{"id":5350,"date":"2007-04-03T11:06:26","date_gmt":"2007-04-03T11:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/e-commerce\/us-trains-fall-behind.html"},"modified":"2007-04-03T11:06:26","modified_gmt":"2007-04-03T11:06:26","slug":"us-trains-fall-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/science\/us-trains-fall-behind.html","title":{"rendered":"US Trains Fall Behind"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">Perhaps a better headline for this blog entry is &ldquo;US Trains Fall <em>Further<\/em> behind.&rdquo; I was just reading an <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20070403\/ap_on_re_eu\/france_fast_train_record_4\">article<\/a> discussing a high-speed train developed in France for the Chinese market. This train goes 357.2 MPH and this is short of the 361 MPH a Japanese train has attained.<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">I believe high-speed trains are an essential (or at least very important) part of any country&rsquo;s infrastructure and although Amtrak has the Acela train which can exceed 100 MPH, in reality the train averages less than this speed.<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">I wonder what it takes for the US to have trains that average over 200 MPH and while I am on the topic what would it take to have more tracks in the US allowing better access to the country. I am lucky enough to live near the high-speed trains between Boston and Washington DC&hellip; The rest of the country does not even have this luxury.<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">One wonders what defines the concept of most powerful country in the world. Is that what the US is? I would imagine whichever country wants to be the best from a productivity and efficiency standpoint will have the best air travel, road travel, train travel and broadband access.<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">In technology we often talk about how legacy technology can slow a country or company down. It seems the legacy infrastructure of the first phone networks, electrical networks, roads and trains are now slowing the rate at which the US can innovate.<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">Now the US has so many things going for it&hellip; I am not implying the rail system can cause us to crumple. The point I am making is that an improved rail system in combination with numerous other factors can contribute to increased productivity and efficiency which in turn leads to a better standard of living for all.<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">I hope the politicians and Amtrak read my thoughts and change the system for the better. As a country we are not perfect &ndash; no country is. But it does seem obvious that a domestic high-speed train initiative makes sense to explore and implement.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps a better headline for this blog entry is &ldquo;US Trains Fall Further behind.&rdquo; I was just reading an article discussing a high-speed train developed in France for the Chinese market. This train goes 357.2 MPH and this is short of the 361 MPH a Japanese train has attained. &nbsp; I believe high-speed trains are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[171,116,118],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}