The surprising renaissance of America's railways
For the last half-century the US has been more obsessed with runways than sleepers
18 OCTOBER 2018 • 4:12PM
For the last half-century the US has been more obsessed with runways than sleepers
- Chris Leadbeater, travel correspondent
18 OCTOBER 2018 • 4:12PM
Something is stirring in America - and for once, it has nothing to do with politics. It is the unlikely image of a train, zipping across a vast landscape, conveying passengers from Departure Point A to Destination B with something akin to speed and purpose.
The USA has a long and noble association with the railway, but the classic emblem of the locomotive on Stateside soil is still the iron horses of the Wild West, thundering across Nevada, California and New Mexico - being chased by Apache warriors or masked bandits, depending on which John Wayne film you are watching. The modern Amtrak network, though it casts its tentacles across the nation, is not known for its velocity, and has long been out-performed by the airlines on journeys of high mileage.
This, though, may be set to change. This week has witnessed news of fledgling plans to construct a high-speed rail line that would connect portions of the Pacific Northwest - linking Portland in Oregon with Vancouver, over the border in Canada, in two hours.
This bulletin comes less than a month after the revelation of an ambitious scheme to construct an ultra-quick line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles - a trip which thousands of travellers make every weekend, but one which slots into a twilight zone of being too short a distance to fly and a long way by road (the best part of 270 miles).
This, in turn, follows the launch - by Brightline (see gobrightline.com), the operator behind the Vegas-LA proposal - of a dedicated railway line running along the busiest section of Florida's Atlantic coast - between West Palm Beach and Miami, taking in Fort Lauderdale en route. The track came to life in January, initially serving the section between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, with the continuation south to Miami joining the party in May. The service manages the 70-mile journey in just under one hour - which is faster than it can realistically be completed taking the I-95 highway.
The USA has a long and noble association with the railway, but the classic emblem of the locomotive on Stateside soil is still the iron horses of the Wild West, thundering across Nevada, California and New Mexico - being chased by Apache warriors or masked bandits, depending on which John Wayne film you are watching. The modern Amtrak network, though it casts its tentacles across the nation, is not known for its velocity, and has long been out-performed by the airlines on journeys of high mileage.
This, though, may be set to change. This week has witnessed news of fledgling plans to construct a high-speed rail line that would connect portions of the Pacific Northwest - linking Portland in Oregon with Vancouver, over the border in Canada, in two hours.
This bulletin comes less than a month after the revelation of an ambitious scheme to construct an ultra-quick line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles - a trip which thousands of travellers make every weekend, but one which slots into a twilight zone of being too short a distance to fly and a long way by road (the best part of 270 miles).
This, in turn, follows the launch - by Brightline (see gobrightline.com), the operator behind the Vegas-LA proposal - of a dedicated railway line running along the busiest section of Florida's Atlantic coast - between West Palm Beach and Miami, taking in Fort Lauderdale en route. The track came to life in January, initially serving the section between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, with the continuation south to Miami joining the party in May. The service manages the 70-mile journey in just under one hour - which is faster than it can realistically be completed taking the I-95 highway.