Tracks to Tom or row A renaissance for rail Alstom’s vision for the future Proposed North American High Speed Rail Corridors 9 3 8 6 2 7 1 10 11 5 4 1 California Corridor: 7 Northeast Corridor: Sacramento, Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego Boston, Providence, New Haven, New York City, 2 Chicago Hub Network: Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas Washington, D.C. City, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, 8 Northern New England Corridor: Indianapolis, Louisville Montreal, Boston, Portland/Auburn 3 Empire Corridor: 9 Pacific Northwest Corridor: Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Utica, Albany, New York City Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Eugene 4 Florida Corridor: 10 Southeast Corridor: Tampa, Orlando, Miami Jacksonville, Savannah, Columbia, Raleigh, 5 Gulf Coast Corridor: Macon, Atlanta, Greenville, Charlotte, Richmond, Houston, New Orleans, Mobile, Meridian, Birmingham, Hampton Roads, Washington, D.C. Atlanta 11 Texas T-Bone and Brazos Express Corridor: 6 Keystone Corridor: San Antonio, Austin, Waco, Fort Worth-Dallas, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia Killeen-Temple, Bryan-College Station, Houston Source: U.S. Department of Transportation ALSTOM Transportation Inc. National Geographic Custom Publishing 353 Lexington Avenue, Suite 1100 631-757-8300 New York, NY 10016 Editorial Services Directed by .................. Wendy Murphy Tel. (212) 557-7262 Art and Design Services Directed by ...... Bruce McGowin www.transport.alstom.com Project Direction by .................................... Bret Barasch © ALSTOM 2008. ALSTOM, the ALSTOM logo and any alternative versions thereof are trademarks and service marks of ALSTOM. The other names mentioned, registered or not, are the property of their respective companies. The technical and other data contained in these documents is provided for information only. ALSTOM reserves the right to revise or change this data at any time without further notice. 102008 OPI President of the American Public Transportation Association A message from William Millar rom early roads and canals, The need for such a national through the growth of railroads transportation strategy is a clarion F and electric street railways, call to public officials at all levels through the automobile age, and the and to America’s business leadership. jet age, transportation systems have The need to connect America’s always been at the center of American economic centers through fast, efficient progress. And that progress helped and sustainable networks has created America become the most prosperous the necessity of a high-speed rail society in history. system, comparable to the national But the transportation system today commitment to create the interstate does not provide nearly the mobility highway network. In this framework, options that America will need to face rail should become the preferred option the challenges of the future. While over the last for trips of 500 miles or fewer, with links to airports 30 years the number of urban rail systems has for longer distance trips and for international travel. grown significantly, America continues to have a Revitalization and transformation of America’s relatively small supply of superior urban transport transportation system will require a bold, and high-speed rail services that provide efficient comprehensive and aggressive national strategy. mobility for its communities and keep America’s It will require all partners — federal, state, economic centers attractive, productive and local and private — to sharpen their policy connected. With a new era of economic, perspectives and financial commitments. It will environmental and transportation policy on require a broad coalition of advocacy partners the horizon, we know that new innovations in including business, labor, community leaders, transportation are needed once again to propel environmental champions, and leaders from the economy forward and shape the nation. within the transportation industry itself to Current trends all point to a robust future for commit themselves to accomplish this vision. urban transport and high-speed rail. With 3-4 Economic conditions are right for a new era of million new residents added each year, the United growth for urban transport and high-speed rail. States has one of the highest growth rates in the Just as transportation policy over the last half industrial world. As has been the case throughout century focused on building a system of interstate American history, population growth follows roads to connect the nation, so should the vision economic opportunity. This has led to continuing for the next 50 years focus on travel options which growth in North America’s top metropolitan connect people and enable prosperity in America’s areas. Economically, these metropolitan regions bustling economic growth centers. have become the engines of American prosperity. The geography of these areas will make transit and I commend Alstom for its vision and leadership, the optimum use of high-capacity rail corridors and look forward to our working together in a a necessity for accommodating growth and mutual quest for better transportation service addressing mobility needs on a mega-region scale. and the economic vitality it will spawn. 