If the federal safety standards simply amounted to “Use a failsafe signal system design for speeds over 30 mph and automated train operations”, or even “Do something to fix it when a problem with your system design is identified”, they’d be fine. Somehow I expect the federal standards wouldn’t be that simple and straightforward, though.

Mind you, even with this caveat, the FRA and FTA are as competent as Michael Brown, so any system they’d design is likely to be bad. Unless the feds have a very good reason not to use the train control systems of Japan or Europe, they shouldn’t try to invent things. Third world countries rarely do well when they try to reinvent the wheel.

In Europe, the reason they don’t have those rules is that instead of buff strength, they invest in signaling that prevents accidents. European and Asian trains, and most American passenger trains, have positive train control technology, which ensures that if the engineer drives too fast or runs a red light, the train’s computer will override him and stop the train or slow it down. The New York City Subway has had such a system from the beginning.

The extra weight that ends up in US passenger rail cars is extra metal to strengthen the car in case it does try to occupy the same three dimensional space as a freight train. Who’s going to win in a Mack truck versus a Honda Civic – the Mack Truck. But a Mack Truck versus a Chevy Suburban is a different story, even though both SUVs and sedans are designed with many safety features, in the end it still comes down to basic physics.

What they need to do to make HSR viable here in the US is get together enough money for a large enough system to place a big order to justify the R&D of a US compliant HSR train. That means big money. I say we cut out 10% of the military budget for 10 years and we’ll easily have the money.