Why, in the map, does no red line connect the Northeast corridor to Chicago?

I’m a bit confused about this map. Can someone please enlighten me?

For the red HSR corridors, will there be stops along the way for cities alongside the track? For instance, the track between Albany and Buffalo runs through Rochester, NY. Will there be a stop there as well? I see no dot on the map…

(I asked this in the Yglesias comment thread as well)

You've also got to wonder what it feels like to be president.

I wondered that too, listening to the news on my drive home today. It seems like the on-going political strategy is to crowd out the opposition with a million stories and divide it up with whatever personally enrages them.

Especially with the huge amount of money that's needed to stimulate the economy, Obama could dominate each news cycle merely with all the projects he's doing recovery-wise. And because he'll vigorously defend the argument that "more spending = more stimulus" this (rightly or wrongly) works politically by turning the recovery into some never-ending, War on Terror-like PR. It's tough to oppose this because, like the war, its scale is so huge and complicated. However, unlike the "war," you get a cool new train to Chicago rather than another dead terrorist, killed for the 4th time.

This map has a mistake I think. They forgot about Nancy and Harry's famous Disneyland to Vegas high-speed sin shuttle. I think I'll check the Faux News site and see if they have a corrected version there... them being fair and balanced and all.

Looks like they're using existing tracks--which is annoying, b/c it means trains from Milwaukee to the TC would *still* bypass Madison. Dumb, dumb, dumb. That would explain the convoluted lines from the Northeast corridor to Chicago, too.

OTOH, I'm willing to consider that maybe, just maybe, this is only a draft, and they might make some necessary changes...

raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee

Starke Rückgänge im Baltikum

Dabei sank die Industrieproduktion in allen Staaten, für die Daten vorlagen. Die stärksten Rückgänge gab es in Estland (minus 30,2), Lettland (minus 24,2) und Spanien (minus 22 Prozent); auch in Deutschland gab es mit minus 20,6 Prozent einen massiven Einbruch.

Industrieproduktion in Europa

Am besten sah es noch in Griechenland (minus 4,9), den Niederlanden (minus 5,9) und Dänemark (minus 11,8 Prozent) aus. Erfasst wurde die gesamte Industrie ohne das Baugewerbe.

Gegenüber Januar verzeichneten die Statistiker einen saisonbereinigten Rückgang um 2,3 Prozent in der Eurozone und 1,9 Prozent in der gesamten EU. Von den erfassten Staaten verzeichneten 16 eine sinkende Industrieproduktion; nur in Portugal (plus 2,4 Prozent), Griechenland (plus 1,7) und Polen (plus 0,4) sah es gegenüber dem Vormonat besser aus.

Die höchsten Rückgänge gab es in Litauen (minus 4,1), Estland (minus 3,6), Italien (minus 3,5) und Deutschland (minus 3,2 Prozent).

And it's way too long in coming.

The US's industrial might was made possible by railroad. Our military supremacy of the first half of the 20th century was made possible by railroad. To this day, the most cost effective and efficient means of moving freight overland is by railroad.

Why we let this slip away, I don't know but I'm going to blame Eisenhower and Henry Ford anyway.

It's time we got back to it.

I don't get it. Just a few hundred more miles of rail in Florida, New York and Texas would tie together the entire eastern half of the country.

I am confused.

Isn't the Acela train in the NE corridor high speed rail? Am I misreading the map and all the announcements, but it sounds like everyone is saying "High speed rail is finally coming to the US." Isn't already here (if by here you mean Boston to Washington)?

Ropty: In theory, but the train only gets to full speed for a few patches here or there, so for most trips the Acela is only moderately faster than the Northeast Regional.

You should devote a post to explaining how we're going to pay for all those pretty red lines on the map. Given projected deficits, we'll have to cut something, in fact a lot of somethings.

Credit where it's due, Ez. That Chicago Hub network looks an awful lot like the Five-State Rail System that Tommy Thompson has been pushing for more than a decade now.

I know this is an easy shot to take, but it seems Blue states and swing states are well-represented -- e.g. NC, VA, OH, IN. Red states? Not so much. Elections do, indeed, have consequences.

That said, I think leaving out Nashville and Memphis is a mistake. Nashville has wanted rail service through Chattanooga to Atlanta for a decade, and has no -- zero -- Amtrak service right now. I can see why such a HSR line would be economically a tough sell: there's a big, rocky mountain range between Nashville and Chattanooga to tunnel through. But a Louisville-Nashville-Memphis spur would make marketing sense, and would encounter no major problems from the terrain.

"high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations"

Yay! Now my quaint small town can become a tourist destination with thousands of tourists whisked in at rapid speeds to buy crappy t-shirts and coffee mugs! And we can get the crappy t-shirts freighted in from China at even faster rates of speed. Oh the joy. What a great reason to spend money on high speed rail...that's surely the America I want to "rebuild".

Q: do European trains get more use because things are a lot closer together? Madrid to Seville is about 225 miles. London to Paris is about the same. It would seem that trains still aren't going to hold a candle to planes for anything more than a few hundred miles, which in the USA constitutes travel between most of the major hubs outside the Northeast (which already has decent train service on Amtrak).

Any readers in Europe have any stats on the % of European annual train trips that are more than a few hundred miles?

Count me as skeptical of this one.

What a boondoggle:

http://togetrichisglorious.blogspot.com/2009/02/funding-high-speed-rail.html

Wow, this is huge. And what I really love is that, just like the commenters in this thread, state governors are realizing that this is happening and are starting to say "me too!" instead of "back off!" America is rebuilding again!

Ezra,
Hey, quit copying my blog content.

Thanks,
Mary

"Mama said... get a personality of your own?"

Car-ferrying broad-gauge trains.

It's dumb to have high speed rail connecting low-density cities. You get off at the station with your luggage and can't ride a subway unless NY or DC; Say I ride from Dallas to Austin, or SF to LA - it's still a long ways to my destination. Unless every city has subways/lightrail/rad buses by the time the high speed rail connects them.

I'd suggest a broad-gauge a la the "Great Western" railroad of I.K.Brunnel, with easy on/off car-ferrying rolling stock, so people can still be in their cars. Imagine riding in your car (or a passenger club car) 200mph to Florida from Philly, and cruising Miami when you get there.

raivo pommer-www.google.ee
raimo1@hot.ee

BA BANK KRITIK

Die Bank of America hatte sich im vergangenen Herbst am Blitzkauf der Investmentbank Merrill Lynch verhoben. Im Zuge der Finanzkrise hatte sie zuvor bereits die Hypothekenfirma Countrywide übernommen, die als mitverantwortlich für die Kreditkrise gilt. Der Staat griff der Bank bisher mit allein 45 Milliarden Dollar an direkten Hilfen unter die Arme.

Merrill Lynch habe im ersten Quartal ohne Berücksichtigung von Kosten der Übernahme zum Gewinn 3,7 Milliarden Dollar beigetragen, so die Bank. Die Erlöse verdoppelten sich zum Jahresauftakt auf rund 36 Milliarden Dollar, die Vorjahreszahlen beinhalteten aber Merrill Lynch und Countrywide noch nicht und sind daher kaum vergleichbar.

In den vergangenen Tagen hatten unter anderem J.P. Morgan Chase und Goldman Sachs Milliardengewinne vorgelegt. Selbst die zu den größten Krisenverlierern zählende Citigroup hatte ihr Ergebnis klar verbessert und vor Dividendenzahlungen sogar wieder schwarzen Zahlen geschrieben. Analysten warnen trotz des positiven Trends jedoch, dass eine endgültige Erholung der Finanzbranche noch nicht sicher sei.