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[eastmen]

Lots of our freight is shipped in the air especially time-sensitive stuff and while trains may be getting close to matching low end jet speed, they are still confined by geography and planes can travel as the bird flies. Additionally, again planes are faster and passengers on leisure and business trips won't want to take the extra time without a major downgrade in price which doesn't seem likely to me.

but the freight air lines like fed ex and others didn't need bail outs , its the air lines that do

as i said , you don't need busniess trips when you can video confrence extra time is not as big of a deal , Newark NJ to LAX is 6hr and 15 minutes . ITs a 2442mile trip , at 360mph in a train its 6.7hrs . Not only that but you will have a much better time on the train trip than on a plane. NO taxing on the runway , no circling waiting to land . People pay big money for cruises to get to places like italy and the keys and what not , its not allways about the time to get there and with trains taking comparable times but with much greater luxeries it shouldn't be a problem.

Fact is that maybe a lot of meetings ARE being replaced by video conferencing but that's not going to help the high speed train industry any more than the air industry and when you need a man on the ground high-speed rail won't cut it for time savings except in short hops.

It all depends on whats invested in infastructer . Trains can get you there in comparable times and it doesn't matter if you get on a plane going 1,000mph if before you land your grounded due to weather constraints

Obviously, you can forget rail for international except North America.
I'm sure it would be a good thing to invest in high-speed rail but it's not a cure-all and you'll only make both industries smaller. Better to bet heavily on the most generally useful rather than a very situational one.

Of course , but then again you clear up alot of congestion over the country

High speed rail can replace the majority of air travel and it will be better for the population of this country .

Also, people don't want comfort for the most part when they're travelling. They want speed . They want the travel part done with asap. Comfort is a nice extra.

Like i said , people take cruises , make the train trip part of the desitnation , people would have more fun if they could gamble , get a fine dinner , go to a movie thearter and other things on a 7hr trip vs being cramed in like cattle for a 6hr trip thats really like a 9 hour trip when you factor in pre bording and taxing .

Air travel is a horrible experiance and high speed train travel can be within 90% of its speed and offer benfits that air travel can't

 

[Timedog]

You've done well boys.

Edit: This is the first time I've really concentrated on the backdrop of the moon pictures. That black void is some seriously eery stuff.

If there's anything back there, it's probably thousands of light years away.

 

[StevieP]

They can divert the manpower that they'd use for the shuttle flights to working on other things. As you said, it costs them the same and they don't have to use NASA employees to do it when they could be doing more important stuff..

About 4000 people will lose their jobs at Nasa with the ending of manned space flight there.