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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?

#191

Post by Kon-Peki »

scythe wrote: post #147
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…

> the cost to build a HSR route to go between population centers is super high The cost is high, but more painfully, the cost per-mile is higher than for the same distance of railroad in Europe or East Asia. That's not a result of pure geography. Also, while the cost is high, it's not actually that large in comparison to the overall DoT budget, which is projected at $142B for FY2023. You could build a lot of train fo…

Toledo directly to Chicago doesn't make a lot of sense. Most of the track would go through Indiana, which is at best indifferent to Amtrak.

Consider instead putting Detroit in between the two. The Chicago-Detroit route already operates at 110 mph, Amtrak and the Michigan Dept of Transportation already own the majority of the track and give routing priority to passenger trains. Amtrak and VIA are already talking about a Chicago-Toronto train that doesn't require passengers to disembark for immigration/customs, and their systems are already connected via a rail tunnel under the Detroit River.

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

#192

Post by throwaway0a5e »

vidanay wrote: post #100
PaulHoule wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost forgotten how much resentment Americans had to the private railroads. They would buy land along the tracks, refuse to make a stop in your town, and start a new town. There was a phrase, ‘railroaded’ to describe being a victim of this power imbalance. As such, people saw the roads as belonging to everyone but railroads being to the benefit of a few.

A significant portion of the land wasn't bought, it was acquired through eminent domain. And an even more significant portion of the land was simply stolen from natives (both by settlers and by the railroads.)

I see both those cases as "stolen but with a kangaroo court veneer of due process"

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

#193

Post by madcaptenor »

hannasanarion wrote: post #126
OJFord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this is down-voted so, but to me also outside the US it seems correct? You bill for travel between stations, there'd be a lot more track & travel between stations in the US, on average, if it were as ubiquitous. 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.

Nobody's asking for an express train between Jackson and Billings. When you exclude the Mountain States and Alaska, the US has about the same population density as Western Europe. There's no good reason for us to have zero public transit options between Atlanta and Savannah, Madison and Milwaukee, Columbus and Cincinatti, Denver and Colorado Springs, or Mobile and New Orleans.

Quick sanity check here, because I've seen this claim and never bothered to check.

Let's say Western Europe = Germany, Austria, Italy, and everything west of them, i. e. Benelux, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain (= UK - Northern Ireland). (I'm including the UK and excluding Ireland because there are rail connecctions from Britain to the mainland but not from Ireland to Britain. I'm excluding Denmark because isn't that really Scandinavia?)

Total population: Germany = 84m, France = 68m, Britain = 66m, Italy = 59m, Spain = 47m, Netherlands = 18m, Belgium = 12m, Portugal = 10m, Austria = 9m, Switzerland = 9m, Luxembourg = 1m. Total is 383m.

Total area, in km^2: Germany = 358k, France = 551k, Britain = 228k, Italy = 301k, Spain = 499k, Netherlands = 41k, Belgium = 31k, Portugal = 88k, Austria = 84k, Switzerland = 41k, Luxembourg = 3k. Total is 2225k.

So the population density of western Europe is about 172/km^2 or 445/mi^2.

The only states this dense are DC, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware; New York and Florida are just under the cutoff.

If I've done the math right, DC + NJ + RI + MA + CT + MD + DE + NY + PA + OH (74m people/429k km^2) is the largest contiguous bunch of states which is over 172 people/km^2.

If we take the east to be everything east of the Mississippi, I get 190m people in 2.301m km^2, or 82 people/km^2. If we add in CA + OR + WA that actually drags down the density a bit.

So the densely populated bits of the Northeast/mid-Atlantic are as densely populated as Western Europe. But the eastern US as a whole isn't.

I agree that those pairs of cities you mentioned should have better connections between them though.

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

#194

Post by bluGill »

ant6n wrote: post #181
skellera wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s easy to call something out as primitive but what changes could be made and how much impact would it have? It doesn’t seem like our freight trains are the bottleneck when moving goods around the country.

They kind of are if you consider how many goods are still shipped by trucks. The US is perfect for rail - lots of long trips, with lots of goods. It could probably have more market share if goods could move more quickly and flexibly.

While there is a lot US rail could do to get more freight, the fact is we send a lot more freight by rail than Europe.

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

#195

Post by ClumsyPilot »

PopAlongKid wrote: post #40
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…

> a pretty hostile terrain - Italy has lots of mountains, hills, rivers So does U.S., a lot more in fact. The length of Italy north to south is 1,320km, the distance from San Francisco to Chicago is 3,220Km and that's only 2/3rds of the east-west distance of the continental U.S. And there are two major mountain ranges to cross on that trip, and huge stretches with almost no population. (How many deserts to cross does…

how are deserts a relevant problem?

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

#196

Post by cptcobalt »

nickbauman wrote: post #162
andjd wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I'm surprised by the general opposition to your comment. I agree. US transit infrastructure, including rail, is anything but world class. Sure, we move tons of freight, but is that the standard alone?

Just because it works doesn't mean it can't be improved better. It's always ok to reject the "don't fix it if it's not broken" mentality.

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

#197

Post by eloisant »

Robotbeat wrote: post #26
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…

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…

We're not talking about doing NYC - SF by train, but there are a lot of places where it makes sense.

As I used to live in the Bay Area, it really surprised me that there was no bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Yes, apparently it's planned but it boggles my mind that they waited so much before building it.

Americans don't realize how much nicer train is compared to plane for medium distances (up to 500 miles). Station being in the middle of the city, get in the train 10 minutes before departure without check-in or security, no waiting 15 minutes on the tarmac before disembarking... I guarantee you the door-to-door time is going to be lower.

Also train is more confortable, seats are wider, you can use phones/electronics for the full duration of the trip...

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

#198

Post by madcaptenor »

Gwypaas wrote: post #189
madcaptenor wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. You don't want a line down the entire West Coast, even though it's tempting to draw. But a line from Vancouver to Portland makes sense, as does a "greater California" system - roughly lines from Los Angeles to SF, Sacramento, Vegas, San Diego. The latter is basically the California HSR system that's under construction, plus the proposed privately built line from LA to Vegas. (Levy also proposes LA to Phoenix;…

Why not? The great advantage of high speed rail is that with intermediate stops along the route you can service smaller cities which previously, or as you just did, would be considered flyover country. Thus making the value of the system greater than just the end terminuses. Just looking at the towns between Portland and Sacramento Salem, Eugene and Medford exist. Neither would themselves ever be valuable enough for…

I'm sure they bring some value but my understanding is they don't bring enough value. But I could be wrong!

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

#199

Post by FVYPblNGl7R9ZAc »

bobthepanda wrote: post #118
chrismartin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone considered the following? In a small town, you have a section of track running parallel to high speed rail. The track has a small and short "local" train (maybe just a couple of cars) that picks up passengers and accelerates to maybe 80 MPH, while the high-speed train slows to the same speed. The trains run next to each other for a couple of miles, some doors open between them, and people can step between…

It has been considered and basically it’s not really reliable or practical or safe.

Is there any writings on this? It sounds interesting.

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

#200

Post by cptcobalt »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #175
nickbauman wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

And how much tonnage moves on your "smart" rails? I'll let you pick the metric.

Imo, your choice of scare quotes around "smart" telegraph your unwillingness to consider even a well-founded data informed argument, for what it's worth.
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