Note: runs faster than actual high-speed rail.
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Uh, the People Mover at Disneyland in California was not a linear induction setup like the Vancouver Skytrain. It was powered by electric motor powered wheels with tires embedded every few feet in the roadbed. These motors turned continuously, whether a train was over them or not. Lots and lots of moving parts, just not on the trains themselves.
Skytrain uses linear induction where magnets embedded in the roadway attract the train forwards. No moving parts needed to move the train.
High speed rail as envisioned in the US doesn’t seem likely to profitable unless all other forms of transit become prohibitively expensive and some way is found to make the rail service cost a sane price.
The people with money will fly long distances and the people without more convenient means of transport will ride the bus.
The bus lines may not be trendy but they are still in business. Greyhound now services my little burg after dropping us for a few years. You can still take the bus to and from a great many locations in the US not served by passenger trains or airlines.
Eric Laithwaite invented the linear motor in England.
Talking about a transportation future. Here is Walt Disney’s original idea for Walt Disney World. It’s last film produced with Walt Disney in it. Notice how EPCOT was to be the main feature. since the city was to be domed, no cars would be allowed. It reminds me of the 1976 movie Logan’s Run. It’s about 24 minutes long.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dkT2iLetCTc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pxC_a7qnGi8
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gBNfauF6IHc
#2 John C Dvorak – The People Mover is in Tommorowland. It’s a Small World is in Fantasyland. Tommorowland had extensive renovations done to it. Now, major renovations are occurring in Fantasyland.
#23 – The entire city of EPCOT was not going to be domed, but rather, the international shopping center at the very center of the city, with the cosmopolitan hotel to be placed at the center.
See Here:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kcOhS_A3tnc/SC9JFlkMC2I/AAAAAAAAARk/DHexAhLOvEg/s1600-h/dgfold4.jpg
As for the cars, they certainly would have been allowed, but they would have existed only underneath the city, as public transportation options, such as monorails and the WEDWay PeopleMover, would have been more efficient and prevalent within the city.
See Here:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_kcOhS_A3tnc/SC9Cb1kMCqI/AAAAAAAAAQE/eOtDngVd0vU/s1600-h/transportation_lobby_large.jpg
EPCOT was also designed to be very pedestrian-friendly.
The Airline industry is heavily subsidized by tax dollars. Probably far more so than the rail system. Air traffic control across the country is under federal control. That’s how Reagan was able to fire those striking controllers, back in the 1980s. I don’t know if the Airlines kick anything into paying for all the radar and operations personnel. But I tend to doubt it. They put more money into modern computerized ticket reservation systems. Than they ever did in modernizing approach radar systems at airports. Relying on the Feds to keep old obsolete radar systems going with vacuum tube based technology. At one time the US government was the largest buyer of vacuum tubes for such system. Supposedly, by the 1990s, these were all phased out and replaced. But a 1998 Tv movie drama claimed otherwise (“A Wing and a Prayer”). I still remember some actor fixing a problem by using a rubber band, to install a large vacuum tube into a shielded socket. Pointing out such problems with airports, probably didn’t make this a popular movie, to repeat.
So just like National Health Care. The US can’t have modern high speed railways, compared to the rest of the industrialized world. The US can only, mostly, have air travel. And safety of that, has been steadily been whittled down, for cost savings, by deferring maintenance to secondary entities, not owned by the airlines. And final leg routes, contracted out to less regulated regional carriers. Which account for the majority of the crashes we hear about. Add to this all the intrusive body searching, mainly to protect the airlines’ bottom line. Which is also paid for by tax dollars (TSA).
#22 “unless all other forms of transit become prohibitively expensive and some way is found to make the rail service cost a sane price.”
You mean like when oil runs out?
#25 Justin – Great pictures.
I’ll take a future shown on the top floor of the interior picture, with its monorails and people movers, over automobiles, any automobiles. I probably wrote about this before, but shifting the tax burden from gasoline & diesel to electric or wherever is going to be difficult.
Below is a link to the homemade documentary film, Disneyland Dream. It was added to the National Film Registry in 2008. It’s 30 minutes long & describes a family winning a trip to Disneyland in 1956. Great historical images of Disneyland after it has been open just one year. According to comedian Steve Martin, he’s the boy with the top hat at about the 20 minute mark. It’s as far away in time to us now as Main Street, U.S.A. was to this family.
http://archive.org/details/barstow_disneyland_dream_1956
Here’s a more recent video that does the attraction justice:
Our state fairgrounds had a monorail that was made of cheap fibreglass and used automobile tires as runners.
It felt like the future, provided you was from the year 1910.