What teeniest lone change would have actualized transcontinental High Speed Rail in the USA?

Question

The high speed train (HST) must be one of the high-speed trains currently or no longer in service. The HST should run at its max operating speed as much as possible and practicable, to save time. HST can run at lower speeds, to abate noise and comply with noise regulations in urban residential areas.

Don't use Experimental trains! The HST and High Speed Route (HSR) should not have specifications not yet existent in 2021.

The cost between any two cities on any route must < the cost of a direct flight between these two cities.

Your HSR must include and cover all the colored routes, and all the cities on these routes in this plan by Alon Levy.

You can overlook these two fanciful maps that are just for reference.

Answer 1

Conservatives Win the Mexican Reform War (1857–1860)

One of the major "problems" with US rail compared to European rail is that there was little strategic reason for the US Government to back railway construction or subsidize railways. In Europe the dense network of rails was largely due to military necessity, as more and denser rail nets made it easier to move troops and supplies in the event of war. This in turn meant that there was a foundation of railways for civilian traffic, making it easier for commuter rail to be cheap and effective. Cheap and effective train travel across the US to the point where it's easier to travel cross-country by train rather than car would in turn lead to easy acceptance of higher-speed and better trains as you asked in the question. Which means you need that rail network in place before cars become widespread. Enter Mexico:

The Conservatives win the Mexican Reform War (1857–1860), tossing out the liberal constitution and strengthening the military. With the country still somewhat unstable (IRL there were three civil wars between 1857 and 1929) the conservatives rally the nation by painting the US as The Great Satan and constantly beat the drum about re-conquering lost territory from the Mexican-American War. A unified and belligerent Mexico would provide impetus for the US to strengthen its north/south and western rail network so as to move troops and equipment to the southern border. This needn't have kicked off an actual war (though it might have) to result in the rail net capable of challenging cars, keeping civilian passenger rail in the US in ascendency and paving the way for High-Speed rail in the US.

footnote: Yes I know this isn't really a "small" change! But it's the smallest I could think of (the conservatives had a good chance of winning early war) that would realistically produce the results required. At the end of the day Americans are "Car People" and, IMO, you have to nip that in the bud for HSR to have a realistic chance. of being a thing that could have been in place today.

Answer 2

One option would be for Congress, when the Interstate System was being laid down, to decide that users of the system who induced high wear and tear should pay their fair share for the system.

This would result in tractor-trailers facing an excise tax, presumably on a per-axle basis, possibly through tire sales (tractor rigs go through tires like athletes go through socks). This levels the playing field between the trucking and rail-freight sectors, which causes a build-out of rail infrastructure serving major metropolitan areas (and the trucking fleet specializing in short-haul, local distribution service instead of long-haul freighting).

The existence of the industrial infrastructure for that system dramatically reduces the entry-cost for HSR, especially since HSR can also serve to replace expensive air-freight for all but the most time-sensitive/perishable cargoes. There'd be money already accustomed to investing in rail projects so even if the whole HSR concept was still a moderately hard sell, you'd be able to get pilot projects going - a lot of what holds them back is investors not being familiar with the risks associated with rail-transport projects.

This is a huge part of why rail succeeded so well in Europe - it was already a dominant transportation paradigm. The success of TGV and Shinkansen would probably be enough to get skittish investors on board if the United States didn't beat them to the punch.

Answer 3

Amtrak forms well before 1971

The US's problem with developing High Speed Rails (HSR; >250 km/h) can be seen by viewing some of the projects for the SE Corridor.

• separation of grade (can't hit cars)
• wider curves (higher speed)
• dedicated rails (less traffic === higher speed)

To get to your required speed today, the planning (and implementation) of these tasks needs to start very early in the US.

The planing should probably start 25yrs before the usage of fast trains like the Milwaukee Road's class "F7". Those were built in 1938 and ran at speeds averaging >130 km/h.

That means Amtrak (US passenger rail) should have been founded before 1913.

