China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network • Hacker News Board

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#211

Post by flukus » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 12:39 AM UTC

aninhumer wrote: post #158

skybrian wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure GDP per capita makes sense for this comparison when ownership is distributed so unequally in the US. Taking the mean is basically dividing up wealth equally and that's not what happens. What is there about the German standard of living for typical citizens that compares unfavorably to the US? How can this be measured? No single number works, but I would suggest looking at medians ahead of means.

There are some Median Wealth figures on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... The US apparently has about half the median wealth of many European countries, although notably not Germany, which is comparable to the US on this metric. But I'm not sure how meaningful this is or what factors might be affecting the numbers. (And I'm not even exactly sure what's being measured.)

Not sure how seriously that can be taken either. Australia is so high but most of that wealth is in over inflated property values.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#212

Post by ajmurmann » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 12:51 AM UTC

brohee wrote: post #170

ajmurmann wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been there I think it's hugely inflated. Chongqing isn't really a giant city but a large city with a huge rural area around it that has been declared to be part of the city now. Not sure why that even happened. Maybe so that it can become a special trade zone without much political work?

30M of the 50M people of the municipality are urban, but yes it's more a large conurbation than a city proper.

Oh wow, according to wiki you are right and it's larger than Shanghai which I would have never thought. I guess the city feels smaller because of the central peninsula.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#213

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 12:55 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #198

Spooky23 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of good city pairs. People are paying to be carted like baggage by Spirit. We subsidize highways and air travel at the expense of other ground options. It shouldn't be 70% cheaper for me to drive my family to Florida or the Carolinas for vacation from NY vs air or rail. But it is. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, do that I95 trip every year. There are dozens of corridors like that.

I'm not sure I understand. Even if rail were cheaper to get from, say, Boston to Charlotte, you'd then almost certainly have to rent a car for that vacation so it's hard to see a train being an economical option for most families. And Amtrak does offer an auto train though from Virginia to Florida. I like the train but I don't assume it's a particularly economic option.

There's this newfangled thing called Uner now. ;)

Any trip where people fly is a rail candidate. The hassle and bullshit associated with flying is high and getting higher.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#214

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 12:59 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #192

Spooky23 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of good city pairs. People are paying to be carted like baggage by Spirit. We subsidize highways and air travel at the expense of other ground options. It shouldn't be 70% cheaper for me to drive my family to Florida or the Carolinas for vacation from NY vs air or rail. But it is. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, do that I95 trip every year. There are dozens of corridors like that.

The "Texas triangle" is one example of some good city pairs, which are a lot more practically situated than the pie-in-the-sky NYC-LA route people always bring up as a reason HSR won't work in the U.S. due to distances (and this is not the only such set of routes, just a particularly high-volume set). Houston-Dallas is a very high-volume city pair forming one leg of the triangle, of length around 250 miles. People do…

That's a great point.

The train from Albany to NYC is at or near capacity daily, although it's only 150 miles. Similar use case in many ways... It's enough of a pain to drive that people want to avoid it, and it's better than a car to go to Manhattan.

My uncle used to fly LGA to BOS a couple of times a week... I betcha that train trip is shorter now given the security and other nonsense associated with flying.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#215

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 12:59 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #192

Spooky23 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of good city pairs. People are paying to be carted like baggage by Spirit. We subsidize highways and air travel at the expense of other ground options. It shouldn't be 70% cheaper for me to drive my family to Florida or the Carolinas for vacation from NY vs air or rail. But it is. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, do that I95 trip every year. There are dozens of corridors like that.

The "Texas triangle" is one example of some good city pairs, which are a lot more practically situated than the pie-in-the-sky NYC-LA route people always bring up as a reason HSR won't work in the U.S. due to distances (and this is not the only such set of routes, just a particularly high-volume set). Houston-Dallas is a very high-volume city pair forming one leg of the triangle, of length around 250 miles. People do…

[deleted]

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#216

Post by burger_moon » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 1:09 AM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #161

ghaff wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people do indeed want to get from Point A to point B quickly. That's why there are around 75,000 plane flights per day. There are very few city pairs in the US with the potential volume to justify high speed rail. There already is high speed-ish rail travel in the Northeast and it's very popular. But, for example, even if you could magically offer 6-8 hour train service between New York and Chicago, relatively f…

