Ferrari’s Super Sweet Private High-Speed Rail Plans

April 25th, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

I enthusiastically but briefly mentioned Ferrari’s new high-speed trains in our last transportation news roundup on Sunday. Nice to see Chris DeMorro of sister site Gas2 picked up the story in more detail and I can easily repost that — here it is:

Ferrari Trains Take To The Track In Italy (via Gas 2.0)

When I first read this story, I thought it was some kind of belated April Fools post. A Ferarri train you say? Seems impossible, impractical, unaffordable. Yet the Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV) is the first, and largest private high-speed rail line to open in Europe, and many rich and powerful…

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Tags: Europe, europe high speed rail, europe high speed trains, ferrari, ferrari high-speed rail, ferrari high-speed trains, high-speed trains, Italy, italy high speed rail, italy high speed trains

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Bob_Wallace

I’m in France at the moment and have been able to travel on HSR a couple of times. It’s the answer!!!

I’ll take HSR over flying and driving any day. No showing up two hours early to some airport way out of town and going through the security crap. The warning here is to get to the train two minutes before it is scheduled to depart.

Lots of room to stretch out. Smooth ride, no turbulence. No seat belts/tray tables up/seats in upright position while we bounce down the runway. No waiting to take off.

You can move around when you want. You can look out the windows and see interesting stuff.

For moderate length trips HSR has to be faster than flying. Remember to add in all the extra time it takes to get into the air and from plane back to town.

And it’s electric.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  I had a feeling you were there.
  
  I know, riding HSR in Europe, it’s absurd to read some of the comments against it coming from Americans (which i am, of course).
  
  the benefits are insane.
http://profiles.google.com/nirmalya.c Nirmalya Chatterjee

I’d (and I believe so would many others in my potential income bracket) pay $80-100 for a 6h Delhi-Kolkata trip (it is ~$42 and 17h on the fastest Rajdhani 2AC now). It takes 4h with the travel to airports and checks anyway on a plane, and costs upwards of $80 most of the times.
http://profiles.google.com/nirmalya.c Nirmalya Chatterjee

Wish such like trains would come to the larger metropolises in India. With a third the size of the US, and 12x population densities and carrying loads these would be a win-win for the Indian Railways and the passengers who use the IR system extensively anyway. Imagine doing the major cities in any part of India within 5-12 hours, flights would be passe unless you really need to jet set around like “go in the morning come back in the evening” sort of things – which are almost non-essential anyway with teleconferencing / skype etc already around !
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  last i read and wrote (a year or two ago), China wants to connect its HSR to Europe and is supposedly working with India to help it produce connections through at least part of the country. Really not sure of the details though…
http://work-bench.org/ Christopher Miles

I’m sure some high Speed Rail will make it to California, (eventually) but I am looking forward to small improvements here in the Northeast Corridor (where high speed IS profitable) Perhaps a follow on to Acela, or a final retirement of our (designed in the 60’s) Budd/Amfleet cars

Also there is some big improvement coming in Chigago- at interlocks, and such- to speed basic train track changes/transfer. That area was a real bottleneck, holding up trains of all speeds.

Until the Highways and Airlines subsidies are made more clear to the taxpayer, Rail will always look more expensive.

Sadly, I do have to say, as someone who has given up on Amtrak except for the Northeast Regionals and Acela, (which is pretty pricey) On the long haul routes Amtrak has done a pretty poor job of customer service and reliability, and basic fleet cleanliness and maintenance.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Yeah, CA is up in the air at the moment, and it looks like the US may just be stuck focusing on the NE, but it’s definitely worth focusing on and improving at least.
  
  “Until the Highways and Airlines subsidies are made more clear to the taxpayer, Rail will always look more expensive.” — Exactly.
  
  I heard some horror stories from people (even family members) who love trains but had insane delays riding Amtrak in the SE and CA. When I rode it from NC to DC and later from Seattle to Portland, I had quite a nice time. Clean, TONS of space, comfy, and on time. So,… on the one hand, haven’t had those bad experiences, but on the other, have heard of them. (And it certainly isn’t the same as France, the NL, or Germany’s HSR. :D) — beats the heck out of the Polish rail lines, though! (unfort.)
anderlan

The people who are making money in the present have no interest in change. So they quash the better future. Yet they are worshiped as virtuous by the right. They don’t see that old money is aristocracy, one way or the other, and markets need disruption to grow and change.
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