I agree with the quote below. In fact it shows High Speed Rail is not green. Takes too much green (money) to build and too much of the same to keep up. And it is not green (environment) because it takes too much energy to get up to speed. But that is a thread to itself.
Quote:
The speed thing is another area in which I've run the numbers. The problem is that the energy needed to overcome wind resistance increases with the square of the speed. The increase in energy to overcome wind resistance at 60 mph rather than 45 is 78%. I've seen from train performance calculators that wind resistance is about half of the total at 60 mph. So you save 36% of the fuel by making that fuel reduction. And that is why many railroads made that speed reduction for intermodal trains when fuel casts skyrocketed.
