High-speed rail for The Korean and Abrahamic Schools
1. High-speed rail as a school bus 2. The Korean School 3. The Abrahamic School
High-speed rail as a school bus
Ever since the first Shinkansen train was launched in Japan in 1964, high-speed rail (HSR) has been a practical option for those who want to commute daily to faraway locations that would otherwise be out of reach.
In 1827, 137 years before the Shinkansen launch, a vehicle was introduced to carry a certain group of individuals each day to a relatively distant location.These people were children, and the mode of transportation was the school bus, which existed as a horse-drawn carriage for 77 years.Prior to that, people could not picture a vehicle whose sole purpose was to carry multiple students to school each day.Students in rural areas could now reach a central school without taking their parents or draught horses away from the fields.This innovation has had a significant effect on worldwide literacy rates since farmers who could not afford time away from their fields were now able to send their children to school. High-speed rail can also have a significant effect on a worldwide priority - the resolution of the Korean Peninsula and Golan Heights stalemates. Unsuccessful resolution attempts and the maintenance of the militaristic status quo in these two conflicts have consumed billions of dollars.By investing the same amount on high-speed rail links, the international community can enable children of each side's leaders to learn together by day and describe it to their parents by night. With right-of-way given to the students' trains, these rail lines can concurrently be used for the general public.
Click above to open a map of the existing Korean rail network.
The Korean School Pyongyang - Panmunjeom/Darasan - Seoul
The French TGV trains
have been clocked at 263 km/hr for an average speed - not fastest speed - between two stations. Let us assume that that average speed is unattainable on a daily basis and that 240 km/kr is more realistic. If Pyongyang is about 145 km in a straight line from Panmunjeom, where The Korean School would be, the North Korean students would have about a 36 minute ride on the train each way, during which their teachers or other adults could take attendance, conduct a study hall period, show educational videos, or have the students work on plugged-in laptops. School would start the moment the students boarded the train in Pyongyang. If the North Korean students in this calculation are given 34 minutes to get to the Pyongyang station from their homes, which is a generous amount with there being minimal traffic in Pyongyang, they would have a 70-minute commute each way, which is less than what some students in the U.S. and elsewhere encounter.
Seoul is roughly 50 km from Panmunjeom, so if these students were to travel by high-speed rail, their rail trips would be about 13 minutes. However, each student's commute to the Seoul station would be longer than those of their Pyongyang classmates given the traffic problems of Seoul. Also, a regular bus could be used on both sides to take to Panmunjeom those students who miss the train. They might be two hours late in arriving, but that is better than an absence.
Click above to see why the location of The Abrahamic School might make a good rail hub for the region.
The Abrahamic School: Damascus and Daraa, Syria - Nazareth, Israel - Irbid Jordan
The location of The Abrahamic School, at the southern tip of the Golan Heights, is roughly 40 km from Nazareth, 110 km from Damascus, 25 km from Daraa, and 20 km from Irbid. Its centrality to these cities and others in the Western Middle East make it an ideal location for a future high-speed rail hub. Potential routes such as Haifa-Damascus, Amman-Beirut, and Tel Aviv-Daraa could all pass through this one spot without going noticeably out of their way. Thus, if high-speed lines were built for students commuting to The Abrahamic School, these routes could then be the foundation for a wider network, with travellers changing trains at the station next to this school.
Using the conservative figure of 240 kn/hr as the average speed of these passenger trains, as described in the aforementioned Korean example, we can assume that students coming to The Abrahamic School from Damascus would not have to spend more than 30 minutes on the train each way. The students coming from the other three cities would probably have a ride of 12 minutes at the most each way. Of course we would also have to factor in the students' travel times from their homes to the high-speed station in their city.