Additionally: Laws would need to be reformed

US laws would need to be passed such that there is a focus on providing high speed transcontinental rail service. The High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 gave the US the NE Corridor and the Acela line (257 km/h new stock starting 2022).

Answer 4

FDR dies of polio/Guillam-Barre

... or at least is unable to return to political life.

The New Deal made the average American much better off, allowing more people to be able to afford cars. If you can't afford a car, you can't buy one.

The New Deal also did this by building much of the road infrastructure which made more widespread car use preferable. If roads aren't great, you wouldn't use a car, after all. And now people could also afford cars to run on those roads.

And then WWII happened. A newly-enriched US suddenly found that all its European industrial rivals had been obliterated by the war, and was perfectly positioned to pick up the slack. European industry came back after the war, sure, but it was always on the back foot after that.

It's not at all clear that any of this would have happened, or at least not as successfully, without FDR and his New Deal.

Answer 5

The Wright Brothers' experiment fails

One of them is killed in the first test flight, or they never get off the ground, or they're just satisfied selling bicycles for the rest of their lives and never even try, or any variation along those lines. Oh sure, somebody else would've invented the airplane eventually, but it'd be years or even decades later, allowing the rail system more time to expand and remain the dominant means of long distance transport. If you want to make it even more likely, have a similar incident occur to Henry Ford and delay the development of cheap automobiles by a few more decades, though admittedly that would be two changes rather than one.

Answer 6

The cost between any two cities on any route must < the cost of a direct flight between these two cities.

Well, that's easy -- both modes are heavily subsidized so it's just a matter of the government turning knobs.

"New Deal" build-up of rail, has knock-on effects

What actually happened: In WW1, railroads were nationalized. In WWII, railroads convinced the government not to nationalize them - but they were in crush overload conditions, and Pennsylvania Rail Road management "peeved off" General Eisenhower big time. Eisenhower built the Interstate freeway system to remove the military's dependency on the railroads. Eisenhower knew it would bankrupt the railroads, and was happy for that. Meanwhile, fast electric interurban railways were dying off pre-war. The "New Deal" was partly projects to create jobs - but on infrastructure projects that will pay economic dividends for decades, such as the TVA dams, Hoover Dam, Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, etc.

The US railroads ask Roosevelt to prioritize rail infrastructure to prepare for the inevitable war. Roosevelt agrees (Optional: on the condition that the railroads be nationalized again in the event of war.)

As a result, railroad infrastructure is a big part of the New Deal. It is ready and able to handle the nation's war needs. Pennsylvania Rail Road gives General Eisenhower 5-star concierge service. (Optional: The railroads are nationalized and Eisenhower is put in charge. Eisenhower sees it all from the other side of the fence). Eisenhower becomes pro-rail, and as President sees ways to improve rail further, and invests in rail instead of the Interstate system. This is the seed of American high-speed rail.

Notably, the interurban electric railways were on their last legs in the 1930s, but the New Deal re-investment in rail breathes new life into them and positions them to be the prototypes for electric high speed rail, with incremental improvements to their infrastructure - pantographs, weight-tensioning existing catenary, grade separation and alignment upgrades, voltage bumps. The former 600V single cars that bounced down the line at 75 mph now are fine modern 1500V 2-car sets cruising 125 mph on good rail. That's just the interurbans, obviously Big Rail aims much higher.

The Shah of Iran aspires to a constitutional monarchy

The Shah admires the constitutional monarchy of Britain, and adopts this at home. Which tickles both the Shah's American backers, and the domestic critics. Senators Khomeini, Khamenei, Banisadr etc. all work within the system instead of fomenting revolution - two of them having turns as Prime Minister.

The Shah thus becomes an influencer rather than an administrative leader, adored by the public throughout the Middle East. The Shah is highly influential in the Middle East, forming OPEC much sooner, and convincing many of a core belief: That oil is simply too valuable to burn as fuel, and should be reserved for its ability to create plastics and fertilizers. The Shah leads the Middle Eastern Nations to not "give away" their oil -- they treat their oil as a precious, one-time national asset. This has a huge impact on the price of gasoline and diesel. It remains a strategic national asset for every country that has it - not to be wasted on bloated 7 MPG personal automobiles with V-8 engines. The post-war automotive boom does not happen.

