Today US, I believe, is at point of no return. I highly doubt we will see any considerable train system modernization, comparable to the Asian nations, EU, or, maybe, even Africa.
Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
181–190 of 334 posts
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#182I’ve visited Europe many times and I do like how the region is so easily accessible without a car, largely because of trains, but there are many more factors outside of just having trains. European cities are far more walkable and accessible without a car. For decades the US has just not been built up in this way so just dropping trains in doesn’t suddenly make them preferred and thus viable. The reason people drive…
I normally live in Europe. At the moment I'm in Baltimore. The city's downtown area (around the inner harbor) is perfectly walkable. Nearby DC is also perfectly walkable, while driving is a nightmare. These two cities should be well connected by rail but they're not. People would drive to a parking lot beside a metro station and get into the city that way. Two cities can only be linked effectively by rail when there…
Washington-Baltimore is actually a very good connection by rail--you'll have a train at least once an hour--except that the station for Baltimore is in the wrong location. Baltimore Penn Station is located far to the north of the city, well outside the Inner Harbor that's going to be the center of tourism and visitors.
What happened is that, historically, Baltimore-Washington was mainly served by the B&O, whose Baltimore station would have been right next to Inner Harbor (Camden Yards is essentially built on old railroad property). When passenger service was consolidated into Amtrak, the Northeast Corridor instead chose to use Pennsylvania Railroad trackage instead of B&O from DC to NYC, and the freight trackage in the corridor consolidated onto the B&O tracks instead. The resulting residual commuter rail line has the standard commuter rail/freight rail politics going on that limits the number of trains that can transit the route.
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#183I’ve visited Europe many times and I do like how the region is so easily accessible without a car, largely because of trains, but there are many more factors outside of just having trains. European cities are far more walkable and accessible without a car. For decades the US has just not been built up in this way so just dropping trains in doesn’t suddenly make them preferred and thus viable. The reason people drive…
At the dawn of the age of rail, Germany had double the US population in an area about the size of Montana. There were a lot of people who wanted to move around way before cars were a factor, so you see much, much better rail systems in Europe.
Probably a bigger factor is that, in the early 1940s, virtually the entire infrastructure of Europe was destroyed. In March 1945, there were no operational bridges across the entire length of the Rhine river. All of that infrastructure was rebuilt in the late 1940s and the 1950s to then-modern high speed standards; by contrast, the US has to make do with infrastructure upgraded at great cost around the 1910s.
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#184This is rather obvious and has always been a major advantage of rail. The problem is the capital costs and real estate requirements of building the rail lines, especially when locations are far apart and there's already existing infrastructure that needs attention.
When you think of an American state with a growing population you can take the existing infrastructure as a given and plan for rail for your new capacity. Unless you are willing to say we're just not going to add transportation capacity for our new citizens, you face a choice of road, rail, or air. Rail is often a good choice. As for "far apart" this seems irrelevant. Ohio has a greater population density than does S…
It's not that simple or we would have it already.
Rail is expensive to build and maintain, and stations even more so. The lack of freedom of a car means the train must stop where people want to go and this creates a lot of complexity in how routes are connected, the size and number of trains, service hours, total throughput, ticket prices, and most critically having effective last-mile transit so people can actually get to the station to use the train.
Ride sharing may fill that last-mile today but overall the US is too big and spread out both between and within cities to for trains to be as viable as they are in Europe where everything is much closer together.
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#185Today US, I believe, is at point of no return. I highly doubt we will see any considerable train system modernization, comparable to the Asian nations, EU, or, maybe, even Africa.
I bless the trains down in Africa
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#186Why are they so expensive then?
Here in New Zealand, I can drive most places cheaper than I can take a train. That's one person per vehicle vs a train car full of people. I just can't figure that one out.
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#187I’ve visited Europe many times and I do like how the region is so easily accessible without a car, largely because of trains, but there are many more factors outside of just having trains. European cities are far more walkable and accessible without a car. For decades the US has just not been built up in this way so just dropping trains in doesn’t suddenly make them preferred and thus viable. The reason people drive…
Didn't the US car companies actively lobby against and destroy the budding streetcar transport in most cities? I admit its not exactly rail, but you do have trams / streetcars in many European cities too - like Amsterdam. I would think they would be a much preferred public transport option than everyone driving their own car.
Culture is not something which happens automatically - sometimes its driven by corporates, and the stronger the incentives for the corporates, the harder to resist, until the only one capable of doing so is the government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you think of an American state with a growing population you can take the existing infrastructure as a given and plan for rail for your new capacity. Unless you are willing to say we're just not going to add transportation capacity for our new citizens, you face a choice of road, rail, or air. Rail is often a good choice. As for "far apart" this seems irrelevant. Ohio has a greater population density than does S…
That’s because we’re skipping rail entirely http://www.morpc.org/program-service/hyperloop-midwest-conne...
The Hyperloop idea is over a century old and has never been viable yet, and never will be until construction and energy costs drop by magnitudes. It definitely isn't feasible in any place where a regular railway doesn't already work.
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#189Bicycles are quite the pollutant
Re: Trains are more efficient and less polluting than other transportation modes
#190This is rather obvious and has always been a major advantage of rail. The problem is the capital costs and real estate requirements of building the rail lines, especially when locations are far apart and there's already existing infrastructure that needs attention.
> especially when locations are far apart I don't think distance is a relevant factor: train tracks cost about the same as a two-lane highway while having higher capacity. Stations are fairly expensive, but when locations are far apart that's not a significant factor. The bigger problem is that you can't profitably service low-demand routes with trains. Trains excel on high-demand routes but when you only want to mov…
The difference is that roadways allow anyone to stop whenever and wherever they need to, while a railway requires stations to be strategically placed.
Two major cities with high traffic between them can seem ideal but still not work out because people need effective last-mile transport too, and they have other places where they want go that requires a car.