Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How far can you go by train in 5h?

chronotrains-eu.vercel.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–457 of 457 posts

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

#451

Post by panick21_ »

PaulHoule wrote: post #80
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…

It’s almost forgotten how much resentment Americans had to the private railroads. They would buy land along the tracks, refuse to make a stop in your town, and start a new town. There was a phrase, ‘railroaded’ to describe being a victim of this power imbalance. As such, people saw the roads as belonging to everyone but railroads being to the benefit of a few.

Yeah partly because the roads were literally paid for by the state, specially the highways, and truck and bus companies don't have to pay for maintenance.

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

#452

Post by panick21_ »

rr888 wrote: post #27
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…

I used to think this too, now I live here the American system actually works pretty well. Railways are actually very busy with freight, which keeps it off the roads and freight doesn't mind pauses and running overnight. Lots of rural connections are much easier to drive. Even between cities its easier because for train connections you'd have to get to the station (usually central) where if you drive you can go direct…

So many wrong things here.

Unless you are talking about dumb mass freight, freight does actually mind just staying around. Its just that all those things have been taken of the railroad.

> As a result people are much more mobile and can live in a wider area in USA

If they have money for a car.

> where in Europe to commute to the office you really have to live near a train station

That's nonsense. There are these things called bicycles and also these things called trams and buses.

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

#453

Post by panick21_ »

DrBazza wrote: post #91
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…

I'm not convinced high speed rail would ever work in the US due to how entrenched the car culture is, regardless of the terrain. In Europe with we have spoke-and-hub railways - want to get into London? There's almost certainly a local station near you in the suburbs. Then jump on the Eurostar to Paris. Get to Paris, and then get a local line back out to wherever you want to go. Right now, it would have to be airport…

> how entrenched the car culture is

You mean the culture of the government spending an absurd amount of money on highways and each town massively subsidizing sprawl?

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

#454

Post by nautilius »

hunterb123 wrote: post #363
mrgriscom wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Residents of the US territories are US citizens with the exception of American Samoa

Technically yes by the Jones Act, in a very limited sense... there are restrictions as well as tax exemptions. So I wouldn't really consider citizens of US territories full US citizens. So maybe it's more appropriate to say they aren't Americans, but they are US citizens. But that is all semantics. My main point was the reason they don't have US representation is they don't have US taxation.

I would think many people on HN have US taxation without US representation. A bit ironic, really.

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

#455

Post by panick21_ »

bluGill wrote: post #213
melling wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would never work because of our car culture? I’m going to use my imagination on this one since “never” is a long time. The year 2040. Two technologies combine make never a reality. 1. Maglev trains that travel at 350 miles per hour (600kph) 2. Self-driving taxis Exhibit 1: https://www.cnn.com/travel/amp/china-fastest-maglev-train-in... NY to LA in 10 hours by maglev sometime in this century. The 4 hour maglev between…

China is backing off their high speed maglev trains. While it is possible to make maglev go that fast, wind resistance means it is far to costly. A large airplane (because it runs at 30,000 feet) is not only faster, it uses less energy. If vacuum trains ever happen, then things change. However those are very expensive to build, and have safety issues. We can solve the engineering problems with safety, but the expense…

And then the vac trians need to compete with electric plans on many routes.

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

#456

Post by panick21_ »

gwbas1c wrote: post #212
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…

Trains "work" in Europe because many European cities are easily walkable. The trains (and other public transportation) comes every 10-15 minutes, so you can leave and arrive when you want to. Now, consider the convenience of traveling by car: You can leave and arrive when you want to. For a longer journey, you don't need to deal with transferring between trains/busses/whatever, which means that you can keep your lugg…

The solution should be to make US cities walkable, as they were in the past.

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

#457

Post by panick21_ »

onionisafruit wrote: post #215

This is very timely. In September I will have four days of down time with my wife in Paris. We want to get out of town but don't know where. This gives us some options. If anybody here has suggestions where we can spend a few days taking in non-Parisian France, let me know.

You can hope over and check out Geneva in Switzerland, very nice place.
Post reply on HN