2008 | TRACKS TO TOMORROW | 3 The Locomotion Evolution: Spurring Growth and Service Seven out of every 10 barrels of oil consumed in the United States are used for transportation, and highways account for 72 percent of that large share. xperts say that fuel efficiency offers the The evolution of rail systems greatest and most immediate potential in Europe and the U.S. E for reducing CO 2 emissions from the transportation sector over the next three decades. In Europe, several factors contributed to the According to data from the Department of Energy’s dominance of passenger rail, including high fuel Oak Ridge National Laboratory, existing U.S. prices in comparison to electric power and a passenger rail is 17 percent more efficient than concerted effort to control urban development and air travel and 21 percent more efficient than auto preserve the form and function of historic cities. The travel. Today, transportation policy places too much strong national and regional governments in Western emphasis on those modes of transportation that are Europe were able to coordinate policies governing the least fuel efficient — which means higher land use and the planning that emphasized rail over carbon emissions and a greater dependence on highways. Urban, regional and inter-city passenger foreign oil. A strong transportation system depends rail has thrived in Europe ever since. on various modes of transportation, a balance not Americans were leaders in the introduction of rail reflected in current American transportation policy. solutions as early as the middle of the 19 th century. For this reason, some legislators have suggested The first transcontinental railroad was built across that America’s transportation policy should focus North America in the 1860s, linking the railroad on more energy efficient modes of transportation network of the eastern U.S. with California on the that will help achieve today’s challenges. Policy Pacific coast. The railroad had a large impact on the makers are too focused on highways and have American transportation system and economy during ignored alternatives including high-speed the second half of the 19 th century. Even without passenger rail which may be part of the solution government subsidies, 70,000 additional miles of to addressing other key policy issues. track were laid in the 1880s, linking increasing The most successful implementation of high-speed numbers of towns and cities. Passenger rail travel trains has been in Europe, where the specially tripled between 1896 and 1916, and trains carried engineered tracks required for this technology “95 percent of all intercity transportation through 1 have been rolled out over the past 25 years. These 1910 .” Rail travel’s peak in the U.S. was 1920, with O S trains carrying 1.2 billion passengers. In that year S A successes have been the result of consumer demand, S . C fares were increased by 20 percent, and the decade - fueled by effective government policies and funding A M saw an almost threefold increase in automobile O T to support the vision that rail is a vital alternative / T registrations. As a result, intercity transportation R to alleviate the gridlock caused by excessive volume O P S by trains had fallen by 18 percent by 1929. N of automobiles and trucks on the highways. A R 1 Itzkoff, Donald M. Off the track: the decline of the intercity passenger train in the United States. T M O Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985 T S L 4 | ALSTOM | 2008 A POLICIES AND TECHNOLOGY AGV prototype driver car at Aytré depot. La Rochelle, France. 2008 | TRACKS TO TOMORROW | 5 Long-distance rail transport continued with the Long-distance travel is currently dominated by streamliners that criss-crossed the United States airlines, but given continued population growth and from the 1930s, to 1950s. However, rail passenger congestion at airports and on highways, there has transport stagnated in the U.S., just as Europe and been a resurgence of interest in high-speed rail in Japan were pushing forward with new technologies. the U.S. in recent decades. Several corridors are being One major factor has been a lack of investment in examined for potential high-speed service, either passenger inter-city rail infrastructure. In the at the federal or state level. North America offers Northeast Corridor, rail travel is time and price various high-density passenger corridors, which are competitive with air travel, but infrastructure restricts uniquely suited for the implementation of dedicated other routes to highway speeds, putting rail in direct high-speed rail, which has so successfully been competition with buses and private automobiles. implemented in similar corridors in Europe and Asia. H S I V O H Y R R A L / T R O P S N A R T Alstom’s assembly M O T S line for R160 cars, L A Hornell, NY 8 0 0 2 The largest passenger rail facility in the U.S.