How does high-speed rail work?

Although it's common in some countries, high-speed rail service isn't available in the United States -- yet. Tune in to learn more about this swift rail service -- and how soon we're likely to have it in the U.S. -- in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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slash brain Stuff. Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff
works dot com where smart happens. Him Marshall Brain with
today's question, how does high speed rail work? Imagine getting

(00:43):
on a high speed train in downtown New York City
and arriving at Union Station in Washington, d C. Which
is two miles away, just an hour later. That is
the ultimate promise of true high speed rail. Compared to
driving a car, are this train trip would be a dream.
The car ride would take about four and a half hours,

(01:05):
making the amusing assumption that there's no traffic or construction
along the way. Even compared to an airplane, the train
trip would be faster once you account for the need
to get to the airport an hour ahead of time,
the time spent sitting on the runway, the fact that
Dullest and LaGuardia airports are a good distance from downtown,
and a whole bunch of other things, the plane trip

(01:27):
might take nearly as long as the car trip. True
high speed rail service like this doesn't yet exist in
the United States, but it is common in parts of Europe, Japan,
and China, and it may be coming to America in
the near future with backing from the federal government. California
is actively working on a high speed rail system that
would run all the way from Sacramento down to San Diego,

(01:50):
a distance of about five miles, and this will probably
be the first installation of true high speed rail in
the US. The closest thing that the United States has
to high speed rail today is Amtrak's Acela service running
in the Northeast Corridor. The Northeast Corridor connects Boston to Washington,
d C. And include stops in places like New York

(02:12):
City and Philadelphia. Although the Ascella trains have a top
speed of a hundred and fifty miles per hour, their
average speed is more like seventy miles per hour, so
the two d thirty mile run between DC and New
York takes nearly three hours. This is still better than
the car trip or the plane rides, so the Ascella
run is popular. Something like three million passengers traveled between

(02:36):
New York and d C every year on the train.
So why is the average speed of the Ascella trains
so low. The answer to this question helps clarify the
difference between normal train track and real high speed track.
One of the most important problems with normal track is
the roads that cross over the track. Many of the

(02:57):
rail lines in the United States were built with at
grade crossings rather than bridges. Obviously, it's not very safe
to have a train traveling at a hundred and fifty
or two hundred miles per hour if a car canstall
on the track at any intersection. Another problem is the
radius of turns. Low speed trains can make sharp turns,

(03:17):
while high speed trains cannot. The Acela train tries to
get around this problem with tilting cars, but in some
parts of the Northeast Corridor the tracks are too close
together to use this tilting feature. Another requirement for high
speed travel is smooth welded track. This normally means a
good concrete base for the track rather than wooden railroad ties.

(03:41):
Also needed is overhead electric service, since high speed trains
are electric. In addition, a high speed train can't be
competing for the track with slow freight trains. All these
requirements mean that true high speed rail needs dedicated high
speed track. Building just dedicated track can get expensive, especially

(04:02):
in congested urban areas, so high speed rail projects cost
billions of dollars. The high speed track in California might
end up costing something like a hundred million dollars per
mile when it's all said and done. The good news
is that a high speed rail line takes less land
than a major highway, and the high speed train gets
its passengers to their destination much more quickly than cars can,

(04:26):
and a new six lane wide interstate highway project can
end up costing nearly as much as a high speed
rail line. You might be wondering why Europe, Japan, and
China have thousands of miles of high speed track and
service while the United States currently has none. This has
to do with different decisions in different priorities. The United

(04:47):
States placed its bets on the interstate highway system and airports,
partly because the US is so much bigger than Europe
or Japan. There's also the fact that Americans love cars
and airplanes and haven't been nearly as keen on trains
until recently. But a lot has changed in American thinking
since the nine eleven attacks and gasoline price spikes. The

(05:10):
time may finally be right for Americans to get on
board with high speed rail. Do you have any ideas
or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send me
an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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