As a result, national investment goes elsewhere.

Many of us confuse "Progress" and "car ownership". But you have to look at a few things about the automotive life which are a constructive total loss. The life cycle of a car - building it, maintaining it, getting the fuel for it, building the roads for it, scrapping it - all of this is capital investment gone in the end. Like a candy bar, it gave someone pleasure for awhile, but it's gone now.

Are cars essential for some sectors and in some locations? Sure. But in the most highly populated urban locations, cars are hardly necessary and even get in the way. People only want cars because public transit is rubbish. Chicken and the egg. We need some, but not near so many as we have.

Another constructive total loss was "white flight" to the suburbs. You already have a perfectly usable building. Building another one while letting that one fall to ruin is a complete waste of material. Yet that was the fate of many cities from the 1950s to the 1970s, because of 12 cent gasoline.

Now, these constructive total losses do not happen so much. But that doesn't destroy the economic value of building that car and suburb -- much the opposite, the economic value is simply redirected into other things - things which may have enduring value.

For instance I could see the electronics revolution happening sooner. Strides might be made in healthcare. Electronics. Social equality. Renewable energy. Progress. Certainly, given this economic power that was created due to less cars, "high speed rail" is pretty much couch-cushion change. Just look at France, who can easily afford its first-rate high speed rail system.

Answer 7

Assume that there is increased terrorism (or at least fear of terrorism) in the 1960s and 1970s (Weather, PLO, take your pick). Notably, there is fear of aircraft hijackings with madmen wanting to go to Cuba, but train hijackings are less of a concern. Perhaps because they cannot go to Cuba, and also because they are much harder to divert from their course and much harder to bring down with a small explosive charge.

So post-9/11-style TSA screenings start a generation earlier, while there are no similar checks at train stations. The decisions where security is (or isn't) increased are not fully rational, there is much locking of barns after the specific horses have bolted. Accounting for an hour or two in line plus the administrative check-in, trains become sufficiently superior to win out on both coasts for connections like Los Angeles to San Francisco or New York to Baltimore. And once there is the habit, the trans-continental gap gets closed with overnight trains.

Answer 8

The Korean War is more intense

With more resources needed for the war effort, the US government reinstates WW2-era rationing of automobiles, gasoline, and tires. The rise of car culture and suburbanization is thus stalled.

Meanwhile, military leadership demands more efficient cross-country transport of troops and materiel. Congress responds by funding upgrades to the country's rail network.

Eisenhower still gets elected in 1952 and still proposes the Interstate Highway System. But with fewer people driving cars, and a greater amount of debt accumulated from the Korean War, it's harder to justify the expense, and the system is massively scaled back compared to OTL.

With less direct competition from highways, intercity passenger rail remains profitable into the 1960's. The railroads start introducing high-speed lines.

Answer 9

just build it...

Like roads, bridges, tunnels and the postal service: have a Fiat!-moment and legislate the rails be built and paid for. This could be as part of the NewDeal, or as a national pride thing instead of the moon landing, or as a military fever dream instead of the Manhattan Project. As long as there is rails, there will be users. Hauling a train across the continent is inherently much cheaper than flying a plane the same distance.

Answer 10

Eisenhower is inspired by WW2 to build a network of strategic train lines:

Dwight Eisenhower was inspired by the German Autobahn to invest in a similar system of roads in the US as a way to prepare US industry and civilians for potential future war.

But what if Hitler's ill-conceived plan to build highways had instead been an expansion of the German Rail system to meet the needs of wartime Germany? The parts of the autobahn that WERE built were mostly useful to the invading American armies, and anything that helped invaders was a bad idea. Instead of being inspired by the autobahn to build an interstate highway system, he was instead inspired to build a network of fast rail lines to allow the US to quickly deploy strategic resources and rapidly evacuate major cities in the event of nuclear attack. High speed rail is inspired to be high-speed strategic freight first.

