Meeting: Tonight - Monday, Nov 27th, 7pm (central),
Faster Headlines
Wheels on Steel:
Florida's new high-speed rail linking Miami and Orlando could be blueprint for future travel in U.S.
Up in the Air:
The Funding is Coming
High-Speed Rail funding was narrowly saved on November 7th. In July 2023, the House of Representatives introduced bill H.R. 4820 that would have taken away nearly all Amtrak funding from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2021 and would have likely killed funding for other high-speed rail projects in the US. This bill has been the reason it has taken so long for the Federal Railways Administration to announce grants, but all that changed.
This bill’s failure then led to President Biden announcing on November 9th the $16.4 billion for improvements to Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. However even more exciting is that the Biden administration can now take the next step in awarding funds for Brightline West, Texas Central Railways, California High Speed Rail, and the Northeast Maglev. Nothing is known yet on the amounts or even if funding will be allocated, but it could be a very exciting week for finally getting high-speed rail moving in the US!
When the Shinkansen First Opened
Trains magazine is currently doing a celebration of its 1,000th issue. So they are going back and reproducing articles from each of the magazine's decades. In the August 2023 issue, they went back to the 1960s, and chose an article published in April1966, when they rode the brand-new Tokaido Shinkansen. The article was labeled “Tomorrow’s Railroad”.
Highlights of the article include:
• The justification for the Shinkansen
• The decision to go with an all-new infrastructure
• The groundbreaking technology from car sets to pantographs, to track design
• How 130 mph was mind-boggling fast!
• Forgotten services such as buffet cars, and high-speed freight
• The public’s response to the start of service, and how the train became an icon for the country
An online edition is not available, but here is a scanned version.
Before they fly, they ride
These pictures were taken by Stephen Kocmoud in late August from his new apartment in Denver, Colorado. Boeing 737 fuselages are made in Wichita, Kansas, and then travel by train through Colorado for final assembly in Seattle.
If you would like to know more, Simple Flying has a great video on the Boeing 737 Plane Train journey:
The Faster Badger is produced by students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to help break through the misconceptions of high-speed rail and high-speed transportation. This blog is for educational purposes only and all opinions presented are of the students.
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