I would recommend an edit to the title to include Europe.
How far can you go by train in 5h?
391–400 of 457 posts
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#392It also shows how much the train networks focus on domestic travel. In nearly all bigger countries it is possible to reach most bigger cities within the 5h. But journeys in this time-frame seldomly go much beyond the border. There is still much optimization potential for transnational travel in Europe's train network.
It also shows an effect that the focus on high speed rail brings: rural areas are often very badly connected. Here in France they've even kept shutting down regional lines. That creates the train equivalent of "fly-over states": areas that you see from the train while going through, but that it would be impractical to go to .
As a contrast Japan seems to have done a pretty good job of maintaining rail service in really rural areas.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#393Earlier 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…
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…
https://hsr.ca.gov/ is coming. $100B though... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s more comfortable to be on a train than a flight and people are happy taking ten hour plus flights no problem.
To be fair, you also get about three to four times the distance per minute out of it (850km/h pretty much the whole way as the crow flies vs 250 average if you're lucky plus curves). To be clear, I find it absurd that airplane companies are still allowed to sell tickets without pricing in externalities for trips with good and high-speed train connections like Paris–Madrid. However, for actually going somewhere far aw…
The Paris-Madrid connection is not really good though, as you have to go all the way to the east of Spain and pass through Barcelona before heading west towards Madrid.
Luckily, there are some lines under construction that will connect Spain to France through Irún, and which should make things much better.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#395For the Europeans on HN: on the East coast of the US, the furthest you can get by train in ~5h is roughly Boston to NYC, or NYC to Washington, DC. Both are roughly equidistant (~220 miles, ~354 kilometers). One of the perverse things with our passenger rail network is that you can actually take take trains that "only" take 2.5 hours, but: they run nonstop point-to-point, and any subsequent connection you make (e.g. t…
With a modern high-speed rail line, you'd theoretically be able to get from NYC to Chicago in around 4:15, even when accounting for stops along the way. That's an average of 300 km/h. There are already lines in service elsewhere the world that are that fast.
The fastest service was Wuhan–Guangzhou, which averaged 313 km/h on non-stops, but is not run any more.
Chicago-NYC with stops would probably be 5 hours, which is barely competitive with flying. The intermediate stops would potentially make it viable though.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#396I delight in isochrone maps[0]! There used to be some open source, web interfaces but they all became commercial. An isochrone map is one of the best tools for weekend get-aways, job hunting, and finding a home location. OpenStreetMap[1]! Add it to your site, it will be great hit, in my opinion. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map [1] https://www.openstreetmap.org
>I delight in isochrone maps
I almost orgasmed reading "isochrone maps". I wasn't aware of the "concept" but it's one of those things you go "of course it is".
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
American here, I’d disagree about Hawaii and Alaska but agree about the non-state territories. The non-state territories being unable to vote and not having representation in the legislature means that they don’t get as much attention in national politics, so they’re less top of mind. (Yes, both of those situations suck and I wish we would change them.)
They don't have representation (in the US) and are unable to vote (in US elections) because they aren't US citizens and don't pay (US) taxes. But if you're a US citizen living over there and you made money from sources other than from that territory, you would have to pay US taxes.
So a regular (ie mainland) US citizen has to file taxes (& pay if earnings 108k+) of living anywhere in world. Does this stay true if same citizen lives in these territories you refered?
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have been wishing Apple or Google maps would add this as a feature for at least five years now. When I’m in a new city for work, and I know I have 90 minutes til my next meeting, it would be massively helpful to see every lunch place in a 15-25 minute walking radius. The fact that there’s still not a “search/filter by transit time” feature in any Maps app seems like proof there’s not enough competition in that spac…
I think what Maps really needs is more widgets that reduce the screen real estate of the map until we can finally drop that feature entirely.
Then you'd love degoogled android!
I'm shocked how many apps rely on the google maps widget. It's expensive and mediocre, and ridiculously flaky on my phone.
The web touch UI is laughable, but at least the average third party occluding widget size keeps growing on mobile web pages -- I wouldn't want more than 10% of my phablet screen to be wasted displaying the map I just pulled up, after all!
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not if you already own the car. Then the cost of the car and insurance are sunk costs that do not count. Sure there is a little wear and tear, but that adds just a couple bucks. If you buy a car/rent for that trip alone, then the cost of driving is far higher. However for most Americans the cost of a car is a sunk cost that cannot be counted. If you live someplace where it is possible to live without a car, then you…
The resale value of the car, insurance (even if you don’t do pay per mile, insurance quotes are generally going to have some basis in miles driven per year), and maintenance are all directly correlated with miles driven. So, while these are often treated as sunk costs, that is due to improper accounting. So, to reiterate, the cost of driving is much more than the cost of gas.
Age of a car is the largest factor of value, not miles. Used to be cars wore out in 70,000 miles, but the 1970s are long gone. Yes miles lower the value of a car a bit, but not much.
Re: How far can you go by train in 5h?
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 peopl…
Well with Maglev, Portland to San Francisco could make sense via Sacramento. You wouldn’t want to do it on the coast because of the mountains, and there’s at least Redding and Ashland and a couple of other places in-between. At 500 km/h (310 mph) you could feasibly do Sacramento to Portland in under two hours. The less straightforward question is how much of the metro area do you serve around those two cities, and do…
Wind resistance at ground level means that an airplane is much more energy efficient at those distances and speed. As such those distances are unlike to work just because an airplane is so much cheaper even if because of speed it is time competitive.