[Goose]

I'm good either way.

Have to say that I thought California HSR was a senseless boondoggle (not that I won't participate in said boondoggle on occasion, mind you) until I rode the Frecciarossa in Italy.  Italy is laid out a lot like California really.  Maybe 50 Euro for a first class seat far more comfortable than any airline, you can just show up at Milano Centrale basically whenever and you're in Florence in less than two hours.  We went from Napoli Centrale to Roma Termini in the middle of a weekday morning in barely an hour.  Zero security to get through other than Carabinieri with their Heckler & Koch MP5s giving you the stank eye. Snacks included and all the overhead Italian news crawls you want to watch.  Little speedometer too.  Very cool.  And if you long for that dirty train ride looking through a spray-painted window straight from the opening to Welcome Back Kotter, plenty of connecting opportunities!

I too enjoy the fast trains in Italy. However, the trip from Milano to Roma is almost 3 hours. That is fine for tourists, but it doesn't work for business people, in general. Conventional wisdom, which in this case seems to actually mirror reality, is that fast trains can compete with air on trips of about 2 hours (by train) or less. It is somewhat worse in California where the train letting you out in the city center is not as valuable as on the east coast or in Europe (center of LA is pretty much undefined). The good news in Italy is that there are places to stop along the way that generate traffic (and trip times under the magic 2 hours). Not so much in California's central valley. If we ever do get an operational high speed rail approximately on the current planned route, it will operate at a large loss. Subsidies will be required, which is fine as long as we know that going in. The current fiction that no such subsidies will be needed defies logic.

[Goose]

I'm good either way.

Have to say that I thought California HSR was a senseless boondoggle (not that I won't participate in said boondoggle on occasion, mind you) until I rode the Frecciarossa in Italy.  Italy is laid out a lot like California really.  Maybe 50 Euro for a first class seat far more comfortable than any airline, you can just show up at Milano Centrale basically whenever and you're in Florence in less than two hours.  We went from Napoli Centrale to Roma Termini in the middle of a weekday morning in barely an hour.  Zero security to get through other than Carabinieri with their Heckler & Koch MP5s giving you the stank eye. Snacks included and all the overhead Italian news crawls you want to watch.  Little speedometer too.  Very cool.  And if you long for that dirty train ride looking through a spray-painted window straight from the opening to Welcome Back Kotter, plenty of connecting opportunities!

I too enjoy the fast trains in Italy. However, the trip from Milano to Roma is almost 3 hours. That is fine for tourists, but it doesn't work for business people, in general. Conventional wisdom, which in this case seems to actually mirror reality, is that fast trains can compete with air on trips of about 2 hours (by train) or less. It is somewhat worse in California where the train letting you out in the city center is not as valuable as on the east coast or in Europe (center of LA is pretty much undefined). The good news in Italy is that there are places to stop along the way that generate traffic (and trip times under the magic 2 hours). Not so much in California's central valley. If we ever do get an operational high speed rail approximately on the current planned route, it will operate at a large loss. Subsidies will be required, which is fine as long as we know that going in. The current fiction that no such subsidies will be needed defies logic.