[Chris Herold]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Light-rail is not inter-city capable. A trip of 250 miles would take at LEAST five hours on a light-rail train, which means equipping them with bathrooms and some provision for food. With the frequent stops typical of light rail, that trip is probably more like 7-8 hours.

The big advantage of rail in Europe is that western Europe is small. Americans have trouble realizing that, just like Europeans generally have trouble visualizing North American distances. I once drove from Dusseldorf, Germany, to London in about the same amount of time it takes to drive from Los Angeles to Sacramento. It's 2,700 miles from Seattle to Atlanta. It is less than 1,600 miles from London to Moscow. London is less than 2,600 air miles from Baghdad, Iraq. North America is big -- it's why trains are not preferred for long distances. Even the Eurostar train takes two hours to go from London to Brussels, a distance of 230 miles. If you could build a dedicated high-speed rail line from Seattle to Atlanta that didn't stop along the way, it would still take 20 hours to make the trip. Adding in the problems of crossing the Cascades and the Rockies, and the necessity to stop and add or discharge passengers, I can't see how a coast-to-coast trip could take less than 48 hours, even on a modern super-train. I can fly to Atlanta in six hours. For distances up to maybe 600 or 700 miles rail is competitive, but over that people are going to want to fly.

Light rail is only suited for intra-urban transport. If you want to go between cities or carry lots of people you want heavy rail on restricted tracks with no level crossings. Twenty years ago I did a 15-month consulting project for a transit agency. It's amazing how life experiences come in handy later on.

Due to those facts Europe doesn't use Light Rail systems for long distances. There are (at least in Germany) InterCities (faster than normal Lightrail and less stops) and ICEs (InterCityExpress) that drive about 330 km/h ~ 200 mph, I guess. They only stop like four to five times. Its a hub system and it works well. The thing is though Europe relied on the rail for ever while most west coast cities are designed for cars...