I think your point is generally valid for the US. However, Chicago-NYC might be a bad example, since it actuality might be viable. The Shinkansen goes ~200mp/h and thus would be able to go back and forth in 4-5hrs. Given that trains are less weather dependent, can drop you off on there middle of the city rather than the outskirts and don't come with the same security theater you probably come out with a comparable ti…

If they built that route what's the likelyhood it wouldn't also have stops in Philly, pitsburg, Cleveland which would add significant time. I can't see it being a direct route with no stops inbetween.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#217

Post by burger_moon » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 1:14 AM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #192

Spooky23 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of good city pairs. People are paying to be carted like baggage by Spirit. We subsidize highways and air travel at the expense of other ground options. It shouldn't be 70% cheaper for me to drive my family to Florida or the Carolinas for vacation from NY vs air or rail. But it is. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, do that I95 trip every year. There are dozens of corridors like that.

The "Texas triangle" is one example of some good city pairs, which are a lot more practically situated than the pie-in-the-sky NYC-LA route people always bring up as a reason HSR won't work in the U.S. due to distances (and this is not the only such set of routes, just a particularly high-volume set). Houston-Dallas is a very high-volume city pair forming one leg of the triangle, of length around 250 miles. People do…

These smaller routes do seem like a very practical case. Another is people going to/from the twin cities -> Milwaukee -> Chicago. You can do it on the Amtrak now but it's very slow and just easier to drive.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#218

Post by NamTaf » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 1:19 AM UTC

kevinnk wrote: post #190

free652 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the study that you quoted, it's total. http://www.misi-net.com/publications/NEI-1011.pdf edit: The other study that you provided includes global warming and air pollution as a "subsidy", no offense but that's pushing the definition. http://imgur.com/a/hNm6a

I'm pretty sure you're correct and those numbers are total since 1950. However, the study does seem confusingly worded - in the footnote on page 1 it says: "All estimates quoted are in constant 2010 dollars, unless otherwise noted, and refer to actual expenditures in the relevant fiscal year, rounded to the nearest billion" At least to me that reads like "all estimates refer to expenditures from the relevant fiscal y…

I think you are. I interpret that as the estimates for each year are quoted in 2010 dollars unless noted and that those estimates (that is, the ones for each year) refer to actuals in each of those years. Then they are summed to produce the $600b.

"from the relevant fiscal year" implies that each value relates to a corresponding fiscal year. Your addition of 'only' is redundant.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#219

Post by NamTaf » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 1:35 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #211

aninhumer wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some Median Wealth figures on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... The US apparently has about half the median wealth of many European countries, although notably not Germany, which is comparable to the US on this metric. But I'm not sure how meaningful this is or what factors might be affecting the numbers. (And I'm not even exactly sure what's being measured.)

Not sure how seriously that can be taken either. Australia is so high but most of that wealth is in over inflated property values.

That's a symptom of broken governmental policy, not so much imaginary value. People still need to buy houses for them to sell, so it's not like the property bubble isn't backed by real money. It's just that people are placing disproportionate value on property over other investments.

For example, say your house went from 400k-500k in a year. For it to be 500k you still have to find a seller. Yes, there's a degree of paper value there however it's paper value only because other properties are selling for that. If you were to somehow remove property from being bought and sold, the money would just go into other investments. There is no way that 'most' of that wealth is wealth on paper in the form of property.

The reality is that Australian wages are very high comparitively. Australia is a wealthy nation.

Re: China has built the world’s largest bullet-train network

#220

Post by ak217 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 1:42 AM UTC

ak217 wrote: post #71

avar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a better photo to make your point: http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0229/c90000-9022441-11.html So it does seem like they're using tracks elevated by concrete pillars pretty widely, but are you sure your image shows a high-speed rail track? To my untrained eye that seems like a really aggressive curve radius for a high speed rail track. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_railway_curve_radius#L...

Yes, it's a high speed track. That's a Siemens ICE train (or a Chinese derivative thereof). A telephoto lens can create this visual effect of depth compression. I'm flabbergasted by people implying that there's a good excuse for why the Western nations can't build HSR the way China does. China has entire lines like this that don't touch the ground for dozens of miles at a time. These lines are out in the country conn…

After looking more closely, that's actually a Chinese derivative of the Alstom Pendolino train first developed in Italy.