isnt there a highspeed rail train from boston to dc already...?

The principle of high speed trains is appealing, however, each project being handled in total isolation, economies of scale never Materialize, and the costs remains sky high. As a result, passenger tickets are priced to be competitive with plane and cost more than using a car, without the convenience of having one at destination, thus reducing their appeal for travellers.

Simeon,
He does mention the Acela line from Boston to DC. However, that line is only marginally "high-speed." It maxes out at 150 mph for short periods during the trip. It is the only "technically" high-speed rail line in the US even though it's not very high speed.

@simeon: That is the Acela Express mentioned in the article, which is more like moderate-speed rail.

The US has to seriously look into a national high-speed rail system. The airports are becoming more congested every year. Shifting domestic air passengers to rail would greatly alleviate the congestion.

This is an astoundingly stupid and wasteful project. The fact is that the Buenos Aires metro area has about a dozen urban rail lines and every single one of them is falling apart. They are mostly privately run but receive government subsidy because ticket prices are very low, about 20 US cents for the cheapest tickets. This subsidy is operational, not capital investment, which is why the trains are in terrible disrepair. Travel is unreliable, there are safety and security problems, and so forth. The net effect is that the trains are losing passengers to road transport.

The Buenos Aires to Cordoba route does not carry even a small fraction of the people carried by commuters every day in Buenos Aires. It is currently served by a couple of flights per day in each direction, using 100-passenger 737 aircraft. There is no way a high-speed train would pay back such low-volume air travel in terms of CO2 footprint. Each 100 kilometers of rail requires some 250,000 tons of steel and concrete alone, so the 700 km route requires 1,750,000 tons of material, not counting bridges, stations, the trains themselves, and much less the energy to run it all.

$1.4 billion dollars would have a net quality of life and CO2 impact far superior to this project if applied to commuter rail improvement, subway expansion, and so forth.

This is a classic white elephant project, being built by a government that has badly mishandled an electric energy crisis and just recently inaugurated the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Rio Turbio, in the Patagonia region, famous for its winds.

The Acela is not even moderate speed rail. Congress will not give Amtrak the money necessary to complete the Acela project. The tracks between New Haven and NYC are over 100 years old and have received only routine maintenance during the entire period. As a result the trains are limited to 50 mph on this stretch. Mind you, this is one of the mist heavily traveled passenger railroad routes on the entire planet, not just the US. Recently I saw an 120 year old train schedule for the Boston-NY run and it was faster back then with coal-fired steam locomotives than it is now with the Acela. This story is just another shameful reminder of how backwards the US is.

Matter Magazine has an article that argues for more funding for trains (including Amtrak) given the efficiencies compared to any kind of car travel:
http://featured.matternetwork.com/2007/11/trains-overlooked-as-green-transit.cfm

anybody who says the US is the best country in the world has never lived anywhere else. I could think of ten countries in europe where people live better--both rich and poor-- and now at least Argentina, Chile, and Costa Rica are competitive with the US

Yes, Argentina should probably focus on where the most customers/travellers are

it's not going to be built. argentina is heading for another economic collapse, and there's no way they can pay for a project like this--even with global wheat and soy prices where they are.

Alstom is going to get burned unless they took out a big insurance policy on the contract.

J'aime le chemin de fer Fracaise. Il est tres sexy.

There are no high-speed rail lines planned for Canada. LRT extensions? Yes. Subway expansions? Very likely. But the only candidates for high-speed, between Edmonton and Calgary in Western Canada, and in Eastern Canada from Quebec City to Windsor via Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, are far from implementing definitive plans. There has been talk, and reports have been commissioned [i.e. http://www.vanhorne.info/files/vanhorne/HSRFullReport(1062004).pdf], but for the moment, there is little political or public support nor are the economic fundamentals in place to justify such massive expenditures.

Having used the metropolitan train lines I have to agree 100% with what Alonso Perez said. This is a crazy and wasteful project for a country like Argentina.

What people don't realize is that in Argentina there is a massive bus operation from city to city and it is very slow and backward, even though the buses themselves are pretty nice. This is how the majority of people move around the country and there really is a big demand for travel between the two largest cities, so this rail system will be a system to make all these people's live easier and more productive. Instead of spending something like 9 hours on a bus, it will become only a few hours by fast train. This can be powered by a combination of wind and solar and be a very efficient, green transportation system that will do a lot to help stablize the Argentina economy, and make travel far more efficient in energy use and in people's time.

Guys when we drive a car, a motorcycle, ride the bus, or fly we need OIL every time we use these services we finance THE OPEC yes including Iran Russia Venezuela and all our best friends, and the best best friends or the oil companies in the US, so we the citizens are not consider in the equation. Well and this is 1 issue, THE OIL.
The second issue is the tires, to produce the tires we also need the nice help of our OPEC best friends, tires that we need to replace at least once a year if you are a regular driver.
The third issue is the pavement, WE DO NOT PRODUCE IT HERE, WE BUY IN FROM OPEC AGAIN, whenever you find a hole on your road, and push your city to cover it, they have to order that black material, FROM OPEC countries, so my fellow Americans, is a win win to the OPEC, our car culture is a win win to OPEC, even if we develop electric cars we will need to import the pavement from the OPEC...Please open your minds and go to the roots, do not focus in the superficial, we HAVE TO BECAME CITIZENS, LETS STOP BEING A NATION OF CONSUMERS, WE ARE CITIZENS, WE WERE SUPPOSE TO BE AND WE SHOULD BE IN THE FUTURE....CITIZENS.
High Speed trains are the win win solution for the AMERICAN CITIZENS.

IN ARGENTINA WE LIVE BETTER THAN THE OTHER COUNTRIES IN THE AMERICAS, BUT WE HAVE A PROBLEM: WE THINK SOMETIMES THAT WE ARE EUROPEAN BUT WE TOOK THE WORST OF THAT CONTINENT.

Usa is jelauos about argentina for not having a high speed railway, they are jelauos because they know that our living standars are increasing fantastically, ARGENTINA IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT WORLD POWER AND USA KNOW ITS, IT IS A FANTASTIC COUNTRY, WE ALL KNOW ARGENTINA IS THE FUTURE!!!!

That is stupid. You guys should read more. Argentina is heading for another economical disaster and there's a bunch of really poor people all over the country.
That High Speed Train shouldn't be built, it's a stupid project. Argentinians are going to contract debt again, it's astonishingly cyclical: When that country is about to evolve, the inept and incompetent goverment destroys everything. There's an alternative train project, you should take a look at it: http://www.trenparatodos.com.ar