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

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

#111

Post by jantissler »

noirbot wrote: post #52
reactordev wrote: post #34

I believe there was a quote from a railroad exec that Passenger rail traffic accounts for only 3% of the overall rail traffic in North America. If true, the map would be covered with Locomotives if freight was included (GP-40's are my favorite).

That would be a curious comparison point. I feel like every discussion of rail in the US always turns into pointing and laughing at how bad the US is at rail because it's viewed through a passenger lens, completely ignoring how much rail is used for freight. My impression is that a lot of the rest of the world has much better passenger rail, but uses freight rail quite a bit less. I wonder if part of it is due to the…

It is actually a problem in Germany that high-speed trains too often share tracks with slower passenger and freight trains. Other countries like Japan put their high-speed trains on completely separate tracks.

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

#112

Post by jcranmer »

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.

> Acela does the same trip in 3.5 hours.

I just rode it last week, and it actually took 3 hours, not 3.5.

Most of the NEC corridor from DC to NYC has a speed limit of 125mph; from NYC to New Haven, it's generally 70mph (!), from New Haven thence to about Kingston generally 90mph, and from there to Boston it's mostly 150mph. Given the density of the corridor, Amtrak should be trying for 150-220mph speed limits, but even 125mph is generally agreed upon to be the lowest end of HSR.

A surprisingly easy way to make the train go faster would be to redesign the switching sections before large stations to allow trains to go faster through them. You can probably cut around 10 minutes out of the entire length with an investment of less than $100 million just by doing that.

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

#113

Post by jantissler »

ascar wrote: post #65
noirbot wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a curious comparison point. I feel like every discussion of rail in the US always turns into pointing and laughing at how bad the US is at rail because it's viewed through a passenger lens, completely ignoring how much rail is used for freight. My impression is that a lot of the rest of the world has much better passenger rail, but uses freight rail quite a bit less. I wonder if part of it is due to the…

I assume it would be less about the dominance of passanger displacing freight and more about scale/distance. Germany is smaller than Texas (half the area). How often is it economical to put stuff on trains before loading them on trucks again for distances sub 1000km?

That argument would only be valid if Germany was an island, though. But it's not. Lots of traffic coming through from all directions.

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

#115

Post by jrockway »

stickfigure wrote: post #23
h1fra wrote: post #7

Looking at the speed of the trains is a bit depressing. USA had so much potential to built the best high-speed railway network...

Speed would be nice, but speed is not the problem. If the trains just ran on time, 50mph would be just fine. The problem with Amtrak is frequent multiple-hour delays that stack up. The schedule is totally unpredictable.

"On time" is a metric that is focused on heavily, but to me it's meaningless. The LIRR is "on time" via schedule padding; a 50 mile trip to Ronkonkoma takes 80 minutes on the fastest express train. With line speeds largely 80mph throughout the route, commuters are robbed of an hour every single day. But hey, at least the "on time performance" metric is at 99%. Easy to do when your average speed is 37mph on 80mph track.

The LIRR Today has a great article, that I cannot for the life of me find, where the author used train speed data between stations to figure out what speed "most trains" accomplished (so accounting for curves, station stops, etc.) and redid the schedules according to that data. Without padding, everyone that uses the LIRR would save hours a week in commuting.

Incidentally, the LIRR has been moving away from higher train speeds and better connections to reduce travel time in favor of arriving at terminals within 6 minutes of the scheduled time. Schedule padding, replacing 80mph switches with 60mph switches (for the Elmont work), and removing all scheduled connections at Jamaica. I think it's crazy and I'm glad I don't commute to the city from Long Island. The connections at Jamaica disappearing is the most sad to me; that station has a really unique setup where 3 trains arrive at once, and you can transfer through the middle train to get to the other two destinations. It used to work like clockwork, but obviously if the middle train is late, the OTP for 3 trains decreases. Since that's the metric they care about, and not "can I get from any city terminal to any destination easily", that's what gets optimized out. I don't think it's good. It's nice if the trains run on time, but I'd rather be 20 minutes late once a week than spend an extra 5 hours on the train every week. But, not what the agency values.

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

#116

Post by nilsbunger »

It's sad that even great potential routes like SF->LA aren't accessible by train, and we don't seem to have the state capacity to build HSR there.

I was just in Japan, and took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, which is a similar distance as SF to LA.

That train:

- runs every 10 minutes -- if you miss one, just take the next one!

- takes 2.5 hours travel time

- starts and ends in city centers on both ends.

- has better legroom and wider seats than economy

- free, fast Wifi on board, your cell signal still works, and you can use your computer the whole trip.

- has no security or boarding hassle. You can show up 5 minutes before departure and just get on.

- has no luggage limitations AFAICT

It's faster and far less stressful than flying SF to LA, with the security and boarding hassles, Ubers on both ends, and cramped onboard conditions.

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

#117

Post by achileas »

jantissler wrote: post #111
noirbot wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a curious comparison point. I feel like every discussion of rail in the US always turns into pointing and laughing at how bad the US is at rail because it's viewed through a passenger lens, completely ignoring how much rail is used for freight. My impression is that a lot of the rest of the world has much better passenger rail, but uses freight rail quite a bit less. I wonder if part of it is due to the…

It is actually a problem in Germany that high-speed trains too often share tracks with slower passenger and freight trains. Other countries like Japan put their high-speed trains on completely separate tracks.

This is also a problem with IIRC the Acela and other Amtrak routes between Boston and New York, and probably on other routes too.

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

#118

Post by achileas »

monlockandkey wrote: post #53

Busses would be soo much better if there was real time location of busses and trains that you could view on a map. Probably the lowest hanging fruit to pick for public transport improvement.

The MBTA in Boston has this as part of their API [0].

[0] https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api/streaming

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

#119

Post by vinniepukh »

nilsbunger wrote: post #116

It's sad that even great potential routes like SF->LA aren't accessible by train, and we don't seem to have the state capacity to build HSR there. I was just in Japan, and took the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, which is a similar distance as SF to LA. That train: - runs every 10 minutes -- if you miss one, just take the next one! - takes 2.5 hours travel time - starts and ends in city centers on both ends. - has be…

Same experience on my first Japan trip earlier this year. Why can't we have nice things over here?

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

#120

Post by achileas »

What was behind the decision to include just commuter rail and long-distance passenger rail, but not local rapid transit? Is it a resource issue drawing that many vehicles? I love this map, but I'd love to see it with more modes of transport.
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