Dispatches from the Global Passenger Rail Renaissance
// The way we travel is about to undergo a radical change. In fact, a transportation revolution has already transformed much of the world. In twenty-eight countries around the world, high-speed trains, capable of cruising at the velocity of a jet at take-off, whisk passengers between far-flung cities, and even across international borders. From Spain to South Korea, competition is driving down ticket prices, making a trip on a bullet train more affordable than a flight on a budget airline. In the past two decades, China and Spain have built nationwide networks of trains capable of operating at speeds of up to 400 kilometers (248 miles) an hour. In Europe, well-appointed overnight trains are returning long-lost glamor to the world of long-distance travel. The venerable miracle of steel wheels on steel tracks, which allows massive loads to be transported with a minimal expenditure of energy, reducing emissions even as it boosts speed and comfort, is being re-invented for the twenty-first century.
Decades ago, North America cast its lot with freeways and airports, leaving regional and inter-city rail travel to wither, or die of neglect. Yet in living memory, the United States and Canada were renowned for innovative passenger-rail technology, sprawling networks of trolleys and interurbans, and possessing the world’s fastest and most luxurious express trains. To this day, the United States boasts more track mileage than any other nation on earth.
In many places, those tracks lie dormant, overgrown with scrub and weeds. But the fundamental geometry of rail, which knit together cities and towns in the east, and is behind much of the development of settlements in the plains and west, is still very much in place. Between the freeways and the runways, the rights-of-way of historic railroads can still be found, waiting for a time when it no longer makes sense not to revive them and put them to full use.
Slowly but surely—and, in some places, rather suddenly—the global passenger-rail revolution is coming to North America. As over $100 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law flows into passenger and commuter rail, futuristic European-made trains are being tested on tracks in California and the Midwest, and once-in-a-lifetime funding is locked in to bring the tracks between Boston and Washington, D.C. up to speed. In Florida, Brightline already offers executive-class 125-mile-per-hour service between Orlando and Miami, and this spring the first ground was broken to build a true high-speed line between Las Vegas to Los Angeles in time for the 2028 Olympics. Mexico has opened its first high-speed line in the Yucatán peninsula, and in Canada, the federal government has given the green-light to high-speed trains between the nation’s two largest cities, Montreal and Toronto.
For too long, rail advocates have looked backwards, to a long-lost golden age of steam locomotives, stainless steel streamliners, heritage rail museums, and Lionel toy trains. On this continent, trains have been filed away as quaint relics of the past. While we’ve been looking in the rearview mirror, Europe and Asia have built far-flung networks of high-speed and bullet trains, transporting passengers from city-center-to-city-center, reliably, comfortably, and often at surprisingly low prices. The rest of the world is winning at the game of decarbonizing the transport sector, moving people without causing death or injury, fomenting urban sprawl, or boosting emissions.
In my Straphanger newsletter, I’ve advocated for public transportation in all its forms, from funiculars to bus rapid transit. I’m relaunching this website, and my email dispatches, under a new name. Don’t worry: I’ll continue to write about the best—and worst—in transit around the world, and you’ll continue to find these dispatches grouped under the “Straphanger” tag. But the new title, HIGH SPEED, is meant to convey some of the excitement I feel about the passenger rail revolution—which, more closely examined, is a passenger-rail renaissance—that is transforming Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and is now coming to North America.
Don’t get me wrong. In HIGH SPEED, I’ll be covering much more than high-speed rail. I’ve ridden bullet trains around the world, and it’s obvious that in many places, they aren’t the ideal solution. As you’ll see in future dispatches, medium-speed—and even downright slow—trains can sometimes serve the travel needs of a region or nation better. The pursuit of velocity for its own sake can actually be detrimental to the ultimate goal of building an efficient, low-emissions rail network that really does the hard work of transporting people. But when it’s implemented well, high-speed rail attains to the miraculous.
Trains aren’t quaint. They aren’t cute. Anyone who has gotten up close to one knows they are massive, even awe-inspiring, machines for transporting people and freight long distances, these days at remarkable speeds. Pace Thomas the Tank Engine—and that charming codger down the street who likes to don a engineer’s cap while working on his model railroad—trains are a deadly serious, and very modern, mode of transportation, one with the potential to transform the world for the better. As the price of renewable energy drops, regional, inter-city, and international trains drawing electricity generated by hydro, solar, and wind from overhead wires can even help chart a path to a deep green future.
So, I hope you’ll continue to subscribe to this newsletter. As you can see, I’ve redesigned the home page (using the Tripoli template for Ghost), so that it looks more like an online magazine. You’ll find it easier to use: I’ve divided it, via tags, into sections on Transit, Bicycles, and Motonormativity (aka Car Brain). I’ll continue to write about those topics, because making our cities better, through smarter design and transportation, is close to my heart. But from now on there will be more emphasis on the Trains part of the website, with regular round-ups of the latest developments in passenger rail around the world.
Your support really, really matters. (I know: I’m sounding like a PBS telethon. Though I prefer to think what I’m doing hearkens back to Daniel Defoe, at the origins of journalism, when he was soliciting subscribers in the streets of London to keep his pamphlet The Review in print.) When I started my professional writing career thirty years ago, there were far more magazines and newspapers willing to pay freelancers to get out in the world to write about places, and issues, and new ideas. The number of venues that cover expenses for traveling writers has lately become vanishingly small.
By becoming a paid member, you’re going to help to keep me out in the world, so I can report, and reflect, and write, and post—and keep this HIGH SPEED train going.
I’m looking forward to having you along for the ride.
