High Speed Rail for All?

Recently, a dear friend of mine posted an image on Facebook that shows a map of the US crisscrossed with high speed rail lines. She commented on how such a system would be awesome, if only "big oil" were not it the way. I would LOVE a nationwide network of high-speed trains. Train travel in Europe is one of the highlights of of visiting there. However, to blame "big oil" for America's lack of viable rail transportation is simply not fair or accurate. Why not blame "big ag", that sued to prevent the building of the California Bullet Train? Or how about, "big air", that is faster for cross-country trips than even these high speed trains would be? What about "big rail" itself, that wastes its government subsidies to make needless cosmetic upgrades instead of fixing infrastructure that could actually make trains faster?!  Or, most damning of all, "big collective American consumer" who clearly prefers the ease, convenience, and/or economics of air or road to rail. If the American public were truly clamoring for rail options, Amtrak wouldn't be losing $1B/year (not a very good investment of tax revenue, if you ask me!).

We recently traveled to NYC from Washington, DC. We had various travel options:
Air: $115 roundtrip per person, ~4 hours (house to hotel).
Personal car: $150 roundtrip per person (including tolls and IRS standard mileage rate of 55.5 cents, $50/pp if you count just gas and tolls), ~5 hours (house to hotel).
Bus: $54 roundtrip per person, ~6 hours (house to hotel).
Train: $200 roundtrip per person (if we wanted to not leave at 4am - absolute cheapest with terrible times is $100), ~4 hours (house to hotel).

In no aspect of travel does rail win that trip. Certainly not cost - it's the most expensive. Not time, it's no faster than taking a plane. You might point out that there are fewer security hassles, but the same ease of travel is true for the bus - and are the 4 hours saved round trip worth $150? It's worth pointing out that the East Coast public clearly does want options besides air or personal vehicle - and has found it in busing. Hence the explosion of alternative busing options besides Greyhound. There are at least 5 additional bus companies servicing the DC-NYC route, at a variety of price points (and, correspondingly, amenities). Not surprisingly, we chose the bus option and had a lovely, stress and hassle free trip.

One last point - it may seem to be common sense that "big oil" would be opposed to increased rail usage because it would decrease their profits. It is true that decreasing automobile usage (which is already happening, independent of rail expansion) has contributed to decreased margins for the refining industry. However, consider a few items:
1. High speed rail service would affect only those commuters traveling between city centers - a demographic that is largely served by airlines now. Would actual miles driven decrease by that much? Consider that folks are still going to need to get from the city centers to their actual destination, which, in most of America, is accessible only by road. To truly reduce miles driven, better to focus on commuter transportation between cities and their suburbs.
2. High speed rail would not change the amount of commercial goods shipped via trucks - 70% of America's goods are shipped via truck versus 15% by rail (remaining 15% by air, water, and pipe).
3. Trains require energy to run, which comes either from diesel - provided by "big oil" - or electricity - provided by "big coal" or, yep, you guessed it, "big oil". Oil companies in the US are heavily invested in natural gas, clearly betting on increased domestic and international demand. (Which brings up the issue of fracking, but I'm not even going to open that can of worms right now.)
4. There is a lot more to "big oil" than just automobile use - it's called the petro-chemical industry, not the petrol industry. Even if we could flip a switch tomorrow that made all cars run on solar power, we would still need (admittedly, much reduced) "big oil" to provide all creature comforts we've come to enjoy (one word: plastics).

So, ultimately, high speed rail service isn't the "big oil" killer that some make it out to be, which also means that to assume that "big oil" is behind its non-starter status is naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

OK, one more point. Freakonomics recently polled several rail industry watchers, both liberal and conservative, on whether Amtrak could ever be profitable. Not surprisingly, viewpoints differed wildly, but they all offered analyses of why Amtrak is such a disappointment in its current state. No one, conservative or liberal, points to "big oil". So yes, "big oil" may be making it possible for us to live without a high speed rail system - but it is not the cause or instigator for railroad's demise.

P.S. Is high speed rail all that great? The Cato Institute doesn't think so. I know it's a conservative think tank that "big oil" detractors aren't going to give much credence to, but it does bring up some interesting points . . .