wait… there’s more, well, actually less… THERE ARE NO SEAT BELTS! So, there are no seat belt signs! No beeps, no warnings, no turbulence, no Airplane mode, and no captain’s announcements, none of that! Just quiet and relaxation… THE WHOLE ENTIRE TRIP!

MORE RELIABLE
These trains can run perfectly well in weather that airplanes all too often have to be grounded such as rain storms or winter weather at the departing location, the destination, or anywhere in between these locations!

MORE EFFICIENT THAN HIGHWAYS
For around the amount of land needed for a two lane farm road, this double track rail line can keep expanding by adding more train cars, run more frequent trains, and all without needing anymore land, and to eventually move the number of people that is equivalent to a sixteen lane highway!

I hope others see the ingenuity and necessity to vote, and add this to a top issue for a new America.

4 Likes
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I have been wondering why we don’t have high speed rails! This makes so much sense to me.

3 Likes
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Yes, I lived in South Korea for 1 year and it was so easy to take a bullet train or regular train and so easy to navigate, easy to book, and it was just lovely way to travel!

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I’ve always wondered why we don’t have a high speed rail or hyperloop train. I think it would be cool if it was above ground and futuristic looking. Get to another town or state quickly. It would create more jobs to build, maintain and run it. More tourism, more retail at each stop. You could live at home and save money during college and commute faster to campus. Elon help!

5

This has been something in the back of my mind for years now. Japan’s bullet train system is such an amazing marvel for their country.

The Hayabusa service from Tokyo to Shin-Aomori covers the 420 Mile route in about 3 - 3.5hrs travelling about 200 MPH. The cost of a ticket is pretty cheap too, less than ~$150 for “Coach” in this case.

I think the best we have to compare it to is the Chicago to Washington DC Capitol Limited route. ~475 Miles and takes well over 17 hours to make the journey and costs a bit more (closer to $170).

High speed trains could allow short - mid distance travel to be done in a day and long distance trips to be completed in significantly less time than it is done today. I could even see evening rides from coast to coast being overnight where you fall asleep and arrive at your destination late the next morning.

Since people only have about 2 weeks of PTO in most companies, wasting multiple days on a train ride for vacation makes planes the only option if you don’t want to waste most of your days off stuck on public transportation.