High-speed trains are finally coming to the United States, a country famous for its great highways and the world’s largest airlines, but poor in rail connections.
The historic operator Amtrak will now develop high-speed routes. The first project has already started in California, where the government approved a tender for the country’s first electrified high-speed trains with a length of 220 miles (over 350 km/h). In 2024, it will be decided which ones to buy to connect the Bay Area to the Los Angeles basin. The section is expected to be ready by 2030, then also continue to Las Vegas.
The second project concerns the Boston-New York connection in less than two hours, but it is still on paper. The goal is to reach a speed of 225 miles per hour (more than 360 km/h) for the trains with which the North Atlantic Rail Initiative wants to connect the two cities on the East Coast in less than two hours (one hour and 40 minutes to be more precise, between South Station and Penn Station in the Big Apple). The current travel time from Boston to New York by train is almost four hours.
The initiative also aims to improve commuter services throughout areas of New England and New York, including on airport routes. The project is still on the desks of the governors of the states concerned and, if approved, it would take about 20 years to complete, at a cost of $105 billion.
