Did Florida get something right? High Speed rail service thriving

[marylander1940]

On 12/24/2023 at 3:22 PM, Vegas_Millennial said:

Train travel in the U.S. was quite popular in the 1940s.  People regularly traveled all over California and the West via train when it was much more sparsely populated than it is today.  It's not that Europe has more density than the U.S, it's that the U.S. has more travel options with a great Interstate Hghway System and lots of airports.  As roads become more congested and flying becomes less of a luxury and more onerous, train travel will once again become popular.

I think (fast) trains only make sense for commutes that are too close to fly and too far to drive. 

Example: LA to Vegas or hopefully one day San Francisco to Portland and Seattle. I'm aware there are daily flights by United to those cities from SFO but having to make it to the airports at least 2 to 1 1/2 hours before flight is too much wasted time. We should be able to go Downtown and take the train from city to city just like we do here in Washington when we travel to NYC. 

[EZEtoGRU]

Brightline Florida isn’t even that fast. It’s pretty slow between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.  It does pick up speed though on the final segment between WPB and Orlando…125mph I think.  By European/Asian standards, that’s not really high-speed. 

[ericwinters]

I read somewhere recentley, that Brighline is in sad financial shape.

[Luv2play]

20 hours ago, EZEtoGRU said:

Brightline Florida isn’t even that fast. It’s pretty slow between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.  It does pick up speed though on the final segment between WPB and Orlando…125mph I think.  By European/Asian standards, that’s not really high-speed. 

The problem as I see it is that in Florida cities you need a car to get around. Going from one city to another by train leaves you at the other end stranded. 
 

Here in Canada they are proposing a high speed train service that would include Montreal and Toronto. In both cities you can get around easily without a car except to the far flung suburbs. 
 

But most tourists just want to get around the downtowns which are densely constructed with most main attractions a 10 minute Uber ride away. 

Edited Wednesday at 12:37 PM by Luv2play

[EZEtoGRU]

1 hour ago, ericwinters said:

I read somewhere recentley, that Brighline is in sad financial shape.

Yep. See my post up thread from yesterday. 

[marylander1940]

On 5/12/2026 at 12:02 PM, EZEtoGRU said:

Brightline Florida isn’t even that fast. It’s pretty slow between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.  It does pick up speed though on the final segment between WPB and Orlando…125mph I think.  By European/Asian standards, that’s not really high-speed. 

yes, just like the Acela between NY and Boston, even though there are only 2 stops in CT, outdated infrastructure, sharp curves, and shared tracks create a bottleneck. 

Am I alone hoping to be able to take a fast train between DC and Boston (8 hours' drive) or DC to Chicago (11 hours' drive). Some fast trains could cover those distances in 3 to 4 hours. 

Edit: Actually, even faster than that. 

The fastest, actively operating train in the world is the Shanghai Maglev, which reaches top commercial speeds of 431 km/h (268 mph) using magnetic levitation. For conventional wheeled trains, the CR400 Fuxing Hao in China is the fastest, operating at 350 km/h (220 mph). Japan's L0 Series Maglev holds the all-time speed record at 603 km/h (375 mph)

Edited Wednesday at 09:20 PM by marylander1940
Shanghai Maglev