By 1960, the US is in a competition with the Soviets for nuclear-powered trains, and high-speed trains become the subject of a "train-race" to build the biggest, fastest, and most powerful trains possible. Once the risks of nuclear trains become apparent, nuclear trains become electric maglev trains powered by nuclear reactors along the routes. Abundant long-distance rail reduces investment in airports, and air travel is a thing of businessmen and the rich.

The attractiveness of faster trains and lack of investment in interstate highways and public airports versus military ones would mean that people would increasingly rely on the very extensive and rapid network of trains for long-distance travel. Americans are encouraged to support the train as part of their civic duty. The difficulty of driving and high cost of air travel would mean Americans looked to trains to take them where they wanted to go. Cars simply never captured the imagination of the US like the romance of trains did.

Answer 11

Delays in the development of the bicycle

This allows time for the rail network to expand further. (But note in postscript this all boils down to precision bearings.)

Early 19th century had the dandy horse, or Draisine which was essentially a balance bike for adults. Only around 1860 were pedals and cranks added, and then the safety bike in the 1880s. That is only ~25 years before the aeroplane.

The Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics, as were many of the proto-automobile and motorbike makers of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Had the Bicycle not been popular enough to provide a living for these inventors, the aeroplane and the motor car would have been delayed. Their continual exposure to chains, chainwheels and the idea of lightness would cause the aeroplane and the automobile to come decades slower than it was.

Rail, on the other hand, was a well established concept. The first steam loco was 1804, with intercity rail in the UK in 1825. By 1850 rail was an accepted concept, and railway-mania meant railways were being built all over the first world.

The first Transcontinental US railway was build between 1863 and 1869, predating the (common) bicycle and the automobile in our timeline.

By delaying the bike, therefore the aeroplane, motorbike and automobile, the train could have had decades more to establish itself and gain greater traction. This would result in more track and more right-of-way authority established.

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The downside here is that tech of around 1900 would have laid more track, but it would be "steam-compatible" with tighter turns and steeper grades than a modern High Speed Rail network can accept.

Thus, just like the German Autobahn, there would have to be a period of redevelopment in the mid-20th century to modernise and improve the track+bed and to avoid releasing track and right-of-way.

Upshot - Trains and rolling stock are cheap(ish) while land and right of way is expensive.

I want to also highlight Nosajimiki's comment:

One of the biggest things that made late 1800s inventors successful, where inventors in the past had failed, was that every single early airplane design relied in some way on radial ball bearings which were invented in 1869 for use in bicycles to create near frictionless rotation.

This is a superlative point that really is the underlying tech behind my initial suggestion of Bicycles. Without precision ball bearings, we're left with babbit and direct metal on metal contact. These are "adequate" for the speeds of a train, but a car and a plane have parts that spin faster. ago

Answer 12

Lower average surface air density

If the Earth had the same air density as the existing atmosphere at, say, 10,000 feet, then take-off of passenger jets would be impractical so they wouldn't have been invented.

For passenger trains, however, form drag would be much lower, resulting in much higher efficiency – and therefore, high-speed trains would be ubiquitous.

Answer 13

The cost between any two cities on any route must < the cost of a direct flight between these two cities.

I think the smallest possible change that achieves this is "US doesn't strike oil", or at least not in significant quantities. Rail travel continues to build throughout the 20th century, upgrading to high-speed towards the end. Air travel remains an expensive luxury. Most people commute by train not by car.

Of course, that's a pretty big change! Probably alters the outcome of the war in the Pacific, for example.

Another possibility is if the "too cheap to meter" nuclear advocates turned out to be right. The US does what France did in the postwar era and builds a huge network of nuclear power stations, none of which suffer accidents. Electricity is free. The US starts a TGV-equivalent programme too ...

