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How far can you go by train in 5h?

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Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#81

Post by AlotOfReading »

secretsatan wrote: post #56
ejb999 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Intranational flight is a lot more common there. I imagine the economics of it are better, lower ticket price, and in many cases probably quicker too, even including airport BS. That is the problem in my opinion - I prefer sitting on a train, to sitting on a plane, but for most routes I need to travel (within the US) it takes longer to get there and is more expensive than flying - why would anyone want to pay more…

The more rail improves the more I'm tempted to take it, with flying you have the additional time cost of just dealing with the airports, turn up an hour early, then get put in the metal tube where they won't serve you drink till they're up in the air, and you can't bring your own. A train may take longer sometimes, but I find the whole thing much less stressful, you're not strapped to the seat, you have leg room, eve…

It's hard to overstate how different the European rail experience is from the American experience. SFLA is a 50m, $50 flight. It's approx. 9h and $400 by rail. In practice, the last time I attempted that route it took 15h because the train had issues halfway and none of the assigned seats had power or legroom.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#83

Post by redtexture »

black_puppydog wrote: post #11
stratom wrote: post #8

It also shows how much the train networks focus on domestic travel. In nearly all bigger countries it is possible to reach most bigger cities within the 5h. But journeys in this time-frame seldomly go much beyond the border. There is still much optimization potential for transnational travel in Europe's train network.

It also shows an effect that the focus on high speed rail brings: rural areas are often very badly connected. Here in France they've even kept shutting down regional lines. That creates the train equivalent of "fly-over states": areas that you see from the train while going through, but that it would be impractical to go to .

This is the strong argument against high speed rail in the USA.

We don't even have anything close to regional rail, and highspeed rail would consume all public capital that would be used to improve regional rail systems.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#84

Post by wbsss4412 »

js2 wrote: post #32
qalmakka wrote: post #22

As a European it boggles my mind seeing how trains are basically non-existent in the USA (just look at Houston station), given how dominant the whole "Wild West" railroad rush is in everybody's immagination. Railroads are super ubiquitous here, and we've to work with a pretty hostile terrain - Italy has lots of mountains, hills, rivers, and yet has one of the best networks in the world. Most of the USA are basically…

Italy compared to U.S.: https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTY3OTMzNjA.NTkxNzE... U.S compared to Europe: https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTc4NDEwOTE.MjkxMDg... My daughter, visiting home from college this weekend, took Amtrak from Richmond, VA yesterday. She's taking the train back Monday. Without delay, the train takes about 4 hours. Driving takes about 3 hours. Add an extra 15 minutes on each side f…

> Cost of the train is $42 (coach) each way. Cost of gasoline would be ~ $24 each way.

The cost of driving is more than just the cost of gasoline.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#85

Post by emaginniss »

d--b wrote: post #28

This is great, but it would be better if the selection of the station was a textbox or a smaller map. Right now you have to zoom in to select a station, and then carefully zoom out to see the reach.

Or if you could click to "lock on" to a station and then zoom out

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#86

Post by [deleted] »

qalmakka wrote: post #22

As a European it boggles my mind seeing how trains are basically non-existent in the USA (just look at Houston station), given how dominant the whole "Wild West" railroad rush is in everybody's immagination. Railroads are super ubiquitous here, and we've to work with a pretty hostile terrain - Italy has lots of mountains, hills, rivers, and yet has one of the best networks in the world. Most of the USA are basically…

[deleted]

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#87

Post by nisa »

ramboldio wrote: post #30

It's sad to see how disconnected the national railway systems are in eastern europe. Basically, 5h always fills the national borders but no further in Hungary, Romania, Poland etc E.g., train connections from Czech Republic to southern Germany are missing all together.

> train connections from Czech Republic to southern Germany are missing all together.

This is a huge problem IMHO. You always have to use the route via Dresden/Prague - it was different in the past - Would be really great if there would be some Eurocity Nürnberg-Pilsen or Munich-Budweis.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#88

Post by richiebful1 »

rr888 wrote: post #48
dr_dshiv wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that means the modern USA misses out on the inherent benefits of density. This is a weird counter rational behavior— it is in everyone’s perceived best interest to live in big separate homes, but the collective social economic benefit of living together is evident. Also evident is how sprawl sucks vitality from culture.

I get that, I live with children in an apartment in a city. However most people dont want that, the trend to WFH means people are moving to smaller, quieter locations away from other people.

Is that driven by preference or cost? In my own case, I moved to a smaller town (mostly) because it's a lot cheaper. Most of the denser areas I would prefer to live would be significantly more expensive than rural Appalachia.

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#89

Post by adamjb »

stratom wrote: post #8

It also shows how much the train networks focus on domestic travel. In nearly all bigger countries it is possible to reach most bigger cities within the 5h. But journeys in this time-frame seldomly go much beyond the border. There is still much optimization potential for transnational travel in Europe's train network.

Fascinating how clearly you can see this with the 5hr limit from Dusseldorf being pretty much exactly the French border from the Atlantic to Switzerland

Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?

#90

Post by tcmart14 »

melling wrote: post #35
Robotbeat wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact the US is basically empty means the cost to build a HSR route to go between population centers is super high because of the sheer distances involved. You’re talking like 1000 miles, not 200. The places which are closer together, like the East Coast, do have some passenger rail but they’re also much denser, like Europe, and so they have the same kind of constraints (or worse). The US has a lot of freight rail…

Yes, we agree we should only build where it makes sense. 1000 miles is quite far. That would be 5-6 hours! - NYC - Miami 1300 miles - NYC - Chicago 800 miles Then we have these: - NYC - Philly 92 miles - NYC - DC 225 miles - NYC - Boston 215 miles - NYC - Portland, ME 325 miles - NYC - Pittsburgh 380 miles - NYC - Cleveland 470 miles - Cleveland - Chicago 350 miles - St. Louis - Chicago 320 miles - Houston - Dallas 2…

Maybe I am misunderstanding some of the intent. But yes, a rail from NYC to Miami is far, but when you chunk it up, it makes sense. For a NYC-Miami, you could have stops in Philadelphia, DC/Baltimore, Richmond, Raleigh/Durham, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Orlando. It would really depend on the route. Like a NYC-Portland OR or Seattle, you can make some pretty good stops from NYC to Chicago, but once you get past Chicago, there probably is any really good population centers for stops there between Chicago and Portland/Seattle. So in some areas, those distances can be justified, but for sure we have some that can't be easily justified.
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