Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 468 posts

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#251

Post by munk-a »

NoNameHaveI wrote: post #222
iandanforth wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorant American question. Why is this the case? What are the costs that railroads are having to pay that makes them more expensive?

This is worth your 8 minutes of time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ I love trains, but the economics of rail travel in the USA can't be overcome. Until robot trains.

I have seen that and agree that country-wide train service is indeed expensive, but there really should be better offerings on the east coast that could compete against bus service. Being on a train with plenty of room has a huge quality advantage over buses and the scaling of their carrying capacity means that companies can be more free in allowing luggage and seating space than the economics of planning the layout of a bus.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#252

Post by okmokmz »

ghaff wrote: post #26
Kiro wrote: post #19

This article shows how culturally different Sweden and U.S. are. In Sweden it has become taboo to use the plane for any travel destination where you can go by train, to the level where we see the complete opposite headlines here ("There is no reason to fly when you can take the train"). You need to have a very good reason to fly at all or the pitchforks will get you. I've personally completely stopped flying.

Many people are fine with taking the train in the US when it's remotely competitive in terms of time and price. However, in practice, that mostly means a subset of the Northeast Corridor (the whole thing is about an 8-hour trip vs. a short flight) or a handful of various city pairs that are only a few hundred miles apart. But it's simply not practical for me to take the train from Boston to Chicago, much less San Fra…

I've never been in a situation in the US where a train was even close to competitive in terms of time and price

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#253

Post by balabaster »

stuaxo wrote: post #233
balabaster wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That bit sounds like hell to me Yeah, us Brits don't like to do anything that sounds like it might be fun when we're under stress. We want to sit there and bitch and complain about the fact nobody is fixing the track and who is going to get fired for it. We definitely don't want to have anyone distract us from that with anything that looks like it might be fun. /satire

Hey, the moaning bit IS the fun.

This is why all our greatest comedy is people moaning... Life of Brian, Holy Grail, Fawlty Towers, Little Britain, the list goes on...

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#254

Post by mrighele »

hylaride wrote: post #214
ip26 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really answer the question. What about planes is cheaper? For simple economics to apply, they have to do something cheaper than trains, and it's not obvious what that is. As far as I know, for example, trains are significantly more fuel efficient per passenger-mile.

There are several reasons why flying can be so cheap in Europe: 1. The discount airlines have become masters at turnaround times. When the planes are sitting at the gate, they're not making money. They slashed these as much as they could. 2. They only fly one model of airplane (typically either the 373 or a320) to simplify maintenance. 3. Most major airports in Europe are privatised. One of the effects of this is tha…

> (there are edge cases where the airports pay the airlines to go to them, but those are rather rare exceptions).

Thing may have changed since a few things happened meanwhile, but a couple of years ago Ryanair got about 100 Million EUR [1] (sorry, link in Italian) from various Italian airports. Verona airport used to pay up to 24 EUR per passenger to low cost companies.

My understanding is that some airports have been opened for political reasons even when there was no real need, so they are "forced" to make such agreements in order to guarantee a decent amount of passengers.

I'm wondering if this happens also elsewhere in Europe.

[1] https://www.corriere.it/economia/17_marzo_18/cento-milioni-a...

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#255

Post by db48x »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #197
dagw wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then $1000 doesn't seem that expensive really, especially if that includes in-room shower and toilet

Common showers, but this wasn't a problem at all for us. The NY Chicago line had toilets in the compartment - but I mean in the compartment, not a separate bathroom. So not so great. The California Zephyr (Chicago SF) has common toilets. The one in our sleeper car was broken for the whole trip, for which Amtrak only gave us the slightest nod of recognition.

There are three in every sleeper car, so the failure of one is not a huge problem.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#256

Post by cjensen »

tzs wrote: post #207
cjensen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When evaluating the price, consider that it is also a hotel room and comes with free meals. Compare it to air fare + hotel room for X days + decent meals for X days and the price becomes less painful.

