Just about everything under the sun has been tried in terms of making trains go around curves and up and down hills. Any discussion of this in conjunction with the Midwest must call to mind the Air Line.

The Air Line was a dream of the interurban era, so persuasive that over a period of 20 years people from all over the region and the US invested in it.

The idea was that the Air Line would be perfectly straight and level, from the midwest to NYC (or somesuch), and thus able to achieve speeds over 100 mph, and incredibly short travel times.

Construction was actually begun at the western end, but as anyone who has driven through Ohio or Indiana knows, making a straight level road there involves an incredible amount of cut and fill. Almost all the money was spent building an embankment to cross one valley.

The irony here is that the electric trains they planned to use, with Sprague’s multiple-unit controller, easily handle fairly stiff grades. In SF the Muni runs up one grade that just about makes you dizzy to look at it. They spent their money solving a problem they didn’t have.

Just one of a thousand stories from the Railroad City.

Big screen and Internet - right
We live “rural” and the “Entertainment” factor is important (esp in Dec-Marc)
Wife got me Apple iTV for my birthday (G), otherwise Netflix (talk about broadband)

Good analysis on rail, and my perception is urban corridors, not Detroit to Marquette!
As for need for straight track and mild grades, I’d add high quality rail and welds and gentle turns (banked). Turns may be more of an issue than grade in Michigan.

Interstates built, I believe, for about 80MPH traffic, so not too far off in terms of bends. Note that roadbeds have often not been kept up to 80+MPH quality.

TGV and the like in Europe works because of lower level of auto ownership and, in general, smaller cars, combined with shorter distances between destinations.

Maybe a little confusion here about high speed rail. First, in France, high speed is around 170, with the eventual goal of upgrading to 225.

To do this, you need a dedicated right-of-way (ROW). A passenger train averaging 150 mph can’t share track with freight traffic. The track needs to be very straight with mild grades, and quite a bit of noise is created so it needs to be away from most towns but connect with enough to provide ridership (the classic problem).

The track also needs to be entirely grade-separated. Because America always had many crossings at grade, old ROW that’s now in the rail-to-trail bank usually won’t work for TGV.

However, because almost all passenger trains need to run on their own track if they want to stay on schedule, building a new ROW is not a dealbreaker. When you’re getting ten times as many passenger-miles-per-gallon, and you have a problem like global warming, you save money in the long run by doing the right thing.

AFAIK, all the existing Amtrak locos could run at 92 mph today if the FRA let them, so a target of 110 mph should be easily do-able on a new ROW. My guess is that “incremental” attempts to share track with freight will eventually be replaced with larger investments building new ROW. It’s the right thing to do.

I like Marquette, and aside from the fact that it would ruin the town, it should be a tourist draw like Reno.

But it never will be.

R. Mervau Says:

“As for the technology that will get you there…. The train: is mix of mag-lev propulsion and regenerative onboard energy. Using the forward motion and wind created from the train itself. On-board turbines on the roof of the engine car will capture and re-generate power into the grid/propulsion nodes on the rails. The trains magnetic induction, or repelling factor, compliments by turning the magnetic force into an electrical conduction that makes energy as you go. Not a pure perpetual motion machine, but very very close in the terms of energy derived from its use.”

Huh?
Wind created - use turbines to generate … what ? drag?
Part of the need for energy is to overcome wind resistance.
This is a major part of the energy consumed by … cars.
Rolling resistance is not all that great, but wind resistance is.

Electrical conduction making energy … double huh?
Where is the orginal energy coming from ?
A power plant
Coal - I would hope not, but likely.

From all of the nonsense in this post, it would be better to just stay put, read a book
I’d suggest Hiawatha

As for your electric ‘compound’ propulsion vehicles at your destination
There will be a fleet of dozens of these, and a like number of passengers on the train.
They will all want to same thing at the same time.
When the train doesn’t run, they will sit waiting.