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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?

#441

Post by vanderZwan »

stratom wrote: post #8

It 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.

The thing is that this used to be better. Groningen (north of the Netherlands) used to connect to Germany. I think there are new plans to restart that. Lots of international night trains also were abolished a decade ago.

I wonder how much privatization has played a role in this.

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

#442

Post by ianleighton »

haspok wrote: post #429
littlecranky67 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I believe I’ve read this was also due to Iberian gauge high speed rail technology not really being existent at the time Spain started building HSR in a hurry for Expo ‘92? in Sevilla, and they’ve continued using standard gauge for it (to the benefit of the link with France).

However the huge investment in HSR (longest network after China, but low utilization), has also come at the cost of the local and regional train network (which still use broad gauge, yes there are gauge changing trains, but the broad gauge network is languishing).

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

#443

Post by rurban »

izacus wrote: post #78
maeln wrote: 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 ...

And then you have Brussels, center of EU which has a massive reach.

And then you have Lille, the logistic centre of the European train network. (Eurotunnel)

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

#444

Post by nickbauman »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #364
sudosysgen wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you're conflating things. There is a market for low latency rail freight. The rail companies find that it's better to keep the rail as is and invest the profits somewhere else. That doesn't mean that the market doesn't exist. The correct approach is for low latency rail freight to operate on passenger rail systems which already have the necessary speeds and flexibilities. This is structurally unfeasible in the…

The freight companies own the railway, they optimize the rails for freight, which is why we move much more freight by train than Europe. Passenger service is something they do for the federal government subsidy and nothing more. And actually, sharing tracks between passenger and freight service is something that they don't really do in Europe. Because they share tracks, American passenger trains have to build at a we…

This is a perfect example of path-dependent policy. Because the decision was to select for freight, other kinds of rail are "unfeasible". I'm using scare quotes to suggest that it's not really unfeasible, it's a choice.

And since trucking capacity has been maxed out in the US for quite a while (Amazon is the big mover for this situation, even before covid), you can bet this path dependence is biting us now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence

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

#445

Post by nickbauman »

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.

I believe this as well. And I happen to know of one of the largest rail systems in North America changes its topology weekly. I'm not sure "throughput over latency" is as much of a mindset as those here who say it is.

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

#446

Post by aj7 »

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).

That line is Southwest Airlines.

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

#447

Post by panick21_ »

andjd wrote: post #154
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 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…

And European cities also have a real city center connected with lots of things in the city, rather then just endless sprawl around a small city core.

The Freight network is also not as elite and really only good at a few specific things.

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

#448

Post by panick21_ »

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.

> Freight does not need to travel super fast or super high tech.

That depends on what you want to ship. In the US the train just gave up on many other class of freight. Yes, large scale slow bulk transport doesn't need speed, other things might.

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

#449

Post by panick21_ »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #364
sudosysgen wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you're conflating things. There is a market for low latency rail freight. The rail companies find that it's better to keep the rail as is and invest the profits somewhere else. That doesn't mean that the market doesn't exist. The correct approach is for low latency rail freight to operate on passenger rail systems which already have the necessary speeds and flexibilities. This is structurally unfeasible in the…

The freight companies own the railway, they optimize the rails for freight, which is why we move much more freight by train than Europe. Passenger service is something they do for the federal government subsidy and nothing more. And actually, sharing tracks between passenger and freight service is something that they don't really do in Europe. Because they share tracks, American passenger trains have to build at a we…

> And actually, sharing tracks between passenger and freight service is something that they don't really do in Europe.

Happens a lot in Switzerland.

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

#450

Post by panick21_ »

bluGill wrote: post #400
SllX wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And for short distances we are getting very close to where electric planes can show up.
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