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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

#171

Post by resolutebat »

epivosism wrote: post #164
akprasad wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming this is all true, what then makes the Japanese Shinkansen economically viable?

They already have the land rights, favorable social environment for construction, more compliant population, less local/more federal legal zoning and land use power, more federal level direction to get things done, higher rate of engineers in population. That CA is bad at all of those makes it expensive and hard In addition to very low competence levels in gov't compared to Japan due to many factors. Sure Japan has f…

Those factors aligned for the original Shinkansen when it was built in the sixties; now, not so much.

The maglev Chuo Shinkansen, originally meant to be finished by 2030 or so, has been stuck in limbo for several years now because the prefecture of Shizuoka refuses to issue the necessary permits.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14718670

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

#172

Post by ehaliewicz2 »

akprasad wrote: post #162
chroma wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles isn't economically viable. California HSR will cost at least $30 billion to construct and California's own estimates claim it will cost $700-$874 million per year to operate.[1] Around four million passengers fly between SF and LA every year. Assuming every single one of them takes the train instead of flying, you're looking at $175-$218 per ticket just to pay for…

Assuming this is all true, what then makes the Japanese Shinkansen economically viable?

Many people who ride it have one of various train passes that reduce the cost, or have a plan with work that covers it. I usually use a JR pass, it's pretty expensive without it.

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

#173

Post by Lammy »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #32
thomasahle wrote: post #3

I didn't know there was a trans-Canadian railroad. Did anyone try it?

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…

Relevant: Canadian Pacific Railway's Rogers Pass Project (1983–1989, 1hr27m) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zepXkTPvqA

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

#174

Post by chroma »

resolutebat wrote: post #160
chroma wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High speed rail between San Francisco and Los Angeles isn't economically viable. California HSR will cost at least $30 billion to construct and California's own estimates claim it will cost $700-$874 million per year to operate.[1] Around four million passengers fly between SF and LA every year. Assuming every single one of them takes the train instead of flying, you're looking at $175-$218 per ticket just to pay for…

Funny how trains are expected to be profitable from day 1, but you can drive a car from SF to LA and not pay a cent for the highway infra that costs billions to build and upkeep. Also, in what world can you reliably get from central LA/SF to LAX/SFO and through checkin & TSA in 45 min each?

I didn't say anything about roads, but it's not true that roads are unprofitable. Roads are paid for by fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees. California's gas taxes raise $8 billion per year. The state's registration and licensing fees collect another $12 billion per year. The state spends $18 billion per year on Caltrans, meaning that vehicles provide $2 billion in revenue for other state programs.

BART takes 30 minutes to get from Civic Center to SFO. Even without TSA pre-check, it takes less than 15 minutes to get through security. If you get through security 15 minutes before the plane leaves, that's 2.5 hours total travel time to LAX. From the same place in SF it takes 20-25 minutes to get to 4th & King. (Yes, Muni is that bad.) Let's say the train leaves 15 minutes after you arrive at the station. Then it will take 2 hours and 40 minutes to get to Union Station in LA. Total travel time: 3.25 hours. And again, the train cost is 5-10x that of a flight.

Edit: If you think my math about the long-term profitability of California High Speed Rail is incorrect, I'd love to see some numbers showing how it could be priced similarly to air travel. I was agnostic about CA HSR for a long time. I even voted for Proposition 1A back in 2008. But no matter how I crunch the numbers, it really seems like CA HSR is a boondoggle.

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

#175

Post by lmm »

resolutebat wrote: post #156
lmm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the Shinkansen but it's also very expensive - that journey is ¥14,170 one way, and the discounts for return tickets or advance booking are vanishingly small. Even with the incredibly weak yen I can see same-day SF-LA flights cheaper than that.

This is starting to change, the discounts for early booking and/or slower trains can be up to 50% these days: https://livejapan.com/en/in-tohoku/in-pref-miyagi/in-sendai_...

They have a tiny number of those 50% discounts that are always sold out even if you apply as soon as ticket sales open, IME. And note that even then they're only on the less popular lines - you'll never see a discount like that for Tokyo-Kyoto.

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

#177

Post by loxias »

Cool! Super cool!

Would love to see where the data's coming from -- with enough detail that I can spin up my own instance and shove the geo data in a database. (Unless you plan on making money from this, that is. The fact that you're aggregating a dozen random feeds with their own format into one schema is 100% "all the work")

I wanted to do this for ADSB data, but couldn't figure out how to get any quantity of data without paying money.

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

#179

Post by Lammy »

chroma wrote: post #110
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...

HSR only makes economic sense in the northeast. Everywhere else is too spread out for rail to compete with air travel. The most popular air route in the western US (SF-LA) isn’t worth making high speed rail between. The project is expected to cost over $30 billion. Assuming 100% of air passengers use rail (4 million per year), at $150 per ticket it would take 50 years to break even… and that assumes zero maintenance…

Requiring freedom of movement to operate for profit is such a needlessly self imposed limit. This would be a solved problem if our government truly operated for the good of the people instead of for Continuity Of Government. The Department of Defense budget was 1.52 Trillion for FY2023 alone while we're arguing over an order of magnitude smaller: https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=...

They already own most of the necessary land anyway: https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2023-07/BLM-Adm...

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

#180

Post by Kon-Peki »

ryry wrote: post #133
kingsloi wrote: post #77

Here's one more for your list: https://southshore.etaspot.net Southshore Line - connecting Chicago, IL (Millennium Station) to South Bend, IN, via East Chicago, Gary, Chesterton, etc

Added to the list - thanks! This is different from metra yeah?

Yes, it is the Northern Indiana Commuter Train District. Inside Chicago, they run on Metra track. To avoid competition with Metra, they do not allow boarding on "inbound" trains inside of Illinois (except the Hegewisch station that is on the Illinois/Indiana border), and do not allow people to get off "outbound" trains until the Hegewisch station [1]

Funny thing, is that Chicago has direct rail access from downtown to 4 airports in 3 states - Chicago O'Hare and Chicago Midway via the CTA, Milwaukee Mitchell (via Amtrak), and South Bend Regional (via the South Shore).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Shore_Line

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