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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?

#11

Post by throwaway742 »

kijiki wrote: post #7
cratermoon wrote: post #2

If it's Amtrak, about 3 miles.

As a counter to this low-effort, flip comment, I semi-regularly take the Amtrak Capitol Corridor from San Jose to Sacramento. It is about 3 hours. It takes about 2 hours to drive with no traffic, but if you need to travel on a weekday during the morning or early evening, the train is much faster. And you can read/work/sleep/whatever.

I once took Amtrak from Portland to Seattle and it took me over an hour to make it across the Columbia River. Apparently it had something to do with a delay and freight trains having priority.

Even with bad traffic it takes longer for me to take the Metrolink to LA than if I drive. Up until recent gas price increases it was more expensive too. I haven't experienced rail service on the east coast, but at least in my experience on the west coast it is horribly broken. I say this as someone who believes in it and wants it to be successful. I have given it so many chances and it has failed me every time.

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

#12

Post by sofixa »

danybittel wrote: post #8

Pretty cool, but damn is it slow . Takes about 25% of GPU and CPU here. One could argue, it doesn't need to be faster, after all it is just an experiment. But I say, what if it were faster? Would we look at the same thing? Or rather, would he / she have added more features, maybe drawing on the map, planning trips or additional heat maps? Maybe some gamification? Oh the possibility! But no, because its JS it's the en…

> We have to remind ourselves, that performance is the number one feature of Computing

No. Utility and usability are the top features in computing. Performance is very important, but if you have the fastest website/app out there that doesn't do anything or it does it so bad nobody can use it, it's useless. As you can see, people can tolerate slower performance for utility and usability.

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

#13

Post by londons_explore »

I consider 'average travel speed' to be a critical metric by which to judge society.

There is an average travel speed for people, information, and goods.

The telegraph, telephone, and internet all revolutionised travel speed for information. Each one enabled far more than the one before it.

Average travel speeds for people haven't done so well - people in London 100 years ago travelled at an average of 12 mph, mostly on trains and cars. Today, travel in London still averages 12 mph. People still spend 1-2 hours most days travelling.

Planes with jet engines have a big boost to international travel speeds, but the fact they cannot be landed in your backyard means the average travel speed (including getting to and waiting at the airport) isn't great. And when they are expensive, they aren't used much, so don't impact the worldwide average much.

So: If you here on HN can think of a way to dramatically increase travel speed for people, goods, or information, I think you will become rich, famous, and very impactful.

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

#14

Post by HPsquared »

londons_explore wrote: post #13

I consider 'average travel speed' to be a critical metric by which to judge society. There is an average travel speed for people, information, and goods. The telegraph, telephone, and internet all revolutionised travel speed for information. Each one enabled far more than the one before it. Average travel speeds for people haven't done so well - people in London 100 years ago travelled at an average of 12 mph, mostly…

I'm not sure there is much value in measuring this in simply spatial terms, like miles per hour. A mile of dense city covers a lot more "ground" than a mile of desert.

How about a measure which accounts for population or economic density, say "people per hour". Hard to make the units work though, as density is a "per square mile" type of quantity.

How about "number of people/businesses accessible within 1 hour" or 5 hours etc.

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

#15

Post by boondaburrah »

throwaway742 wrote: post #11
kijiki wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter to this low-effort, flip comment, I semi-regularly take the Amtrak Capitol Corridor from San Jose to Sacramento. It is about 3 hours. It takes about 2 hours to drive with no traffic, but if you need to travel on a weekday during the morning or early evening, the train is much faster. And you can read/work/sleep/whatever.

I once took Amtrak from Portland to Seattle and it took me over an hour to make it across the Columbia River. Apparently it had something to do with a delay and freight trains having priority. Even with bad traffic it takes longer for me to take the Metrolink to LA than if I drive. Up until recent gas price increases it was more expensive too. I haven't experienced rail service on the east coast, but at least in my e…

As someone from the east coast who's done both Seattle to Portland and Boston to New Haven, the difference is nuts. From what I understand, Amtrak owns the tracks on the NY-BOS stretch, but everywhere else has to yield to slow moving freight trains (we were stuck for 45 minutes). By comparison, the trip to New Haven was completely smooth sailing. The idea that passengers should yield to freight seems absolutely backwards to me.

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

#16

Post by flo123456 »

londons_explore wrote: post #13

I consider 'average travel speed' to be a critical metric by which to judge society. There is an average travel speed for people, information, and goods. The telegraph, telephone, and internet all revolutionised travel speed for information. Each one enabled far more than the one before it. Average travel speeds for people haven't done so well - people in London 100 years ago travelled at an average of 12 mph, mostly…

Then again faster travel often results in more sprawl, less dense neighborhoods and does not reduce average travel time very much.

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

#18

Post by gregoriol »

Nice way to show that data!

However, it's difficult in this form to choose a station: for big cities with many stations, you have to zoom in quite a lot to target one, but then with the zoomed view you can't see all the reachable stations...

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

#19

Post by atoav »

HPsquared wrote: post #14
londons_explore wrote: post #13

I consider 'average travel speed' to be a critical metric by which to judge society. There is an average travel speed for people, information, and goods. The telegraph, telephone, and internet all revolutionised travel speed for information. Each one enabled far more than the one before it. Average travel speeds for people haven't done so well - people in London 100 years ago travelled at an average of 12 mph, mostly…

I'm not sure there is much value in measuring this in simply spatial terms, like miles per hour. A mile of dense city covers a lot more "ground" than a mile of desert. How about a measure which accounts for population or economic density, say "people per hour". Hard to make the units work though, as density is a "per square mile" type of quantity. How about "number of people/businesses accessible within 1 hour" or 5…

I would factor energy into this.

  Number of people able to access necessary points of interest per hour per joule of energy used in that trip
A place where everybody can access all the things needed for life literally by walking out their front door is far superior to one where you have to step on a rocketship to go for groceries.

Also there has to be a point where you use so much space and energy for transportation that you will not be able to have any given unit of area support a lot of people.

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