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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?

#201

Post by rockostrich »

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…

As an American, it doesn't really boggle my mind at all. We have a very car-centric culture. Just look at how we treat cyclists/cycling infrastructure, especially in cities. It's night and day compared to most European cities.

To be fair though, the continental US is almost double the size of Europe and Amtrak is actually alright in the areas that it serves (although my experience with trains in Switzerland/Italy was definitely much better).

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

#202

Post by bluGill »

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…

Because not enough people live along the way. Sure you an build track and run trains, but 5 hours on a train is about the time where flying is enough faster that people will fly instead of taking the train. Less than 5 hours train competes well (stations are closer to you, and no long security lines), but after that airplanes are enough faster that few people would use a train. That means only a small number of people will ride the train for those middle stations.

Sure if you are building a track you can put in stations in towns that don't generation much traffic, but you still need traffic from somewhere and it won't come.

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

#203

Post by ClumsyPilot »

geraldwhen wrote: post #103
CPLX wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think any answer to this has to involve two staples of American culture, cars and racism. The prevalence of both has been a big detriment to rail initiatives. For whatever reason people have associated a nearby train station with crime and opening up the neighborhood to the "wrong people". And the incredibly cheap and ubiquitous car culture (especially in the post-war period) provided the alternative. That of cours…

I used to walk past a bus station to lunch most weekdays. Nearly every single day I witnessed an assault at the bus station. Mass transit hubs do bring crime. Why minimize that?

> Mass transit hubs do bring crime

I never realised we had Stalinists over here - thats a line of seasoning he would endorse - gather up all the poor and the undesirables, send them off to a gulag and the rest of us don't have to be bothered by them.

Actually Stalin doesn't fit, it's more of a victorian england or feudalist line of thinking

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

#204

Post by madcaptenor »

TylerE wrote: post #184
Kon-Peki wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can take any national plan seriously if it doesn't include Chicago/Memphis/Jackson/New Orleans. Passenger rail service has been in almost continuous operation on that route since a little after the Civil War. It has to be there for the symbolism alone.

An industry with incredible capital overhead and razor thin margins is no place for symbolism. Times change. In 1860 New Orleans was the 5th largest city in the country. Today it is 52nd.

Levy addresses this, and agrees with you: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/03/22/high-speed-rai... Basically, Amtrak started out with the existing rail network, which is going to be oriented to early-20th-century population centers, and so New Orleans is well-served by Amtrak standards. But a modern network in the South would be oriented more towards those parts of the South that have grown - Texas and the Piedmont - and less towards New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis.

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

#206

Post by jakear »

cptcobalt wrote: post #200
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

GP asked for a well founded data-based argument, assuming they don't actually want that is in bad faith.

I agree with GP that the connection between sensors and high speed to better freight rail is tenuous, whereas large amounts of tonnage moved more clearly indicates good freight rail.

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

#207

Post by tyrfing »

richiebful1 wrote: post #88
rr888 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Preference.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/05/23/did-the-p...

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

#208

Post by ipsi »

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.

What noise? I've been living in an apartment for three and a half years and the noise is really not a big deal. The primary issue is being quite close to a busy-ish street, which can be annoying with the windows open. With the windows closed, it's basically a non-issue. And when I do hear my neighbours, it's heavily muffled and just turning on the TV is enough to drown it out.

Yes, older buildings can have terrible sound insulation, but modern apartments are well-built and you won't hear a thing (at least in Germany, and in my experience).

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

#209

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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!

> Most of it is "dark territory" (no track sensors), unlike Europe.

Have you seen the USA? The places where they lack track sensors are basically out in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles.

> One of the most lucrative rail systems in the US had an average speed of their trains in the single digits MPH!

That really isn't bad for freight. They optimize freight for throughput, not latency (something passenger rail is more concerned with).

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

#210

Post by mypalmike »

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.

One reason is that, once you arrive, options for public transport within the destination city in the US are limited. So you need a car once you get to your destination anyhow. What do you do when you step off the train in Atlanta or Savannah?

I just spent 7 weeks traveling around Europe by train. I would not have considered that approach without the extensive local public transportation systems. Atlanta is not remotely in the same league as Berlin in terms of public transit.

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