$8B in stimulus funds to go toward high-speed rail

WASHINGTON - Imagine traveling between D.C. and New York City in two and a half hours without leaving the ground.

It may be a real travel possibility in the Northeast Corridor, now that President Barack Obama is putting a huge emphasis on high-speed rail.

"Between New York and Washington, [Acela] trains periodically achieve 135 miles per hour, but generally they cruise (at a top speed) of 125 miles per hour. With this investment, trains will be able to improve their overall speeds and therefore reduce the running times between these cities," Chief of Amtrak communications Cliff Black tells WTOP. "This is a major investment in higher speed passenger trains."

The federal government is allocating $8 billion in stimulus funds to develop high speed rail networks throughout the county.

But the money is not necessarily there to design and build high speed rail lines. Millions will be spent to enhance speeds on existing rail lines.

"We are talking about using existing infrastructure to increase speeds on some routes from 70 miles per hour to over 100 miles per hour," President Obama said during a news conference Thursday. "You are taking existing rail lines, you're upgrading them."

Black says that means some trains traveling between D.C. and New York may soon be able to hit 150 miles per hour. That would allow the Acela to run between the two cities in two and a half hours, downtown-to-downtown. Currently, the trip takes two hours and 45 minutes.

Trains between New York and Boston can already get to a top speed of 150 miles per hour, but that is only on a 35-mile stretch of track in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Still, the president says the U.S. is light years behind foreign nations when it comes to high speed rail.

"In Spain, a high speed line between Madrid and Sevilla is so successful, that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined," Obama said. "Japan, the nation that unveiled the first high-speed rail system, is already at work building the next -- a line that will connect Tokyo with Osaka at speeds over 300 miles per hour. It is happening right now. The problem is, it's been happening elsewhere."

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