Amtrak

[HONDO74]

This is what you can do when you get everyone on the same page and get them to look at a project from the standpoint of long term benefits for EVERYONE. Aka nothing like what we do here (at least not anymore).

Yes, California couldn't get the job done that the people voted for.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.....look at a project from the standpoint of long term benefits for EVERYONE.

Long-term here is defined as 15 minutes and everyone is me! me! me! Everyone is out for themselves and no one is willing to consider anyone else or make even the slightest of sacrifices.

[chuck]

There are very few passenger lines that actually make money (other than explicit tour lines which only exist to make profit). The objective should be to not hemorrhage money while providing reasonable service. 2/3 of the traffic through that tunnel is freight showing you can share if you chose to (or are forced to).

[Roy]

There are very few passenger lines that actually make money (other than explicit tour lines which only exist to make profit). The objective should be to not hemorrhage money while providing reasonable service.

This isn't a big issue in this country, right now. We could incrementally improve costs, by using lower friction rolling stock. For instance, by moving journal-mounted roller bearings to between the wheel and axle, which will eliminate wheel skidding on turns.

2/3 of the traffic through that tunnel is freight showing you can share if you chose to (or are forced to).

Are you referring to the Gotthard Base Tunnel?:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel

It will not be good, if there are any collisions in those tunnels. I see there are two complete tunnels, but there are several crossover points between them.

[chuck]

Yes, Swiss tunnel. They are only running at 50% capacity at this point in time. Breakdown in the tunnel is a more likely scenario than a train/train collision.

[Roy]

Breakdown in the tunnel is a more likely scenario than a train/train collision.

If so, that speaks well of their safety systems. We keep having incidents involving train operators, that could be avoided if available safety systems were installed. There was a bad accident out here a few years ago, where a commuter train operator missed a signal because he was texting. He ran his train head-on into an oncoming freight, on a single-track mainline. Of course, there's no excuse for texting while operating a train, but a system that could catch such a mistake and automatically stop the train, would've saved many lives.

In Japan, there have been few bullet train casualties. These trains run on dedicated track, which cannot be shared with freight trains. We have this in the Bay area with BART, which uses five-foot gauge track.