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

How far can you go by train in 5h?

chronotrains-eu.vercel.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 457 posts

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

#131

Post by PaulsWallet »

rr888 wrote: post #73
avianlyric wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does make the fundamental assumption that train travel and driving are equal from a users perspective. Train travel has the advantage of not needing to do the driving. You can spend that travel time doing something productive, rather than staring at tarmac. Additionally train travel is potentially more accessible (assuming proper investment in infrastructure). The obvious example being that blind people are neve…

You're right of course, I've been stuck on the M1 on a Sunday night and watch a train doing 100 mph blast past. There are good and bad parts on either side. Yes driving means you dont need to concentrate, but you're stuck on someone else's timetable, you can't play your own music or stop off at interesting points along the way.

> you can't play your own music

Wear headphones.

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

#132

Post by Manuel_D »

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…

Trains in the US are widely prevalent! It's just that they're used for freight rather than passenger travel. The main driver behind this is the population density of the USA, cities are spaced too far apart to make passenger travel by train viable. Not coincidentally, the only area that does have significant passenger rail networks, the DC - Boston corridor, has population density similar to Western Europe.

An interesting video on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ

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

#133

Post by [deleted] »

geraldwhen wrote: post #99
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.

No thank you. I live near enough howling dogs. I will never forget the peace and quiet when I stepped into my first house. Why anyone lives in apartments by choice is beyond me. The noise is absurd.

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by pahn »

I made an interactive art installation on this question once: A black box with a knob where you could adjust how much time you have, then it would offer you (Google streetview) panoramas of the locations it found within your distance, and in the end even print a paper slip with your travel itinerary to take with you.

The installation used realtime data (Google directions API): I somehow figured out, that if I would run this from a local machine and reset the browser frequently, Google would let me do this even without an API key… they certainly sensed something was awry and I did get API warnings and captchas because of 'suspicious traffic on my network', but they were nice enough not to block me completely. I strongly doubt this would still work though, this was in 2017.

Pictures and videos of the installation: https://maschinenzeitmaschine.de/derweil/

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

#135

Post by ghaff »

redtexture wrote: post #115
chrisfinazzo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Even the fastest trains Amtrak offers ("Acela") are zoned - or permitted, not sure what the right term is here - up to 150 MPH, and only on specific portions of the route. Makes no sense at all.

The sense is that the Northeast corridor has too many curves and roadbed issues to be able to go faster. There would have to be constructed a new corridor, not in the same path as existing railroad rights of way, for not a small amount of money, and going through expensive real estate. The political will for that is not in existence, so far.

And the fact is that while taking a train the full length of the Northeast Corridor takes too long to be practical most of the time, NYC to points north and NYC to points south works pretty well (i.e. is competitive with flying) with existing trains.

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

#136

Post by dfee »

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 is much smaller than the US. It’s about the equivalent size of New Mexico - which has 1/30th the population (2M).

Public transit isn’t bad - I told on an Amtrak from LA to SD yesterday which was quite nice.

But, I also rode on the LA metro which was filed with mobs of mentally ill marauders.

My experience to Rome (albeit a bit over a decade ago) was similar. That’s an off putting response that likely plays a big role in sinking demand for public transit - esp. as compared to a car.

Of course, America was also designed for the auto - we’re newer, and gas was cheap during the highway construction heyday.

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

#137

Post by wbsss4412 »

madcaptenor wrote: post #128
wbsss4412 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The center of population in the US is still just barely to the west of the Mississippi, whenever people point out how vast and largely empty the US is, the leave out that the population itself is actually generally fairly close together for a majority of the country. You could easily have HSR all over the south, Midwest and NE, and then between population centers on the west coast, just likely not in the desert and w…

See for example Alon Levy's map of proposed HSR for the Eastern United States: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/02/10/high-speed-rai... They've actually done serious investigation of what's viable given typical costs and ridership of high-speed lines elsewhere in the world. The high-speed bits they propose are basically a Boston-Atlanta-Chicago triangle with some ornaments (Chicago - KC, Chicago - Minneapolis,…

It doesn’t make sense to connect Portland and SF, but there’s a lot of value to be gained in connecting Portland and Vancouver BC, and San Diego to SF/possibly Sacramento.

We would definitely want to have a “constellation” of networks rather than one interconnected system given the geography of the US, and that’s fine. There’s never going to be a time when it makes more sense to travel from LA to NYC by rail instead of flying.

The biggest takeaway is that there is a specific role that HSR can play, but it’s not going to take over all long distance trips. Given where we are starting in the US, however, there is a massive mine of untapped potential.

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

#138

Post by davidw »

dfee wrote: post #136
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 is much smaller than the US. It’s about the equivalent size of New Mexico - which has 1/30th the population (2M). Public transit isn’t bad - I told on an Amtrak from LA to SD yesterday which was quite nice. But, I also rode on the LA metro which was filed with mobs of mentally ill marauders. My experience to Rome (albeit a bit over a decade ago) was similar. That’s an off putting response that likely plays a bi…

There are plenty of higher density areas within the US though, where trains would be a good option. Maybe Cyanide Springs, Oklahoma to Blandsville, North Dakota doesn't make sense for trains, but you could do bits of the PNW, California and the east coast with higher quality rail pretty successfully.

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

#139

Post by dahart »

aj7 wrote: post #72
dahart wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly our 1000 mile trips currently take ~24 hours rather than the 5-6 that it could. Multiple factors for that: slow trains; long stops; cargo rail gets priority over passenger rail.

I regularly travel Tucson Ft. Lauderdale. 2100 miles. Including ground transport, door to door is 10-12 hours.

Wow, crazy! On Amtrak?

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

#140

Post by PaulsWallet »

geraldwhen wrote: post #99
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.

No thank you. I live near enough howling dogs. I will never forget the peace and quiet when I stepped into my first house. Why anyone lives in apartments by choice is beyond me. The noise is absurd.

You are assuming you only have 2 choices, single-family home or apartment. That's a very American perspective because most of America only allows those two but in a proper city you have townhomes, duplexes, casitas, bungalows and many more options that aren't just apartments. However, most of American is zoned exclusively for single-family homes and not mixed-use so like the parent comment said, you don't get benefits of proper density which includes many home types.
Post reply on HN