The dark side to the US’s so-called “high speed” rail network is that it isn’t high-speed. The Acela (their one train that can exceed 201 km/h) according to wikipedia only hits its top speed of 240 km/h for 54.6 km of its 735 km route, and according to this person’s GPS tracks it only even exceeds 200 km/h on the portion of its route that is in the state of Rhode Island (a state where there is one stop; there are twelve other stops in eight other states). Its average speed is 110 km/h, so it takes 6 hours 45 minutes h to travel 735 km from Boston to Washington DC.
For comparison, it’s possible to travel the 1,318 km from Beijing to Shanghai in 4 hours 18 minutes, at an average speed 291 km/h (with a top speed of 350 km/h).
Also the Beijing-Shanghai line has more passengers in a week than the Acela has in a year, due to trains in China being cheaper than flying (unlike in the US, and many routes in Europe).
The dark side to the US’s so-called “high speed” rail network is that it isn’t high-speed. The Acela (their one train that can exceed 201 km/h) according to wikipedia only hits its top speed of 240 km/h for 54.6 km of its 735 km route, and according to this person’s GPS tracks it only even exceeds 200 km/h on the portion of its route that is in the state of Rhode Island (a state where there is one stop; there are twelve other stops in eight other states). Its average speed is 110 km/h, so it takes 6 hours 45 minutes h to travel 735 km from Boston to Washington DC.
For comparison, it’s possible to travel the 1,318 km from Beijing to Shanghai in 4 hours 18 minutes, at an average speed 291 km/h (with a top speed of 350 km/h).
Also the Beijing-Shanghai line has more passengers in a week than the Acela has in a year, due to trains in China being cheaper than flying (unlike in the US, and many routes in Europe).