I’d imagine the MTR’s operates on similar contracts in the other cities you mentioned.

But they’re still triple-tracking every time they rebuild a station, overpass, undergrade bridge, et cetera.

The heavy commuter traffic is mostly a red herring. New Jersey is full of six-track sections, and Connecticut needs enough bypasses that it would take flagrant schedule abuse to cause bottlenecks. Everywhere else on the NEC, commuter traffic is negligible, and long-distance commute traffic would shift to a faster Acela anyway.

In Connecticut west of New Haven due to track curves and extreme congestion with commuter and regional trains the Acela never approaches its top speed range. In Massachusetts the commonwealth owns the Northeast Corridor tracks and restricts the total number of trains that Amtrak can operate through the state as to not conflict with MBTA commuter service. Rhode Island is re-introducing commuter rail service. The Rhode Island corridor previously had the ability to accommodate four tracks, now only a maximum of three tracks is possible, since Amtrak shifted new tracks off-center when they electrified the stretch east of New Haven roughly a decade ago. The New Jersey corridor is similar to Connecticut with heavy commuter rail, regional, and freight traffic. Freight trains would have to be forbidden on any high-speed corridor to prevent track deterioration. I’ve yet to see a 20-lane Interstate highway, unless Los Angeles or New Jersey has one that I’m not aware of. To avoid the freight train problem, four tracks would be required as a minimum everywhere for a high-speed rail system. As for proposing bi-passes, acquiring land in any built up area would cost as much an elevating tracks. Not to mention the enormous opposition that would build up by property owners with any proposal to take land.

It might not be necessary for every high-speed rail line to reach every village or hamlet, but any metropolitan area above 200,000 people should be included as stops in any high-speed system. The Interstate Highway System though it doesn’t go everywhere is ubiquitous within the American landscape. It is interconnected and reaches large and small populations alike. If a high-speed rail system is not fully integrated and connected to all regions, it won’t work as well and rail service would continue to have difficulty competing with the airlines. The current federal proposal for high-speed rail would only provide a fraction in comparison to the size and complexity of the Interstate Highway System. The plan lacks a coherent big picture vision, one of the purposes of this website to raise these issues and hopefully bring them to the attention of policy and decision makers so that they might be informed when they act.

Second, the various proposals do have a nationwide network. Sometimes they’re even overzealous in proposing HSR on corridors where the only service that’s cost effective is modern diesel or electric service, running lightweight tilting trains on existing track topping at 130-180 km/h. People in Tuscaloosa would be perfectly capable of riding a regional train to Atlanta and then connecting to New York or Chicago. Connected networks don’t have to give every node the highest class of service. Even Interstate planners recognize that, which is why remote rural areas get 4-lane roads and urban areas get 20-lane roads.

The government’s current policy of establishing high-speed rail corridors is too timid and fragmented to capture the imagination of the entire country. The big idea is absent. Why would the roughly 1/3 of the states support a system that wouldn’t serve them or if it did it wouldn’t be for 20 to 30 years? How would cities in one high-speed rail region be connected to a neighboring city in another region? In the current plan the only integrated regions are the Northeast, Southeast, and a portion of the Gulf area. The other five proposed regions would be disconnected islands. The proposal is not a system, but a patchwork.

Tom Beebe’s notion of an “Interstate Railroad System” could capture Americans imagination. An elevated high-speed rail network that could link all cities and most states would be an idea the country could rally behind. The idea of a publicly owned infrastructure managed by government, but used by competing private rail networks would be a similar the Interstate Highway System or airport system. Allowing for competing rail services by private companies could bridge the traditional divide between conservative and liberal interests. Beebe made good points suggesting the implementation of user fees to pay down bonds and tax-exemptions to support service providers towards equipment purchases. A private-public rail partnership might be the best way to successfully construct an American high-speed rail system.