Answer 14

Passengers jets were having a very difficult time in the 50's, the DH-106 Comet suffered a series of highly publicized tragic crashes due to metal fatigue. Commercial and passenger confidence in the future of cheap commercial air travel was at an all-time low.

On a demonstration flight of the Boeing 707, test pilot Tex Johnson performed a series of barrel rolls to show off the capabilities of the aircraft; no-one knew that this was intentional, even Boeing's CEO thought something had gone wrong. In your alternative reality he simply doesn't complete the second barrel roll; the excessive stresses on the airframe cause it to break up in flight. Boeing is wound up, no-one ever makes a successful commercial jet aircraft. Air travel still happens, but it's limited to the very wealthy.

As populations increase, expanding the existing train networks becomes the natural way to reduce transit times between major cities.

Answer 15

If the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 (Creating The Interstate System) had included the provision for a right of way between the highways for passenger train service.

Answer 16

Immigration Acts declared unconstitutional

If the Supreme Court had declared the Immigration Act of 1917 (or 1922, or 1924) unconstitutional – they were controversial at the time – the population may well have increased to the point where high-speed rail would be economically and socially desirable.

China has about 4.5 times the population on about the same land space, although it has even less arable land. In our scenario, the USA would have gained Europeans and Asians fleeing war and dictatorship from 1920–1950+, and taken in further immigrants afterwards, so its population might by this time be comparable to or larger than China's.

Not sure what reason the Supreme Court could have given for this decision, but the court has sometimes been creative with what is or is not constitutional.

It's interesting to speculate on the potential wider implications of this change in US society and the world. (White majority; holocaust; relative power of USA vs. USSR, China, Europe; citizenship laws; "great society"; welfare, etc.) That would be a separate question however. High-speed rail would only be one effect of the change.

Answer 17

America loses the War of Independence and remains a British colony.

Had this happened, the Victorians would likely have built additional rails all over the USA to move goods and people (the USA being rich in various raw materials that would have been useful to the British). They built railways in lots of other colonies, and America being more culturally aligned with Britain may have seen more investment than some of the other colonies that were more "problematic".

Had that happened, there would be a culture of using rail for longer distance travel (and possibly shorter distance too). The really slow speeds that freight currently has to travel at would likely have been much faster, and certainly so for passenger transport. Where there are single tracks, there would likely be double, or else a second route to the same destinations. From then on, it's a matter of incremental improvement to get to the situation you describe.

This of course is by no means guaranteed. Britain was cris-crossed with countless railways, many of which were woefully uneconomical and could never have worked commercially. Those and many more were torn up and scrapped in the 1960s (the Beeching Cuts), and then decades of underinvestment lead to quite a decline in service quality. Even now, rail travel is a somewhat love/hate sort of thing, at least partly as a result of history. It is possible, likely even, that US railways would have followed a similar path.

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The US did have lots of railways, some built during the Victorian era, and some now removed, although some remain of course. Effects and side-effects well noted.

My point here was the (British) Victorians really, really went crazy for railways. Britain was criss-crossed by dozens of lines to every little tiny place. There were actually far more lines that would even vaguely make sense, but they built them anyway. If you think Britain is well covered by rail, before the Beeching cuts, there was at least 30% more rail and 55% more stations (my guess is more has closed than been built since them too).

My assertion here was that had the USA been a colony at that point, it's possible/likely that the cultural similarities and raw materials would have made it a place the British would have similarly invested in (and British culture alone would have encouraged ever more railways, even where not really required). Thus, there may have been far, far more railways than the USA ever had otherwise, and whilst the UK pulled up a lot of theirs, many still remain - that could be true in the USA too. More railways encourages a "rail culture", which could result in investment in high speed rail - granted, it's barely happened in Britain, but American prosperity exceeds that of the UK, so may have delivered where Britain couldn't. Likelihood or lack thereof, well noted also - we're 'world building' after all ;-)

Answer 18

Actually inhabit the USA's vast empty space

... and use it for industry, agriculture, and accessible recreation

The US is exceptionally rich and locally varied in its natural resources and climates. Many other answers cited a lack of population across vast, deserted stretches as a key reason why a high speed rail transit system has not been established to connect these areas. Gradually but incessantly converting wasteland areas into populated zones (small cities or towns, with regular separation between them--say, 15-25 miles) and supporting industrial and agricultural use of the surrounding territory would be the only grassroots, effective way to enact the requested change.

