Amtrak has blamed the corridor’s aging tracks, power systems, and signals for preventing the new models from safely reaching their top speed of 160 mph
That’s about 260 km/h, so even if they could they would still be decades behind. I have been on the 320 km/h (200 mph) E5 Shinkansen 13 years ago.
it’s still worth it even if it’s the same speed as driving from a sanity and safety perspective.
But that would just be commuter rail. 80mph trains have existed since the 1840s.
yes and it’s so badly needed that even that would be acceptable; that’s low the the bar has fallen for us in the united states with it comes to badly needed mass transit.
we’re pressured by both our government and manufactured peer pressure to spend significant sums of money and significant amounts of our waking lives to own a car in service to the economy.
260 km/h is still good. As long as it’s significantly faster than driving, it’s deserving of some praise.
American progress in a nutshell.
