Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on • Hacker News Board

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#101

Post by kkfx » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 9:46 AM UTC

The main high cost of high speed rails is that they need to be VERY planar, a thing hard to create and harder to maintain. It's easy create a short-length perfectly aligned planar metallic stuff BUT it's far harder for very big sizes and rails need to be veeery long, so change veeery little over length.

As a result there are many issues in both mere orographic terms and in maintenance terms.

Rails are good for applications like non perishable goods transport, they can sustain heavy loads, move them with less energy than others ground means, they are easy to automate, so ideal for mid and long range on-ground logistic.

For transporting people the air, yes, I'm definitively serious, is the best and cheapest solution:

- it's fast, at least it can be fast, while supporting a wide range of speeds and ranges

- it's flexible, behind VTOLs/STOLs we just need "terminal" infra, the path between them is free

- in whole infra terms it demand far less infra to build and maintain than roads and rails

You might argue that actually the cheapest STOL is far more expensive than a car, but in resource terms it's not. In fuel terms consume more than an equivalent (load capacity) car, for safety demand more entertainment to be sure nothing fails, but just in raw material terms is a damn cheap car, very little steel, less aluminum, a bit of copper, glass, eventually wood and plastic. On scale planes can be on par with cars in final product costs and while we need more energy we do not need complex road infrastructure hard to maintain and evolve. Not really flexible.

We do not develop such mean in most of the world just because we need roads anyway to move heavy loads, we already have much of them since centuries etc, but while most disagree it's the future. Some know and know most disagree https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... but as any real tech evolution it will happen, it's just a matter of time.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#102

Post by adammarples » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:00 AM UTC

choeger wrote: post #21

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…

"functioning" is an exaggeration. Most of the German trains are slower than 300kph most of the time. They are also often crowded, delayed or outright cancelled. They are also quite expensive, compared to planes. I think the author has a very valid point when it comes to the cost of rail tracks. It's something the proponents always conveniently ignore. On top of that, a rail station has quite a limited capacity, espec…

They're so crowded these days, nobody uses them any more! I say I say

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#103

Post by Markoff » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:01 AM UTC

In Europe? Because it's slower and more expensive than budget airlines.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#104

Post by Markoff » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:07 AM UTC

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…

Lived in China and I'm not envious of their HSR at all. Boarding procedures are more complicated and take longer than any European Schengen airport and prices are higher than European budget airlines, let alone for Chinese purchasing power they are insanely expensive.

Together with introduction of HSR they closed many slower lines meaning travel is now less available for majority of Chinese.

Same goes for their amazing subways, they have lot of lines but usually their population per line is double of Western subways, so the result is uncomfortable overcrowded system.

Only reason to use Chinese HSR is because you don't have alternative, there are really no budget airlines and car ownership is still very low compared to west plus cheaper slower trains were cancelled, so you don't really have any other option unless you wanna take dangerous very slow bus.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#105

Post by TMWNN » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:26 AM UTC

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.

>What about automobile roads and highways?

>If there's any, on a mile-per-mile basis, it's probably US highways do pay for themselves https://web.archive.org/web/20170712175437/www.rita.dot.gov/...>, and help pay for other modes of transportation. Transit receives the biggest subsidy per passenger-mile, with rail and airlines in between.

(For those wishing more detail: From the executive summary https://web.archive.org/web/20170628114204/http://www.rita.d...>:

>*Highways*

>* Users of the highway passenger transportation system paid significantly greater amounts of money to the federal government than their allocated costs in 1994-2000. https://web.archive.org/web/20170628114204/http://www.rita.d...> This was a result of the increase in the deficit reduction motor fuel tax rates between October 1993 and September 1997, and the increase in Highway Trust Fund fuel tax rates starting in October 1997.

>* School and transit buses received positive net federal subsidies over the 1990-2002 period, but autos, motorcycles, pickups and vans, and intercity buses paid more than their allocated cost to the federal government.

>* On average, highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles to the federal government over their highway allocated cost during 1990-2002.)

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#106

Post by mickdeek86 » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:27 AM UTC

mickdeek86 wrote: post #92

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…

This topic comes up periodically on HN and it typically ends in the same points: 1. Your entire country (UK) is smaller than 11 of our 50 states. The several hundred miles between London and Edinburgh pass through many smaller cities and towns, between which people travel. Between SF and LA is a pea soup restaurant and a handful of midsized, mainly agricultural settlements that can't be gotten around without a car (o…

Tacking a separate question on for anyone who's read this far: It looks like there's already a Union Pacific rail line from LA to SF, via Santa Barbara and hits Monterey/Santa Cruz along the way with some scenic ocean views. What would it have cost to simply upgrade this line to be able to handle some passenger train traffic at normal speeds, like Amtrak does already? Wouldn't that be online by now?

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#107

Post by TMWNN » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:28 AM UTC

sien wrote: post #81

kristopolous wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

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

US highways subsidize other forms of transportation, too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33222584>

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#108

Post by thrown_22 » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:49 AM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #78

matthewmacleod wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the flip side is train travel is often 10 or 20 times more expensive than flying, so only worth doing if you can expense it IMO (or you get some huge off-peak super saver special one-time discount or whatever) The standard off-peak walk-up fare (i.e. the maximum you will ever pay) between London-Edinburgh is £82, and the peak-time fare is £176. Cheaper if you book a couple of weeks in advance. It can cost less th…

Where are you getting those fares?! London Edinburgh flight with Ryanair is £14 (fourteen) for tomorrow. On train it is £197 for tomorrow.

Have they started selling oxygen separately from the main ticket yet?

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#109

Post by rogue7 » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:50 AM UTC

I've thought about this and there's I think another reason coming from combinatorics.

Consider a set of n cities.

Being able to go from one city to another by plane only requires n airports. However, to have a complete rail network, one needs n (n-1) / 2 tracks.

Hence the complexity analysis: one solution is linear, the other one is quadratic.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#110

Post by fanf2 » Sun, Oct 16, 2022, 10:52 AM UTC

slyall wrote: post #53

matkoniecz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> low-maintenance, high-capacity fast train, planes with ecofuel is either existing? > On top of that, a rail station has quite a limited capacity, especially if it's inside the city. Traffic generated by rail station limited by capacity would require gargantuan airport to handle it, which would anyway require bus/train/car connections from within city taking even more space.

A fun stat is: Daily passengers on the New York subway system is around the same as total daily passengers on every commercial flight in the US.

In London, the Kings Cross + St Pancras complex handles about 340,000 passengers per day, and is about 0.3km x 0.5km. Heathrow handles about 240,000 passengers per day, and is about 3km x 5km.