The Americans Switch to Trains

Big change in New World thinking: the United States now wants to build high-speed rail links. The technology to do that, however, will have to be purchased in Europe. Companies like Siemens can look forward to contracts worth billions.

California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger loves to use simple formulas to solve complicated problems. The solution to prevent California’s traffic problem from developing into mass chaos sounds deceptively simple: Schwarzenegger says that state funds plus a federal grant plus private investment will result in a hypermodern high—speed rail network for trains traveling at 220 MPH throughout California.

Schwarzenegger has set his sights high. He has a lot of catching up to do: Germany, Japan, France or Spain, all have been investing billions for decades in rail transportation. Super-fast trains in those nations routinely race along at 200 MPH and more. America’s trains, on the other hand, clatter along on bumpy tracks that were neglected for decades. “Most of our rolling stock is 35 years old and older,” says Alex Kummant, the recently departed boss of Amtrak.

Most long distance routes in the United States are so uncomfortable that the only people interested in riding them are railroad nostalgia buffs. The East-West Coast Express that travels between Los Angeles and Orlando, Florida, only runs three days a week. Small wonder that rail travel only has a two percent market share in passenger travel in America. Americans either drive their cars or they fly.

Now, plans are to change that. California is planning an ultramodern rail network. Schwarzenegger’s administration has gotten billions for new rail lines and super-fast trains – and European manufacturers can start lining up for huge and lucrative contracts.

There’s no functional rail industry

Except for a few diesel locomotive manufacturers, there really is no functional rail industry any longer in the United States, and certainly none capable of producing high-speed trains. If California wants to buy the latest rail technology, they’ll have to buy it from Siemens, Alstrom or the Canadian company Bombardier Incorporated, who has the largest rail technology facilities in Germany and controls the division from Berlin. “We think we have an excellent chance of participating in this project,” said Ansgar Brockmeyer, head of Siemens’ high speed division.

Americans have been rediscovering rail travel for the past couple of years. Even the ponderous rail giant Amtrak, notorious for bad service, late arrivals and perennially barely avoiding bankruptcy, reported 28 million passengers during the last reporting year – an increase of a fantastic eleven percent – and with that, a new record.

High gasoline prices, increased fear of terrorism and complicated security checks at airports are causing more and more American travelers to go by rail. The current infrastructure is no longer capable of satisfying the demands of the highly mobile American population: traffic jams on America’s highways are becoming increasingly longer and more frequent as are the waiting lines at airline check-in desks. “California’s population will grow from 38 million now to 50 million by the year 2030,” says Elizabeth Deakin, Professor of City & Regional Planning and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley. “We need a serious alternative to the automobile and the airplane.”

Fast track only on the East Coast

Rail travel could fill that bill, but the choices available to the American public put many of them off. The only fast train in the United States runs on the East Coast: the Acela Express only runs between Boston and Washington, D.C. at a top speed of 150 MPH – and it can only reach that speed on two 18 mile stretches of track over the 450 mile total length. Plans for high-speed trains in the United States have been in existence for years. Serious attempts have actually already been made in Texas and Florida. But no other project to date has been as heavily pushed as the one in California.

Perhaps the level of suffering is greatest on the West Coast. The reality now is that whoever wants to take a train from San Francisco to Hollywood has to first take a bus to the train station in either Oakland or Emeryville. From there, it’s a twelve-hour ride to Los Angeles – to cover a distance of barely 400 miles. The train runs once a day.

$60 million to study the situation

A majority of Californians wants to see a change in this situation. Since 1996, the state’s “High-Speed Rail Authority” has been planning a high-speed line. After putting $60 million into studies of how best to accomplish that, the plans are ready. In the future, the journey from San Francisco to L.A. will take only a little over two and a half hours.

But there are many hurdles to overcome before that becomes reality. Presently, there’s not one inch of track. Agencies calculate the cost of the 800 mile right-of-way at 45 billion Euros (currently about $59 billion). Governor Schwarzenegger has had to declare a financial emergency, but the costs don’t intimidate him: “If we want public transportation, we will have to follow the lead of other nations,” he says. And that means they have to develop the rail network for high-speed trains.

Many Californians agree with him. In the November elections, 52.3 percent of California voters approved an administrative order that will enable the project. It authorizes the state to make loans of nearly $10 billion available to begin construction. President-Elect Obama has also announced billions of dollars in infrastructure investments. “Rail transportation will also benefit from that,” says Elizabeth Deakin.

The future appears bright for the major rail technology companies that have the know-how necessary to build super-fast rail networks. The Japanese manufacturer Shinkansen is concentrated on the Asian market, so Siemens, Bombardier and Alstrom may expect to get big contracts. Siemens and Bombardier already have production facilities in the United States and Alstrom was the company that built the Acela network connecting Boston and the nation’s capitol. Bombardier manager David Struck says, “In the last 20 years, we’ve been engaged in 95 percent of the high-speed rail projects in Europe, and we’re number one in that field.”

But Ansgar Brockmeyer points out that it’s Siemens that has the greatest experience with the latest generation of fast trains and has long had a presence in U.S. markets. “Every third trolley or light rail system in the United States came from Siemens,” he added.