171–180 of 457 posts
There is a lot of what-if here, but the reality is that most people in the USA prefer the flexibility and speed of (1) Driving wherever and whenever and carrying all your stuff with you, and then (2) flying to your destination for speed. You can cross the east coast in 3 hours or the go to the west cost in 6 on a convenient red-eye. Taking the train is more a novelty, and unclear who would actually use it regularly b…
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The USA has a world-class _Freight_ rail network, and almost all existing track in the country is owned by the freight operators, who manage the track to optimize it for freight operations. In many cases, they are openly hostile to passenger service on their tracks. On top of this, most cities in the USA were built (or destroyed and rebuilt) for private cars being the primary mode of transportation. In Europe, one of…
No it doesn't have a world class freight rail network. The North American rail infra is incredibly primitive. Most of it is "dark territory" (no track sensors), unlike Europe. I used to write rail automation software for a German firm. They were appalled at the state of affairs here. One of the most lucrative rail systems in the US had an average speed of their trains in the single digits MPH!
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…
The Amtrak trains are slow? I mean even adjusting for the potential 40 to 10km difference and the fact that the NS does between 8 to 10 stop depending where you want to go out in Brussels or Amsterdam, 4h for a 241km trip is slow.
It is a bit cheating as if you want to do Brussels - Arlon, a 190-ish km trip inside Belgium, it will take you 2h45. And if you want to more or less cross Belgium from North to South (Oostende to Arlon), 310-ish km trip will take you around 4h15 by train and between 3 to 4h by car due to the fact that you will take the Brussels ring road. So small country, yep. Still 4h for 241km is slow.
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The USA has a world-class _Freight_ rail network, and almost all existing track in the country is owned by the freight operators, who manage the track to optimize it for freight operations. In many cases, they are openly hostile to passenger service on their tracks. On top of this, most cities in the USA were built (or destroyed and rebuilt) for private cars being the primary mode of transportation. In Europe, one of…
No it doesn't have a world class freight rail network. The North American rail infra is incredibly primitive. Most of it is "dark territory" (no track sensors), unlike Europe. I used to write rail automation software for a German firm. They were appalled at the state of affairs here. One of the most lucrative rail systems in the US had an average speed of their trains in the single digits MPH!
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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.
Even ignoring the money, if you try and do a project like that you are going to get slapped in the face by all the same "cutting apart muh neighborhood" rhetoric that gets used against highways. Grade separation and "just paying those people to go away" are both expensive enough to be non-starters.
Interface seems to be broken on mobile iOS.
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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.
For me, in DC, the trip is half the distance (1,000 miles) and would take twice as long (25 hours, according to Google).
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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,…
or Levy's 2021 version for the whole US and adjacent bits of Canada: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/03/22/high-speed-rai... , which follows They did the math and decided to connect Florida to the main Eastern component (based on there being enough demand for Atlanta-Florida travel), so there are four components - the main Eastern component, Texas, California (+Vegas, Phoenix), Pacific Northwest (Portland to…