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Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

trains.fyi

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Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

#71

Post by tacostakohashi »

kylecazar wrote: post #27

Wow, I don't know why I thought there would be... Way, way more trains active at a given time. I suppose I overestimated passenger rail popularity in this country.. I knew it wasn't relatively huge, but there's several hundred miles in some cases between trains.

Outside the northeast corridor and a few others, there are many Amtrak trains are only once a day, or less, and often with long routes. It's unfortunate. The network is pretty good in terms of coverage / states covered on the map (since it's optimized for that), but lots of places it's pretty much impractical to use because the one time/day doesn't work.

I really wish they could at least get to a minimum of two trains, a "day" and "night" train on every route. You'd think the marginal cost would be minimal considering all the track/stations are there anyway!

Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

#73

Post by Tiktaalik »

tjohns wrote: post #58
Tiktaalik wrote: post #33

In contrast have a look at a snapshot of air travel the other day. https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1729195110888620057?s=20 If we're looking for some low hanging fruit around how to possibly lower CO2 emissions, well folks here it is. The solutions to our climate problem have been staring us in the face since the 1900s.

I'm not actually sure what the solution you're proposing is? Even if you completely eliminated air travel (with no replacement - which is not realistic), you'd just reduce emissions by a mere 2%. Not a trivial number given the scale, but it's far from a "solution to our climate problem". (For comparison, the larger transportation sector including cars is is 16% of emissions. Cars alone are 12%.) [1] It also turns out…

Pretty much just proposing giving people some options. Right now they have few.

Right now in North America on an enormous amount of routes there's pretty much no real alternative to driving or flying and on many others where a train does exist it's so poor in quality that few use it.

If rail was a real option then more people would use it, and that would be transferring people from a relatively much higher CO2 emission form of transport to a lower emission one. That's a win.

Every where I look I see data that shows that the CO2 emissions per user are dramatically lower for train than air travel.

Now clearly on some big routes flying is a must and train would be so incredibly lengthly that it would be a misery, but there's tons and tons of shorter routes where train would work really well, competing well against car/bus and air travel.

If one wanted to get aggressive about it, once the infrastructure as in place, one could do what France has done and to ban short haul flights.

Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

#75

Post by Tiktaalik »

gruez wrote: post #56
Tiktaalik wrote: post #33

In contrast have a look at a snapshot of air travel the other day. https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1729195110888620057?s=20 If we're looking for some low hanging fruit around how to possibly lower CO2 emissions, well folks here it is. The solutions to our climate problem have been staring us in the face since the 1900s.

>If we're looking for some low hanging fruit around how to possibly lower CO2 emissions, well folks here it is. I'm not really sure how you can call it "low hanging fruit" when its overall contribution to global emissions is only 2%, and how hard it is to build HSR projects in the US. [1] https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/aviation >In 2022 aviation accounted for 2% of global energy-related CO2 emissions

It's low hanging fruit in that everything involved is well understood with very seasoned technology and a deep amount of suppliers and engineering knowledge. As I said, we were doing this stuff in the 19th century, and have kept doing it (in some countries, just not NA).

This sort of solution doesn't require any sort of technological breakthroughs, or technologies that do not exist.

Trying to solve climate change based on working on new technologies that don't currently exist and may not ever exist seems harder to me, and yet remarkably we see people pointing to this approach instead of well understood solutions we already have.

Accordingly I'd call implementing proven technology relatively easy. One could get started on it tomorrow.

Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

#76

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

paddy_m wrote: post #68
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously it’s not the first credible foray into HSR in the US-that honor is Acelas. Edit: if you’re referring to Brightline West, construction hasn’t even started.

Acela isn't HSR, and Metroliner which came before had travel times from NYC to DC as low as 2.5 hours. Acela does the same trip in 3.5 hours. Metroliner lowered trip times primarily through faster acceleration.

By any definition but yours Acela is indeed HSR, it’s the fucking fastest train in North America!

Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

#79

Post by bonestamp2 »

This is really cool and I've already found a couple of lines that went further than I realized. This is going to make me use trains more!

On that note, one feature that would be really helpful is if I selected a particular train, that it would show me where the stations are on that line. Maybe the train company would even give you a commission if I clicked through and bought a ticket.

Re: Show HN: Trains.fyi – a live map of passenger trains in the US and Canada

#80

Post by ghaff »

jszymborski wrote: post #43
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a big part of the country's history; the project was a key bargaining chip to get BC to join Canada. Development started with the first prime minister and the actual construction was incredibly expensive and filled with controversy over bribes and exploding construction costs, causing gov turnover and bringing the federal gov into significant financial risk a few times. But they did push onward to completion and…

The cross canada rail trip is that deadly combo of exceptionally expensive and exceptionally slow.

That pretty much describes long distance North American rail generally. At least in the US, I'd add that it's not only slow but could be delayed by a day or more. I've occasionally toyed with the idea of taking one of those trains for at least part of their route but I have a feeling that it's one of those things where the idea >> the reality and it would get pretty old once the novelty wore off.

Later this year I'm going with a more luxurious version instead (ocean liner).

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