New US bullet train development hits a snag

Rich Thomaselli | TravelPulse (TNS)

Amtrak is ready to roll out its highly anticipated bullet train in the northeast corridor from Boston to New York to Washington.

One problem.

The tracks themselves literally cannot handle the speed of the bullet train.

Apparently, there are quite a few sections of the 450-mile track between Boston and Washington that do not have tracks that are equipped to handle the bullet train.

Amtrak pitched the bullet train as a quicker, cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to driving or flying. But there are some sections of the track that are too old to handle the bullet train and therefore the bullet train will have to run slower than usual.

That is, about the same speed as a regular train.

The high-speed bullet train was scheduled to be rolled out into service in 2024. It is not known how much of a setback the track situation will be. Bullet trains are built to travel almost 200 miles per hour; It would take billions of dollars just to upgrade the tracks in the northeast corridor alone, much less the rest of the country.

Louis Thompson, a former director of the Federal Railroad Administration and a member of the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group, said: “Until we are serious about high-speed rail in the same way that we were serious about the interstate highways, we’re highly unlikely to see a national high-speed rail system.”

The Interstate Highway system cost almost $300 billion in today’s dollars and took almost 35 years to be fully completed.