Can Foreign Investment In US Rail Jumpstart A Domestic Industry?

Chinese companies are using technology transferred from other countries to bid on US high speed rail contracts after building 4,000 miles of such railways at home, but they say they'll share:

... China produces high-speed trains using French, German and Japanese technology. Its manufacturers have developed a homegrown version but have yet to produce a commercial model.

... "China is willing to share its mature and advanced technology with other countries to promote development of the world's high-speed railways," [Wang Zhiguo, a Chinese deputy railways minister] said.

If they really will share, that would mean doing the same things other countries' companies did in China: managing the contracts, licensing the technology, and training local workers to build the bulk of the components in country.

That'd be great. Because we have less of a high speed rail industry than we do a wind industry.

When you don't have much of a domestic industry to produce something the public wants, like clean energy or rapid surface transit, the choice can be between not having it and buying it from someone else. Though there are smart and less smart ways to buy from someone else.

China's purchased rail technology from abroad the smart way. Figure out who knows what they're doing, get them to train your people and set up factories in your country. Sure, they make some money off of it, but the purchaser gets the seed of a new domestic industry.

Long term, air travel is very likely going to get more expensive over the next few decades. The carbon emissions profile of jet travel is ridiculous, and the hassle of going to an airport in any country has become immense.

When air travel returns to the rarity of its early years, which it will, it would be far better to have an alternative already in place than to have to scramble to create one. While getting practiced in dealing with light rail projects is important, while current efforts are just a start and we only just started making streetcars again, a rapid passenger transit system broadly competitive with current air service is going to be crucial to maintaining something like the present level of transportation services.

Did that sound to grim? Let's put it another way.

The United States has barely invested anything at all in rail research, and yet our current, clunky technology is competitive with better-funded, better-researched air travel and driving when it comes to damaging emissions--what if we actually spent some money and time on it? Current mass transit technology even provides many benefits to people who don't use it, which is a neat trick for an old technology. Though best of all, high speed rail can be competitive in comfort and convenience with air travel, just ask regular commuters along Spain's Madrid-Barcelona corridor:

... Two years ago, nearly 90 percent of the six million people traveling between Madrid and Barcelona went by air. But early this year the number of train travelers on the route surpassed fliers. The trajectory is ever upward.

... “It is not about the environment, it’s that people are very satisfied by these trains,” [Josep Valls, a professor of marketing at the Esade Business School in Barcelona,] said. “This is really changing the paradigm of travel for Europe.” Other AVE lines connect Madrid with Seville and with Málaga. ...

Rail that's comparable or better than air travel along major transportation corridors would take a lot of pressure off the current air travel routes and will be able to make its own case to consumers for why they'd rather hop on and off a train rather than trundle through a mile of security checkpoints. You can use your phone on a train. They can put wireless on them so you can surf the net. There can be more bathrooms. You can stand up and move around more. They can provide wide aisles and access to a food car throughout the trip. They can share terminals with local public transit, so less sky-high airport parking or cabs.

Train travel can be very nice, and I bet more people would like it if they had access to it the way it could be. There's a reason why it's really popular in the northeastern US: it's extremely convenient, and more comfortable than the alternatives, to get between cities without either a car or a plane ticket. And here in the Northeast, it isn't even as good as it is in Europe, where they've invested in trains and people have overwhelmingly chosen to use them, even though they could afford not to.

The US should develop high speed rail because it's the smart thing to do. It might not be the first thing we should do, nor the highest priority. But sooner or later, if we don't want to be totally backwards in comparison to countries that plan better for the future, we need to build these systems. And we'll probably like them just as much as everyone else who has them.

If that starts by getting help from abroad, even from our fiercest competition, fine. Just so long as it really is help, and we really do come out of the deal with a viable domestic industry.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future