Local specialization

If each town or city develops its own local specialty that others lack, the incentive to import that product (or to convey others to that destination for tourism, recreation, etc.) immediately exists, and has the soundest foundation for its source of funding: Free enterprise, local autonomy and the will to prosper.

In a pandemic or post-pandemic setting, and even during any era, this model of population distribution is ideal: The problems of long commutes, expensive real estate prices, rapid disease spread, shortages, crippled supply chains, excessive pollution and de-vegetation are all met optimally by a more decentralized model of residence and work (not fully decentralized, since within limits, city living is still ideal for numerous purposes, but with hard limits on quanta of density, so roughly equivalent to a "small city" format, with 10-20k persons per city). Recent events highlight the economic plagues of lockdowns and other prohibitive measures affecting large cities and businesses in a debilitating way.

The benefits of measured decentralization evidently far outweigh the costs. Intercity and interstate trade would benefit enormously from heightened specialization and correspondingly improved transportation. Moreover against the persistent backdrop of incredible advances in local automation and miniaturization, the myth of the necessity of hyper-urbanization for industrialization or prosperity has been forever shattered.

Decentralized residency

Apart from work requirements, the primary consideration for place of residence and transportation infrastructure is a social one. The rediscovery of the desirability and feasibility of distributed or virtual workforces is a key insight paving the way for a movement towards smaller, more connected local communities at a national scale, which is already desired. The missing element when contemplating a move away from big city life to the country is an unfulfilled desire for proximity to friends, family, and social opportunity.

As it turns out, the optimal work configuration matches the social needs quite nicely. Regardless of the enterprise, there is never a necessity (nor even a utility) of gathering more than 5-10,000 workers on the same campus. This same size of social pool (the workers and their families) affords plenty of conviviality to host all of the refinements desirable for a highly social society; there is no wholesome social endeavor even of the highest quality that would be unattainable for a city of this size. (Most people will probably never make this many acquaintances in a lifetime.)

Of course, families still want to stay connected to those living one or five or twenty cities away, and this would be a key motivator for establishing permanent high-speed rail lines connecting all cities, as it would provide highly efficient and convenient transport for persons as well as commercial goods.

The math is simple: Moving ten hours away from cherished relatives can be a deal-breaker for many. What if most in an extended family were enabled to live comfortably within an hour of each other, despite having diverse occupations, by inhabiting hitherto empty space and upping the speed and convenience of transit? High speed rail lines provide an obvious solution to this problem; even on the low end of speed ratings you could surpass ten cities' linear distance in under an hour of travel time on a non-stop route.

The defense implications of having such a network of transportation are of course vast and enticing as noted elsewhere, but the economic and social backbone is what will make it happen.

Answer 19

The Eisenhower Administration Solved Its Problems with Trains

The U.S. Interstate is formally known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, due to the massive influence of Eisenhower in its construction. Eisenhower was a 28-year-old lieutenant in 1919 when he was part of an army expedition to ascertain the difficulty of military movement across the US. He described that the roads were a "succession of dust, ruts, pits, and holes," and was extremely keen on creating a better transportation system.

As Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WWII, he would later see a forerunner of his solution in the German Reichsautobahn system. If, instead, he were influenced by the European train network instead of the highways, he may well have invested in a national railroad. The US Interstate system is the largest single public works project in the history of mankind (see the Megaprojects section). Its funding going towards railroads, instead, would make long-distance travel by car entirely infeasible by comparison. From there, it's just a short matter of time until high-speed trains evolve as a natural next step in the world's largest railway system