Should canada have high-speed rail?
- Thread starter countryboy
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The grade thing is mostly about weight. Make it lighter and the grade problem lessens.
Yeah. In Japan, if people want to do something, they figure out how to do it. Here we give up as soon as the idea is spoken aloud.
I bet there was a time when someone said it was impossible to fly, too. People are driving under the English Channel these days. I guess you've never heard the adage "There's more than one way to skin a cat".
Sit back and relax Bob, but only if you think it can be done.
Check this out.....more from the creative city planning guru Richard Florida. He's U of T's golden boy. If he's for it, it's as good as a done deal. Maybe not, but still, he has a lot of influence on the planning of our cities and connecting urban centres via high speed rail is one of his many templates..
Mega-Regions and High-Speed Rail - Richard Florida
Mega-Regions and High-Speed Rail - Richard Florida
If anything, I think there will be some form of it on this end, or even regionally, but not continentally, in the way he describes.
Like I mentioned earlier, even air travel had to start somewhere.
Rail use started in Canada between St. Jean and Laprairie in 1932.
The first rail line in Japan started in 1872 between Tokyo and Yokohama, and they developed theirs to what it is now step by step, little by little.
A little at a time makes sense to me, new high speed bullet trains,for some of
those corridor train trips in Ontario and Quebec, where
many people travel, (high volume), and trips are not as
long as 'crossing' the country.
Yup. A little at a time is how people got to the top of Everest.
As I mentioned, Japan's longest stretch of bullet train travel is 2400+ km. That's about a third of the way across Canada.
Right on Anna BUT the expense with air travel is mainly with the vehicle and run aways, the route itself didn't require any expense. Fast rail travel is physically possible of course, but no one is going to do huge excavations (largely in rock) and huge fills for cheap, and the passenger ultimately is the one paying. Believe me, Anna, ain't gonna happen until some benevolent person wins a huge sweepstake.
"Ah, so long routes don't cost any more than short routes. I see. "-
NOt the travel medium.
"Balogna. "
So fast rail travel isn't physically possible? (Better check with CB)
"Yup. Just about everything costs money these days. "
Yep, it's just a matter of who is going to provide it.
"I don't believe you."
That is your perfect right (under the Charter), but don't hold your breath. LOL
NOt the travel medium.
"Balogna. "
So fast rail travel isn't physically possible? (Better check with CB)
"Yup. Just about everything costs money these days. "
Yep, it's just a matter of who is going to provide it.
"I don't believe you."
That is your perfect right (under the Charter), but don't hold your breath. LOL
ccasion5:
Very interesting read, Said1. I think it focused on domestic travel, if I was reading it right. Makes me wonder what his take would be on the tourism aspect...it would no doubt add volume to the numbers.
I'm saying it is hard to compare ourselves with Japan, it was a defacto dictatorship until the end of WWII, but people are still willing, or eager even, to do what the leader(s) say(s). The incident in the Tunnel could have been a major disaster rather than major inconvenience, but I'll leave it at that. I'm not saying either that it is impossible, but there has to be reward for the risk, the love of trains, while important, (Canada's other airline's success is due in large part to a love of airplanes),isn't enough to get a viable rail system going. Prairie folks bought up spur lines after the mainline dropped them, leaving many farmers without reasonable means to get their goods to market. This is a co-operative effort that seems to be paying dividends, so I'm not saying it won't work. But they already had the infrastructure largely in place. If there is a market, a plan, and a reasonable possibility of a good return on investment, there is a chance. But I don't want to see the govenment being a stakeholder. It cannot be in competition with private enterprise in a free market economy.
After I picked myself up off the floor (just a laughing fit...I'll get over it), I couldn't help myself - that one requires a comment. Bob, really - do you believe that? I don't know where you got your information, but I think it's a bit off-course. You might be misinterpreting the way most Japanese can work together in a group or team situation for how they think individually. Make no mistake about it - they are a highly educated society of people who think very independently. Gotta' disagree with you here.
It's pretty difficult and impractical to do a financial or even technical assessment of a concept when it's still in the discussion stages. On a bigger scale, I don't think they were busy figuring out why they couldn't go to the moon when JFK said they were going there by "the end of the decade" back in the early 60s.
Mind you, we apparently don't have any leaders around with that kind of vision - which is demonstrated by the fact that we don't have much of a "national vision" for the future, so our alternative seems to be to simply think short term and leave the future thinking to "someone else."
Canada is facing some serious challenges - we are a country of rich resources but we seem to be content with our traditional role of hewers of wood...and all that. We even export raw logs! We have a huge potential to grow more and better food but we let factory farms spring up to produce crappy food and pollute our environment. We could and probably should be leading the world in things like sustainable production of good and healthy food, but we're still chowin' down at fast food joints. We have the potential to become the biggest tourist destination in the world, yet we don't do a hell of a lot to make a visitor's experience the best one they've ever had. We just sort of "limp along." And there is much, much more.
There is an old and very true expression that says, "If you don't go ahead, you'll go backwards" and perhaps we should be paying more attention to it. Countries don't progress by accident, it's planned. And planning starts with a vision.
Like I've said before, Sir John A. had a vision - a national railroad to link the country together (by keeping the Americans from taking over the western part of it). It seems to have worked fairly well.
What's our vision today? Do we have one? If we do, I haven't been made aware of it. Vast areas of land are one of our 'national treasures' but also one of our big challenges. Imagining what something like a high-speed rail system could do - overlaid on top of some sort of vision for the future - might help it all make more sense.
Just talking about high-speed rail all by itself doesn't make a lot of sense, I agree - picking away at it in terms of how it would look as part of today's situation is difficult, if not downright goofy.
About as goofy as trying to figure out where Canada is heading, and how it's going to get there! Call it the "big picture of the future", or even a "vision."
I'm sure you would stop laughing had you been in China or Pearl harbour when they were invaded by forces willing to die for their emperor, for the ultimate reward of Senshi. Japanese workers, at least in the past, worked extremely long hours with little time off. Family life, if there was any to be had, suffered greatly. This is a work ethic that led to family breakdown, burnout, and suicide, (though probably not by means of seppuku), possibly due to no longer being able to perform to their company's expetations and losing face. It may have changed now as well, but JAL captains were not equal to the rest of the crew, they were management, Commanders essentially, kind of a my way or the highway arrangement. They have an interesting history, and it can take more than a few generations for old ways, good or bad, in any society, to fade away.
As you pointed out earlier, WWII was a long time ago in a very different society. I'm talking about today's Japan. It is different in so many ways.
I wouldn't mistake the work situations - where the employees generally have a polite way of deferring to the boss, at least on the surface - to how they think politically or any other way. That was my point.
The overwork problem you were referring to is called "karoshi" and that has subsided greatly since the "bubble" days of their economic growth, back in the 80s ad 90s.
You're right - there have been tons of changes and they've happened very quickly over there. The old "lifetime employment" thing has undergone a lot of changes too. Economic reality set in. But, the independent thinking continues...Japan can be a bit of an enigma - what you "see" on the surfact isn't always what you "get."
When it comes to issues like big sweeping decisions made by politicians, you see what happens. The construction of Narita airport might be a good example - it was held up for years by farmers who refused to "bow to their leaders."
In terms of the original bullet train, that was a decision that was also opposed by many but it proved to be one of the best moves ever made by Japan. In part, it was based on the vision they had for further development of their country...