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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?

#221

Post by orangepurple »

jfengel wrote: post #179
aj7 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's interesting. You must have some much better train routes out in the big empty spaces in between. What line is that? For me, in DC, the trip is half the distance (1,000 miles) and would take twice as long (25 hours, according to Google).

10-12 hours door to door if flying.

It is 32 hours if driving 130-150 kph on the freeway (80-90 mph) without stopping for food, bathrooms, gas, or sleep. It's probably a few hundred hours with the train since you will have to go a few hundred or a few thousand kilometers north first.

Interestingly, there is a long train line from Louisiana to Los Angeles called the Sunset Limited. Up until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 it ran between Orlando Florida and Los Angeles,

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

#222

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#223

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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…

There really isn't much between Portland area and San Francisco area, and there isn't enough potential economic activity that an HSR would induce (it is too mountainous, which also means building HSR would be more expensive).

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

#225

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sudosysgen wrote: post #217
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 passe…

Track sensors are especially useful in they middle of nowhere. And there are plenty of latency sensitive applications for freight rail which are developed in other places. They don't make sense in the US because the capability isn't there, not because there's no market for it.

> They don't make sense in the US because the capability isn't there, not because there's no market for it.

There really isn't. Freight companies are responsible for maintaining investing in the rail, and if it doesn't make them money, they aren't going to put it there. Heck, a lot of places are single rail (meaning, no two way traffic at the same time), because it doesn't really make sense to dump more money into an extra set of tracks in those places.

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

#226

Post by kurthr »

You can also go Beijing to Shanghai in 4.5 hours. That's over 1200km or 750mi averaging above 260km/hr.

I think it's the fastest long distance passenger service available and has the benefit of being central Shanghai to south-central Beijing (rather than north-east where PEK airport is). That made it noticeably better than business air travel between the two cities.

You could also ride the Pudong maglev (at 430km/hr peak and 250km/hr average), but it was never extended from PVG to Jing An and the main Shanghai station.

However, now you have to go through security at each end which adds at least 1.5hr, and that's ignoring pandemic restrictions.

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

#227

Post by tcmart14 »

madcaptenor wrote: post #156
tcmart14 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pa…

The thing about NYC-Miami is that north of DC the population is along the coast but south of it the population is inland. A route via Charlotte and Atlanta probably pencils out better than one via Charleston and Savannah.

Yea it does. If your gonna make a stop in North Carolina/South Carolina, Charlotte would be a good spot because it would have some good access to then change transportation and go to Charleston or Raleigh or Greensboro. Didn't consider Atlanta though since that would be a lease direct route to Miami. You have to go back East to hit something like Jacksonville or Orlando. But the trade off is, Atlanta is probably a more wanted destination than Savannah. Or pehaps something like Augusta where you don't have to go as far West, but your still not too terribly far from Atlanta.

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

#228

Post by robohoe »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #195
PopAlongKid wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Getting to desert areas to maintain the rails takes time and resources. We're talking about large swaths of deserts and desolate land with absolutely no cities or towns for double-triple digits of miles.

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

#229

Post by bobthepanda »

twawaaay wrote: post #186
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!

I think the term "world class" is unfortunate with connection to freight rail networks. Freight does not need to travel super fast or super high tech. What it needs is to be able to travel everywhere at high throughput and cheaply. US is doing quite well in that regard.

High throughput comes with a caveat, since it’s high throughput given the existing poor conditions.

The US used to have much more tracks, but the private railroads stripped a lot of them as far as they could get away with. There are lines that were four-tracked or were electrified that have now been reduced to unelectrified single track, so you now have a much more sluggish, polluting and congested railroad, and on top of that much is poorly maintained to save money.

—-

Also a lot of the freight is bulk freight like coal. This has led to some interesting dynamics where freight railroads oppose coal plant closures, because they will lose a major source of tonnage.

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

#230

Post by sgjohnson »

eptcyka wrote: post #214
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…

Flying is cheaper than using trains in EU too.

Especially in the UK. It’s cheaper to take a flight between Manchester and London than jt is to take a train.

But the train is the more convenient option, because you don’t have to deal with the security circus at the airport.

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