High Speed Rail

Rebuttal 1: Rail travel has fewer weather related delays. While it can be argued that rail travel is affected by less weather related issues than other forms of transportation, there is no form of transportation including HSR that is completely elusive to mother nature. All forms of transportation are affected by weather. Let the facts be told to a candid world: Earlier this month, train services were suspended in China because heavy rain and fog disrupted power supplies, leading to the shutdown of high voltage equipment which powered the wires used by high speed rail locomotives [3. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn...]. In December of last year, snowstorms caused widespread delays of France's TGV rail service and more than 3,000 riders on Germany's high speed rail service had to spend the night on trains due to snowstorms [4. http://americanexpatinfrance.com...]. In cold climates, catenary wires, wires that provide electricity to a rail vehicle through a pantograph are vulnerable to ice accumulation and often causes problems with electrical conduction between the wire and the pantograph [5. http://www.transcience.freeserve.co.uk...]. Due to the increased mass of catenary wires from the ice, they will oscillate in windy conditions, potentially causing arcing [6. http://www.lafn.org...]. Arcing can damage electrical equipment and can cause fires [7. http://en.wikipedia.org...]. There also poses a severe danger of wildfires to railroad service. Rail service to a major HSR artery in wildfire areas could be suspended for days, leading to unique delays not suffered by aircraft service [8. http://www.mysanantonio.com...]. There are also many other potential weather-related delays including, but not limited to tree felling, track washout in heavy floods, and track buckling in hot weather [5]. My opponent's argument that rail travel has fewer delays than other forms of transportation is sadly overlooked. HSR along with other forms of transportation are all subject to weather delays of one form or another. There is very little, if any advantage that HSR tackles over this issue, and thus should not justify building an entirely new high speed rail system in the United States. Rebuttal 2: High-speed rail has greater capacity than roads. Speaking in terms of passenger carrying capacity so to speak, my opponent brings up that HSR has the capacity to transport more people per square meter of land usage than highways do. But I would like to point out several flaws in my opponent's argument. 1. My opponent assumes high speed rail trains will be 100% occupied in his example. 2. My opponent assumes that passenger cars will not be fully occupied, and that they will average 1.57 people per vehicle. 3. My opponent does not take into account that highways also service the trucking industry in addition to passenger cars. In my opponents next argument on this subject, I would like to see how the numbers actually compare with all the parameters are the same, instead of skewed. For example, what percentage of highway traffic is passenger traffic? This is necessary in accurately computing the argument that my opponent has provided, which he does not. Also, disregarding the uncertainty over which form of service has the greater capacity, there is yet no argument that high speed rail will actually attract more passengers than it does from road traffic. And if we look at the numbers, high speed rail only services less than 10% of passenger traffic in France [9. http://en.wikipedia.org...]. In fact, TGV known for its trains that travel in excess of 200 mph, was barely profitable for its first 16 years of service [10 http://www.economist.com...]. This puts forth a very large argument against developing a large national high speed rail network since if only 10% of passenger traffic utilizes high speed rail in France, a lot of money would be spent in the United States on a form of transportation that does not project to be very profitable down the road. So my opponent can argue all he wants that capacity on high speed rail may be bigger than on road, the real difference comes down to actual ridership and how much revenue can actually be generated. Rebuttal 3: High-speed trains are highly sustainable and green. My opponent's main argument is that because high speed rail runs off of electricity, it runs on green energy. But my opponent is only looking at the air pollution aspect part of the argument. Being green means much more than cutting CO2 emissions. Hydroelectricity creates large scale environmental impact, ruining watersheds, dislocating animals, blocking mating grounds for species of fish, and causes many more environmental issues [10. http://www.keyframe5.com...]. If we are to use hydroelectricity, it does not necessarily mean that the energy produced from it is green. Moving onto solar, silicon solar cells have a theoretical limit, known as the Shockley-Queisser limit which states that the maximum efficiency of a solar cell is limited to around 33.7% [11. http://en.wikipedia.org...]. This makes solar panels widely inefficient since they only convert a small percentage of the sun's energy into electricity. Overuse in silicon mining contributes to large amounts of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere [12. http://www.enviroliteracy.org...] Moving onto geothermal energy, It is a very promising resource that truly could be green energy. But it has one major drawback and that is it only feasible in areas where magma is close to the surface of the earth, areas where hot spots exist such as Hawaii, Alaska, and a few western states [13. http://www.energy-consumers-edge.com...]. It is unlikely that this kind of energy could ever entirely support America's energy needs. Wind turbines create noise pollution, limiting its use to undeveloped land and farm land [14. http://energyinformative.org...]. In conclusion on this topic, any form of energy is likely to not be totally green. This negates my opponent's argument that high speed trains are green since the energy that they use is most likely to be produced in one way or another that harms the environment. In terms of sustainability, electric trains are not the only form of transportation that has the potential to become green. Electric cars, although new to the market, also have the same potential benefits that high speed rail would also provide for in that dependency on fossil fuels and foreign oil would be reduced [15. http://www.sciencedaily.com...] Bio-fuel could serve the same purpose for airplanes as electrical power would to cars and trains. The argument that high speed rail would be sustainable could also be applied to other forms of transportation. This does not justify building a grandiose high speed rail network in America. Rebuttal 4: High-speed rail helps businesspeople be more productive. If the goal of HSR is to become more productive, it has failed in countries with successful HSR networks and corridors. As mentioned earlier, HSR accounts for less than 10% of passenger traffic in France. Even if HSR benefits business people, I find it hard to use this to justify building a national high speed rail network considering the high costs to set it up and the lack of widespread use in countries who have had HSR for several years is very large.