I'm not sure that is the right comparison. Let's take a New York to Los Angeles trip. That would be 3 days on Amtrak, or about 6 hours by plane. I'd guess that for most cases flying instead of taking the train doesn't mean we spend the 6 days that we would have spent on the train (round trip) in a Los Angeles hotel eating expensive restaurant meals. I think most people would simply leave home later and leave Los Ange…

My base assumption is that one goes on Amtrak for the scenery. So it's not at all like being at home; it's more like being at a scenic resort.

Note that some people use Amtrak because they are afraid of flying. This way of looking at the prices does not apply to them.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#257

Post by munk-a »

72deluxe wrote: post #202
cubano wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the guy was really good? I personally think a well-executed acoustic guitar singalong can add a lot of real joy to any group experience. I've played in rock bands since I was 15 (I'm north of 50 now), and I've been on stage in front of a thousand people and I've played to killer mosh pits and all that, but my best memories of all those years were the after-parties where it was just me and my bassist with acou…

I think Brits find public singing embarrassing, and even more so if the person doing it is right next to you, and a complete stranger. It gets worse if it involves a guitar. Of course, this changes if alcohol is involved. I get the feeling that showcasing some skill in a public fashion is loved in the USA, not so much in the UK. We typically want to sit and not disturb others, and find any other kind of disturbance a…

In the US observing someone showcasing a skill in public is usually not enjoyable but there is less of an emphasis on decorum and politeness and more of that good ol'libretarian individualism so going out into public and demonstrating how heart stoppingly amazing you are is a pretty common occurrence.

I think this is a bit different than busking which tends to be relegated to locations where people aren't required to hang around for long periods of time (like outside a metro station where someone enjoying your music can stay and chill for a while or just continue into the relative quiet of the station platform.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#258

Post by Symbiote »

iandanforth wrote: post #153
ritchiea wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains can also be pretty quaint in Europe today now that low cost airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair offer cheap flights to most major cities. I live in Berlin and even domestic trains are far more expensive than domestic flights to medium and large cities.

Ignorant American question. Why is this the case? What are the costs that railroads are having to pay that makes them more expensive?

In no particular order:

1) Fuel tax. There's no tax on jet fuel, but rail companies pay tax on their diesel or electricity

2) Inflexible service, but high expectations. The European rail timetable is changed twice a year, and those trains will run (in normal circumstances). There will be a train from X→Y every hour from 5am until midnight, and those trains run even if very few people use them on a particular day. An airline can change the schedules more easily, and cancel/rebook passengers at fairly short notice.

3) Rail infrastructure is subsidized differently to aircraft infrastructure. I don't know enough to compare which benefits the most. Externalities aren't costed properly (e.g. noise and pollution).

4) Railways must still provide low-profit-(even loss)-making services, they may be expected to do this using profits from other routes. For example, long distance intercity trains might be subsidizing rural services.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#259

Post by Symbiote »

123jay7 wrote: post #164
oarsinsync wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faux-pejorative indeed. Cattle are required to be given more space when being transported, than humans are, in Europe. Human class is below cattle class.

I don't think that's true. Have you seen how they move cattle in trucks? Maybe more space than a human because they take up more space, but they stacked right next to each other.

Have you seen the commuter trains in some larger European cities, like London, Paris, Brussels (I think)...?

People sometimes aren't just stacked, they're squashed.

Re: There is no reason to cross the U.S. by train, but I did it anyway

#260

Post by rayiner »

kyleblarson wrote: post #238

My (now) wife and I took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago about 10 years ago. We purchased a private cabin. We were 8 hours late leaving Seattle and couldn't get into our cabin until we got to Spokane because of some sort of merge of trains coming from Portland and Seattle. Got to Spokane, got our cabin, another 6 hour delay. By the time we reached the upper Midwest, they were rationing food, literally cutt…

Yay government-run train service.
Post reply on HN