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Comments (4)
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Save/ShareMoscow and St. Petersburg are about to join the ranks of major European and Asian cities linked by high-speed rail service. Russian Railways has purchased Siemens' cutting-edge trains—dubbed Sapsan, Russian for a peregrine falcon—at a cost of $52 million each. Instead of a traditional locomotive, the Sapsan has electric motors attached to wheels all along the train cars. It's also been modified to contend with notoriously frigid Russian winters.
[+] Enlarge photo
Tentative plans call for service between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod from March 2010 and between St. Petersburg and Helsinki, Finland, from September 2010. There are even rumors that the Sapsan will reach the Black Sea resort town of Sochi—host of the 2014 Olympics and one of Putin's pet projects.
But the Sapsan loses steam when you consider that the high-speed AVE train is more than an hour speedier as it zips between Madrid and Barcelona, a distance comparable with St. Petersburg to Moscow. Outdated tracks hold back the Sapsan (which may not come as a surprise in a country known for epic, erratic train journeys in sleeper cars). Business Week described Russia's investment in Siemens' trains as making "about as much sense as driving a Ferrari on a dirt road."
The U.S. suffers a similar problem: a lack of investment in train tracks that restricts even the Acela, our only available high-speed train option, which also maxes out at 150 mph. Siemens has its eye on the billions in stimulus money designated for high-speed train travel and hopes to sell the U.S. these same trains, according to New York Times.
Find out more about how high-speed trains measure up around the globe—and how their prices compare to air travel—in our report, The Fastest Trains on the Track.
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We are keeping our fingers crossed out here in Nevada hoping that the stimulus will finally allow us a high speed train to L.A. Would bring more tourists to Vegas and allow us to go shopping and to sporting events in CA. I think we can, I think we can, I think we can.
Posted By Tom B. on October 2, 2009, 2:39 PM
The cultural history of the United States, especially its iconic "rugged individualism" has meant that we are a country with little if any sense of the "common good." Therefore, there is little openness to the building of the necessary high speed rail dedicated routes because the travel comfort of the many is thought to infringe on the rights of a few. So, our highest speed trains in the US use trackage shared by freight and commuter trains, on infrastructure and alignments over 100 years old rather than on state-of-the-art dedicated right-of-ways engineered for high speed rail.
Case in point: the millions of people who could benefit (not to mention our shared environment) if high speed rail were to be available between San Francisco and Los Angeles. However, a few hundred people in the communities around Stanford have made it their cause to protect their personal lives and property by tying the project up in court.
The relatively small pot of money in the stimulus package will not bring us high speed rail. Only a national willingness to look beyond "what's in it for ME" will bring about change. Other countries are so far ahead of us because they understand that a society is about the greatest good for the greatest numbers, not about every one for her/himself.
Posted By Randolph Becker on October 5, 2009, 10:19 AM
RE: (which may not come as a surprise in a country known for epic, erratic train journeys in sleeper cars)
epic--maybe, given that you travel across eight time zones on occasion.
erratic--no. the service is generally quite reliable.
it may be true, though, that the tracks do need modernization to take full advantage of the high-speed trains. to the best of my knowledge, this limited usability of russia's own high speed (120 mph) train that's been running for 15 years or so by now.
Posted By max on October 5, 2009, 5:03 PM
Indeed the Russian trains might be epic but definitely not erratic. Very reliable transportation system, always on time and on a trip from Moscow to Kazan seemed quite fast a train especially being a conventional one.
And I love the hot tea in the morning too coming out of that cool samovar ;)
Posted By Eddy Oliva on October 19, 2009, 1:50 PM