The US has a very different relationship to trains than other countries.Throughout the world from China to Spain, countries have invested in their railroads and in the process created far more advanced modes of transportation that far surpass the antiquated cargo-focused rails in the US.
Everyday in Tifton, traffic comes to a halt as the Norfolk-Southern freight train storms past ABAC, across downtown, and off to various other cities throughout the Southeast and Midwest. We’ve become so accustomed to these trains that most of us don’t stop to think how things could be different.
For most of us, taking a train to work or school is something from the distant past, a relic of Victorian history or steampunk fiction. In countries like Spain or China, though, high-speed passenger trains are a daily part of life. These bullet trains typically run around 185 mph and carry people between major population centers across the country.
Spain is one of the best examples of what a high speed rail can look like. Spain’s largest city Madrid lies in the center of the country, with the country’s other major population centers scattered across its coastal regions. In 1992, Spain opened its first high-speed rail connecting Madrid to the city of Seville in the far southwest of the country.
Since then, this passenger line has been expanded to connect cities all over the country, allowing Spanish people to travel in a shockingly cheap and efficient manner.
For instance, a ticket for the train from Seville to Madrid runs at about $30, and you’ll make it from one city to the other in a little over two hours. This trip cuts what would typically be a five-hour trip by more than half. That would be the equivalent of driving from ABAC to Birmingham, Alabama.
A system like this would be a massive benefit to the US, where most major cities have a plethora of mid-sized suburbs surrounding them. For areas such as the Northeast that have large strings of massive cities, a high-speed rail connecting Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore would open up a whole world of opportunity for residents of those cities.
Besides reducing our reliability on cars, a high-speed rail would allow people to work in cities they normally wouldn’t be able to due to commute times. If we follow the general rule of a high-speed rails cutting commute times in half like they did in Spain, an ABAC student could conceivably work in Macon or Columbus, or maybe even Tallahassee, and have a commute time of less than an hour.
Of course, it would be a long time before smaller-sized major cities like Macon and Tallahassee would get passenger rails, but even just an expansion or upgrade to MARTA would allow for many of the same benefits.
In a distant future, America and Canada could even connect New York City to Toronto, in a similar way that the Channel Tunnel connects the southeastern town of Folkestone, UK, to Coquelles, France. The Channel Tunnel itself runs underwater for a significant portion, connecting the UK to the European mainland.
If Britain can manage to build a high-speed rail underwater, then surly the US and Canada could build one over land.
Americans deserve the same high quality transportation that people in Europe have. Every time Norfolk-Southern trains pass through Tifton, it’s hard not to imagine a future we could have, where we are all connected together.