Okay, but the comment implied America doesn’t have the expertise to build a passenger network when it actually doesn’t have the political willpower. It has the expertise to spare, but no one in power actually cares.
That still is not correct.
Planning a high speed high throughput flexible passenger rail network is a whole different beast than laying non-electrified single track lines in a straight line through the middle of nowhere that basically only serves the occasional 2miles long freight train.
The parameters are vastly different and almost incomparable. And America has decidedly no expertise left in the former.
Other than the fact that there are several American firms who have already done it, and even if there was a knowledge deficit it’s the easiest thing in the world for an American company to headhunt foreign talent. Too easy in most industries.
Opposition to new railways is political, be it from establishment organizations or private owners, like in California. That’s all there is to it.
Which ones? Which company actually has put out a consistent, significant, structurally sound high speed rail network including stations and the trains themselves that is based in the US?
And headhunting foreign talent tells me that you have not worked in the rail planning sector. These companies are extraordinarily protective of their high value who are the executive “talent” behind their stuff. And the biggest rail tech companies are multinational conglomerates (Alstombardier, Siemens, CRRC, Hitachi) who have no desire or need to outsource to America.
There is noone currently who has both intimate knowledge of American geodetic planning and high stress track planning. And building that knowledge takes a lot of trial and error.
