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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

#81

Post by sien »

kristopolous wrote: post #41
habibur wrote: post #28

> Indeed, as far as I know there isn’t a single HSR route anywhere on Earth that operates profitably on ticketing revenue The key part.

What about automobile roads and highways? If there's any, on a mile-per-mile basis, it's probably The actual problem is that we have imposed a profitability imperative on some services and not others.

Everywhere except the US cars pay far more in petrol tax than roads cost.

In Australia, where we have cheap petrol compared to Europe or Japan a little over half of petrol tax goes into roads or public transport.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-21/fuel-excise-not-being...

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#82

Post by paganel »

As someone mentions in one of the article's comments, the solution is to "drop down the speed a bit". I.e. HSR will never be able to compete with airplanes if you take both cost and time into the equation, but lower-speed rail can definitely compete against privately-own cars, which would be a bigger win imo.

To take the example of Europe, it's much more important to connect a location, by rail, with as many other locations in a radius of 200-300 km, and, even more importantly, to connect those other locations between themselves, than to connect that location by HSR with another one placed at ~1000 km. So, much more important to connect Paris with Caen, Nantes, Rennes, Brest, Reims, Rouen, Troyes, Tours, Orleans, and, more importantly, to connect Nantes with Caen, or Troyes with Tours, or Reims with Rouen, than is to spend the money in order to build a HSR between Paris and Berlin.

More to the point, I'd rather we spend the money to have the French rail network of 1914, which was slower, but which was covering a lot more places, than the French rail network of 2014, which is way faster, but which is covering fewer places. See this reddit thread for the relevant rail maps [1]

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/202ym3/evolution_o...

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#83

Post by johannes1234321 »

rocqua wrote: post #80
johannes1234321 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a truly working high speed rail network look to Japan. Shinkansen trains are punctual and fast. That is possible with political will. And yes, the German system is a fascinating mixture of really good parts and really bad parts. But while troubled, to large degrees it works to acceptable measure.

The article does state that the Japanese system runs at a massive loss.

Public roads also operate under massive loss. As long as society is willing to pay for it, I don't see a problem.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#84

Post by arinlen »

1123581321 wrote: post #22
dasloop wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many HN publications the label "In USA" is applicable, the equivalent of "In mice" for many medical studies :)

Read the article—the author prefaces with their experience riding trains all over the world and has worked in rail. There is a ton of detail, much more interesting than the conclusion.

> Read the article—the author prefaces with their experience riding trains all over the world and has worked in rail.

That's like claiming they rode taxis a lot and has owned a car, and somehow that makes them an authority on public transportation.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#85

Post by [deleted] »

leoedin wrote: post #3

What 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…

[deleted]

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#86

Post by llampx »

addicted wrote: post #27
1123581321 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article—the author prefaces with their experience riding trains all over the world and has worked in rail. There is a ton of detail, much more interesting than the conclusion.

A clarification. They’ve not worked in rail. They’ve worked in hyperloop. A fantasy technology that does not, and probably never will, exist. Imagine being able to destroy the idea of constructing rail in a few paragraphs of a tiny blog and then choosing to work on hyperloop, which has all the problems mentioned about rail but also throws in creating and maintaining a vacuum pipe in addition.

Hyperloop was a fantasy project pitched by Elon so that he could continue selling more cars. The same way the big Auto companies of the early 1900's bought up railroads and trams and then tore them up, to sell more cars.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#87

Post by fooker »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #83
rocqua wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does state that the Japanese system runs at a massive loss.

Public roads also operate under massive loss. As long as society is willing to pay for it, I don't see a problem.

There you go, some societies are willing to pay for it, and some are not depending on whether it makes sense.

If you are trying to say that some societies are wrong about it, that's a bit more of a tough sell.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#88

Post by llampx »

holoduke wrote: post #66
leoedin wrote: post #3

What 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…

I lìve in Europe and I have traveled maybe 10 times in my life travelling between euro countries. It's nice for city trips, but it's way more expensive than by car. And once you need to be outside of a city a train is not very convenient.

I took a look a few times at Berlin->Geneva, and it would have cost more by car adding in mileage costs and gas, vs. train especially if the train booking was not last minute.

That advantage vanishes when you have more than 1 occupant in the car of course.

However if you can work from the train, the advantage flips back to the train. It is priceless for being able to relax and/or be productive. However, I do like the monotony and semi-meditative qualities of driving long distances. But I don't like being stuck in traffic and construction zones.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#89

Post by llampx »

rendall wrote: post #38
bmitc wrote: post #5

Riding 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 t…

> What is going on in the U.S. that we can't do this stuff? Strong property rights, NIMBY local democracy with the good and bad that implies, free speech whereby this is all discussed by everyone with an opinion about it whether or not it's uninformed, that kind of thing. Personally, I'd rather have the US style even though it's inefficient when it comes to HSR.

Its mostly car culture in the US that is to blame. The freeway network in the US would have had the same problems but it was pushed through due to political will.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#90

Post by llampx »

akvadrako wrote: post #58
bergenty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do this over just flying. You can show up 30-45 mins before any domestic flight and leave as soon as you land on the other end.

30 minutes is a very long wait for a train and very short one for a flight. Plus most train terminals are in the center of the city and quicker to get to.

Waiting 30 minutes after dropping off bags, checking in and going through security and walking miles to your gate is the absolute best case scenario in a metropolitan city-sized airport. It is really not comparable to getting to the train station 15-20 minutes before departure, making sure the platform is still the same, and getting a sandwich.
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