Riding high speed trains everywhere but in North America

Even though current oil prices have returned to levels not seen in some time with gas prices lower than they have been for almost a year (at least in my neck of the woods) there is still a strong interest in high speed rail travel. Well, at least everywhere but the United States and Canada. Japan currently leads the pack of nations that are building out their rail systems with new high speed and in some cases environmentally friendly trains.

By the end of the year Japan hopes to have the design of the world’s fasted train done and it promises to reach speeds of 350 km/h (217 mph) which is 50 km/h faster than their current bullet train. Over in France they have a new AVG train which they say will cover 1,000 km (600 miles) in just 3 hours. As well due to a special engine configuration they claim the train will use 20% less fuel. Of course this is up against the other major English / European train – the Eurostar which already runs between London and mainland Europe.

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The Eurostar’s main claim to fame other than being a fast bullet style train is its environmental impact which the company running the trains claim is 90% lower in greenhouse emissions than what an equivalent airplane ride would be. Of course green isn’t something new for some trains as the PVTRAIN in Italy has been trying our solar panels on trains since 2005. While the power generated isn’t so much for the actual train it has reduced the power consumption of things like air conditioning thereby lightening the load on the engines and using less fuel.

Not to be out done by their European brethren Sweden has initiated the  Gröna Tåget (Green Train) research program which they say has set a new Swedish train speed record of 295 km/h (183 mph) while using 20 to 30% less fuel. Now while much of the attention for rail improvement has been in the passenger train arena China has been looking at the locomotives that power their freight trains. In that regard they have begun rolling our engines that are lighter, delibver 40% more power and use 3 – 5% less fuel.

So this begs the question. At what point will both the US and Canada get up to speed and realize that one way to reduce infrastructure costs and lighten the load on the environment means taking a serious look at rail as an alternative. Granted the distances are greater than you will find in Europe and Japan where high speed rail is predominant but that doesn’t mean that there are situations where it would work out very well.

[hat tip to Treehugger]