MUNSTER || An executive for the world's largest high-speed train maker showed 30 people Thursday how to get to Indianapolis in less time than it takes to get to downtown Chicago -- without ever leaving the ground.
"If it happens in the rest of the world, it can happen here," said Charles Wochele, vice president for business development at Alstom's U.S. transport division.
Wochele had just shown those at the Indiana High Speed Rail Association's annual meeting at The Center for the Visual and Performing Arts a video of the record-breaking 360-mph run of the French TGV train in April of last year.
Passenger rail, let alone high-speed rail, has been a tough sale in Indiana. Gov. Mitch Daniels has told advocates he wants to see more evidence of its economic benefits before spending any time on it.
In November, the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority voted 4 to 2 against funding a $125,000 study of a high-speed rail plan that would have focused on Gary/Chicago International Airport.
Since the first TGV pulled out of Paris in 1981 for Lyon in south-central France, the system has grown to eight main lines to virtually every corner of the country, as well as other European countries, Wochele said.
Wochele's talk was part of an annual exercise, where leading rail manufacturers send top executives to Munster to show off their wares. Alstom, based in Paris, is the world's leading manufacturer of high-speed trains.
Sebastien Gourgouillat, construction and transportation attache for the Embassy of France, told the audience building high-speed rail is an arduous task. It took more than 20 years to develop the first TGV line.
"High-speed train is a very expensive public commitment, but it can be very cost effective," Gourgouillat said.
A new TGV line from Paris to Strasbourg already has snatched 60 percent of market share from airlines and highways between the two cities, Wochele said.
On the expense side, Wochele said a high-speed rail line looking for $10 billion in public funding in California would have a total price tag of about $40 billion.
That kind of public commitment apparently would be difficult to garner here.
The Midwest High Speed Rail Association counted it as a major victory when it doubled the state of Illinois' funding for Amtrak to $24 million two years ago, said Richard Harnish, association executive director.
The RDA's rejection of funding for a high-speed rail study was a particular blow this year, because just weeks before the funding was given a favorable recommendation by an RDA committee.
"As it turned out the RDA in the final analysis did not provide funding," Indiana High Speed Rail Association President Roger Sims said. "But it raised the issue of high-speed rail in our little corner of Northwest Indiana."
