Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
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Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
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Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#2This is a very good article. It's interesting to see why HSR costs so much.
For those TLDR. HSR fails cost/benefit analysis.
The paragraph is very good :
"By CA HSR’s own numbers, the completed system may carry 35 million passengers per year by 2040, or 100,000 per day. This capacity could also be served by a fleet of just 40 737s (less than current LAX-SFO traffic), of which Boeing makes more than 500 per year. Bought new, this fleet would cost $3.6b, and with a lead time of, at most, a few months. Upgrades to Modesto and Bakersfield airport terminals could service the 737 for mere $10s of millions. The fleet would cost about $2.9b to operate each year, which under current airline business models can be served by fares of about $60 each way. If we operate this airline for free (no tickets!) for 40 years, the total operating costs climb to $120b, which is equivalent to CA HSR’s currently wildly unrealistic estimated construction costs."
Rail is great, for freight.
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#3What I find odd about this is that... Trains are the go-to means of intercity transport across much of Europe.
The term "High speed rail" isn't strictly defined, but seems to kick in somewhere between 110 and 155 mph. Pretty much every intercity train in the UK is running at 125mph for at least some of their journey. Europe is full of functioning high speed rail networks - TGV, ICE, Eurostar, networks in Spain and Italy. If you include 125 mph networks then there's loads of them - and those older, slower high speed networks have more or less been profitable.
Even the US has a high speed rail corridor in the North East.
The author tries to make the argument that there's physical limits to high speed rail that mean it'll never catch on. But the limits are far more political than physical.
If you live in the UK or Europe, rail is the go to method of travel between cities.
Edit to add: the distance between LA and San Francisco is 382 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as between either London and Edinburgh and London and Glasgow. There's something like 22 trains a day on each route - more or less every half hour during the day. The time from city centre to city centre is better by train than plane or driving. That's not even a proper "high speed" train - the routes they follow were laid out in the 1800s.
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#4This is a very good article. It's interesting to see why HSR costs so much. For those TLDR. HSR fails cost/benefit analysis. The paragraph is very good : "By CA HSR’s own numbers, the completed system may carry 35 million passengers per year by 2040, or 100,000 per day. This capacity could also be served by a fleet of just 40 737s (less than current LAX-SFO traffic), of which Boeing makes more than 500 per year. Boug…
>HSR fails cost/benefit analysis
It only fails the cost/profit analysis. The benefits are priceless when we consider the environmental impact.
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#5Riding the high-speed rail in China made me so envious of that setup. If we had that in certain locations in the U.S., it would be absolutely amazing. You just show up a half hour before your train (gotta get there earlier in certain huge stations) and basically walk on. The train ride is buttery smooth with a lot of space, and you can order food from the next station to be delivered to you if you don't want any of the food available directly on the train. And with USD, first class and the even higher end business class is not just attainable but cheap. The equivalent train rides with Amtrak in the U.S. are twice as long and several times as expensive and uncomfortable.
Edit: Did some searching and found the North Atlantic Rail initiative. According to the article I read, it would take 20 years to build. What a joke. What is going on in the U.S. that we can't do this stuff?
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#6> Despite decades of development, only a handful of routes in Europe operate at anything like airplane-competitive speeds, which for all but the shortest routes, require > 300 km/h or > 185 mph.
Not really, given massive fixed cost at airplane terminal and airports being typically harder to get to than train station.
When I was flying this summer, I was asked to come to airport 150 minutes before planned departure.
200 km/h train would still be faster for distances of about 700 km.
And even for longer routes benefits of comfort, larger possible baggage, lower stress and so on would make it a clear winner.
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#7This is a very good article. It's interesting to see why HSR costs so much. For those TLDR. HSR fails cost/benefit analysis. The paragraph is very good : "By CA HSR’s own numbers, the completed system may carry 35 million passengers per year by 2040, or 100,000 per day. This capacity could also be served by a fleet of just 40 737s (less than current LAX-SFO traffic), of which Boeing makes more than 500 per year. Boug…
CA HSR is indictment of California, not of high-speed rail.
CA HSR is uniquely badly mismanagement and operating in runaway NIMBY land.
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#8This is a very good article. It's interesting to see why HSR costs so much. For those TLDR. HSR fails cost/benefit analysis. The paragraph is very good : "By CA HSR’s own numbers, the completed system may carry 35 million passengers per year by 2040, or 100,000 per day. This capacity could also be served by a fleet of just 40 737s (less than current LAX-SFO traffic), of which Boeing makes more than 500 per year. Boug…
>HSR fails cost/benefit analysis It only fails the cost/profit analysis. The benefits are priceless when we consider the environmental impact.
>priceless
not really
environmental impact has limited costs, and investing to reduce environmental damage makes sense when benefits are sufficiently large for given cost
Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#9What I find odd about this is that... Trains are the go-to means of intercity transport across much of Europe. The term "High speed rail" isn't strictly defined, but seems to kick in somewhere between 110 and 155 mph. Pretty much every intercity train in the UK is running at 125mph for at least some of their journey. Europe is full of functioning high speed rail networks - TGV, ICE, Eurostar, networks in Spain and It…
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Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on
#10This is a very good article. It's interesting to see why HSR costs so much. For those TLDR. HSR fails cost/benefit analysis. The paragraph is very good : "By CA HSR’s own numbers, the completed system may carry 35 million passengers per year by 2040, or 100,000 per day. This capacity could also be served by a fleet of just 40 737s (less than current LAX-SFO traffic), of which Boeing makes more than 500 per year. Boug…
>HSR fails cost/benefit analysis It only fails the cost/profit analysis. The benefits are priceless when we consider the environmental impact.
Yep, it's easy to calculate the cost analysis of a train. But the numbers of its benefits aren't defined or understood since environmental impact of what they replace (car creation costs, car maintainence,road build and maintainence, fuel extraction and use). What's the economic (and environmental) cost of cars where these costs aren't priced in to the value proposition?