Live data from Hacker News

How far can you go by train in 5h?

chronotrains-eu.vercel.app

421–430 of 457 posts

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

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is there any writings on this? It sounds interesting.

My google fu is failing me but here are a few of the problems.

---

Reliability

For a connection like this to work the trains have to meet, consistently, every hour or however frequently they run. This is pretty difficult, most rail networks are highly complex and delays cascade across a network. With station transfers this is okay, you can drop off anyone who needs to transfer to wait and let everyone else continue, but in this sort of moving transfer either people just totally miss their connection because it wasn't there, or the train loops around somehow and delays everyone else continuing on.

---

Practicality

Let's say trains meet at 80 mph. Assuming you give people one minute to get their bags, walk to the door, take their seats in the other train (fairly aggressive for anyone who isn't a fit young adult) that means you spend 1.3 miles of distance traveling. That means 1.3 miles of parallel track where neither train can actually stop to serve local communities.

Station transfers in comparison are fairly compact (the length of a train) and they can actually also let people on and off from the surrounding areas with appropriate exits, whereas that's not possible with moving trains.

---

Safety

We can't really guarantee two trains will move at the same speed parallel to each other. Trains are not automated to such a degree outside of self-contained metro networks, full automation is too complex to do in one shot and partial automation is still very complex and in its early days. Also whatever physical mechanism has to be tight enough to accommodate accessibility (wheelchairs can't go over large gaps) and reliable enough to work all the time; what happens if said mechanism breaks down while the trains are moving and conjoined?

---

Finally there's the matter of actual need. If you need trains to not get slowed down, you can have some express services skip connecting to local regional services at all. It turns out demand for that kind of service is fairly limited; as an example, Amtrak has tried several times to introduce nonstop DC to NYC service, but it turns out that the additional passengers do not offset the loss of passengers from Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia.

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

#422
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

5 hours, from New York Penn station to Chicago Union Station (as opposed to killing an hour to JFK/LGA/EWR and another hour from O'Hare), without having to be an hour early on top of that so the TSA can fondle you, sitting in a normal sized chair, allowed to stand up whenever you want, and complimentary wifi the whole time. Yeah, that's competitive with flying.

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

#423
post #47

Amazing map. Hovering around over South Sweden and North Germany, makes it quite obvious that the Femern tunnel will make a difference in connecting that area. Same for connecting north from Lombardy through the mountains.

Sweden-Denmark is already well connected too, but I hope that norway-swesen gets improved.

Sweden-Norway is getting improved, the railroad between åre-trondheim has been 2 separate trains due to the Norwegian train not being electrified. Which is now being worked on. Trains in the northern parts of Sweden will always be sparse due to the low population tho.

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metropolitan france is 54% larger than Germany so its not a fair comparison

Huh? How can metropolitan France be larger than the entirety of Germany?

https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTU1OTU3NTE.MTE5NDg...

or

https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTU1OTU3NTE.MTE5NDg...

helps with convincing yourself.

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

#425
post #18

You can really see the Paris-centric approach in France: From Paris you can reach almost any other major city in 4h, but on the other hand, all the other metropolis can barely reach 1/4th of the other major population center in 4h. Compare this to Germany where almost any major metropolis can reach 80% of the country in 4h ...

The asymmetry from my home town of Bordeaux in the South West is striking, towards the North I can reach Brussels, 763 Km away, but going South I can barely enter Spain which is only about 200 Km away!

The problem us that Spain uses a different track gauge than France, so connecting the countries is difficult.

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

#426
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

5 hours, from New York Penn station to Chicago Union Station (as opposed to killing an hour to JFK/LGA/EWR and another hour from O'Hare), without having to be an hour early on top of that so the TSA can fondle you, sitting in a normal sized chair, allowed to stand up whenever you want, and complimentary wifi the whole time. Yeah, that's competitive with flying.

With a table in front of you [0] and a cafe/bar a minutes' walk away,[1] it's even better.

0. https://www.seat61.com/images/Germany-ICE-2nd2-large.jpg

1. https://www.seat61.com/images/ice4-train-bar-large.jpg

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

#427
post #381
post #134

I made an interactive art installation on this question once: A black box with a knob where you could adjust how much time you have, then it would offer you (Google streetview) panoramas of the locations it found within your distance, and in the end even print a paper slip with your travel itinerary to take with you. The installation used realtime data (Google directions API): I somehow figured out, that if I would r…

Before I had a car, or at times when I don't feel like driving, one of the problems I have is friends who always want to find a place to meet that is "between" us or "near me" where they use an Euclidian metric rather than a public transit time metric. Very often "within a 10 minute walk of ANY train station" is preferable to "halfway between us", even if the train ride is 1 hour, because I can actually work (or catc…

Quite a few. Used this one, while in the US: https://www.meetways.com/

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

#428
post #18

You can really see the Paris-centric approach in France: From Paris you can reach almost any other major city in 4h, but on the other hand, all the other metropolis can barely reach 1/4th of the other major population center in 4h. Compare this to Germany where almost any major metropolis can reach 80% of the country in 4h ...

The asymmetry from my home town of Bordeaux in the South West is striking, towards the North I can reach Brussels, 763 Km away, but going South I can barely enter Spain which is only about 200 Km away!

This isn't so much about France's network being Paris-centric, but the massive natural barrier to transport that is the Pyrenees.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The asymmetry from my home town of Bordeaux in the South West is striking, towards the North I can reach Brussels, 763 Km away, but going South I can barely enter Spain which is only about 200 Km away!

The problem us that Spain uses a different track gauge than France, so connecting the countries is difficult.

Fun fact from Wikipedia:

> Since the beginning of the 1990s new high-speed passenger lines in Spain have been built to the international standard gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in), to allow these lines to link to the European high-speed network.

(...)

> In general the interface between the two gauges in Spain is dealt with by means of gauge-changing installations, which can adjust the gauge of appropriately designed wheelsets on the move.

I didn't know that!

Post reply on HN