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The secrets of the Shinkansen

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Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#31

Post by hirako2000 »

radicalbyte wrote: post #27
Gigachad wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no excuse for the US’s failure. Many countries have large areas to cover. China is a similar size and has massive HSR coverage. The US could too if they didn’t waste all the money on corruption.

Russia is far larger and far less populated, it's an economic backwater and a cultural dead end. Yet despite that they have rail connecting their country together.

So did France. There is a common factor at play with Russia. Has little to do with the country's shape.

It's like saying certain rats solve the maze because the path is simpler. Except that the failing rats happen to have a different incentive.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#32

Post by hirako2000 »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #28
radicalbyte wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands is a similar shape to the continental contiguous United States yet we have an excellent public transport system. Very good trains and every population has awesome cycling infrastructure. The US could have all of this and more in their populated areas. They're the richest country in the world. Why is the infrastructure so neglected? It's clearly a choice.

The question to ask is "who owns the rail lines?". That matters for having a good rail system. It's basically the same problem for why the US doesn't have fiber internet available everywhere, too.

Good parallel. An article recently explained how Switzerland has the fastest fibre optical network: all companies share the same cabling. Dig once. No need to hook the property or do anything when switching provider.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#33

Post by DeathArrow »

radicalbyte wrote: post #25
Animats wrote: post #13

Japan's railroad system has a big geographic advantage - the country is long and narrow. The railroad system is primarily a long end to end line with short crosswise branches.[1] That's an efficient structure. The branch lines don't have to be fast. Many are still narrow gauge, at 3 ft 6 in. The US had to fill a huge area in the railroad era. That left a lot of underutilized track once the road network got good. [1]…

The Netherlands is a similar shape to the continental contiguous United States yet we have an excellent public transport system. Very good trains and every population has awesome cycling infrastructure. The US could have all of this and more in their populated areas. They're the richest country in the world. Why is the infrastructure so neglected? It's clearly a choice.

Isn't Netherlands trying to deter from car use by laws and taxes and at the same time funneling public money into railroads and bike infrastructure?

>The US could have all of this and more in their populated areas.

Probably people in US have other priorities and that means there are other public policies.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#34

Post by Conan_Kudo »

kevmo314 wrote: post #30
razorbeamz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tourists are often buying paper tickets. There's no way for a foreign Android phone to use a digital Suica, so people with Android are stuck with a physical card or paper tickets, and there's a lot of outdated information online that the physical cards are in low supply (They were last year but this year they're not).

Is this an Android thing? My US iOS works fine with digital Suica.

Apple doesn't make regional variants of the phone, so all models have the technology built-in, even if it's disabled by default. Android phones outside of Japan lack Suica support.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#35

Post by vidarh »

socalgal2 wrote: post #24
Animats wrote: post #13

Japan's railroad system has a big geographic advantage - the country is long and narrow. The railroad system is primarily a long end to end line with short crosswise branches.[1] That's an efficient structure. The branch lines don't have to be fast. Many are still narrow gauge, at 3 ft 6 in. The US had to fill a huge area in the railroad era. That left a lot of underutilized track once the road network got good. [1]…

That's got zero to do with anything. you do not need to add rail to the whole country. As an example SF Bay Area and Switzerland are about the same size, SF has double the population density. It has a Bay, Switzerland has mountains. Switzerland has like 10x the trains. There's no reason SF Bay couldn't too. It's similar for most metro areas. LA used to have a huge train system. Bad insentives and government policies…

Even the lowest density US states have most of the population in corridors or areas with sufficient density.

E.g. Montana used to have passenger rail through the most densely populated Southern part of the state. That region has comparable density to regions of Norway that have regular rail service. (There are efforts to restart passenger service in Southern Montana)

And it's not like places like Norway have rail everywhere either - the lower threshold for density where rail is considered viable is just far lower.

The actual proportion of the US population that lives in areas with too low density to support rail is really tiny.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#36

Post by ButlerianJihad »

Animats wrote: post #13

Japan's railroad system has a big geographic advantage - the country is long and narrow. The railroad system is primarily a long end to end line with short crosswise branches.[1] That's an efficient structure. The branch lines don't have to be fast. Many are still narrow gauge, at 3 ft 6 in. The US had to fill a huge area in the railroad era. That left a lot of underutilized track once the road network got good. [1]…

The USA's westward expansion was indeed facilitated by the timely development of railroads, and so many of the cities were built around the ability to haul freight and service depots along the rail lines, much like ancient cities sprang up alongside rivers and bays because of boat shipping.

However, the United States is also a nation built upon the motor vehicle, and our much-vaunted freeway system here was built deliberately as a national defense measure that could easily move materiel and troops between cities and states, in the event of a domestic invasion or future wars on our own soil. The freeways enjoyed deep investments also due to commercial utility, and again, many cities and habitations sprang up at the nexus of various freeways, as truck-based shipping could service them as well.

I think one of the main obstacles to rail lines in the United States is our car-centrism, and many motorists of any socio-economic class really, really hate trains and public transit of any kind, and any other type of transport that may impinge on their freedom to drive wherever they want on as many highways as possible.

Therefore it is extraordinarily difficult for railways to get good rights-of-way. Amtrak is a redheaded stepchild. Commuter rail may be better respected in places where it was established, like the Eastern Seaboard, but if I asked any voter or motorist here, they would be voting against any sort of rail project whatsoever.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#37

Post by Shitty-kitty »

wahern wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #13

Japan's railroad system has a big geographic advantage - the country is long and narrow. The railroad system is primarily a long end to end line with short crosswise branches.[1] That's an efficient structure. The branch lines don't have to be fast. Many are still narrow gauge, at 3 ft 6 in. The US had to fill a huge area in the railroad era. That left a lot of underutilized track once the road network got good. [1]…

> the country is long and narrow The northeast and west coast metropolitan corridors are similar, and combined have comparable populations, densities, and distances as Japan. Yet we can't even build a single high-speed line. And for all the excuses about the difficulty of building rail through developed regions, the existing rights of ways and infrastructure in both the NE and California are comparable to what everyb…

The advatange they have is that all 4 of their major metropolitan areas are in a straight line across flat land. The enemy of high-speed is any diviations from flat and straigh. On he accela top speed can be maintained less then 40% of the trip.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#38

Post by nephihaha »

Animats wrote: post #13

Japan's railroad system has a big geographic advantage - the country is long and narrow. The railroad system is primarily a long end to end line with short crosswise branches.[1] That's an efficient structure. The branch lines don't have to be fast. Many are still narrow gauge, at 3 ft 6 in. The US had to fill a huge area in the railroad era. That left a lot of underutilized track once the road network got good. [1]…

There are also other factors. Heavy bombing during the war had the effect of clearing a lot of previous infrastructure so they were in effect building from scratch in some areas.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#39

Post by ekianjo »

> At its most extreme, three separate commuter lines compete for the traffic between Osaka and the port city of Kobe, running in parallel, sometimes fewer than 500 meters apart.

Sometimes fewer than 100 meters apart. Or connecting to each other's with a bridge.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#40

Post by vidarh »

razorbeamz wrote: post #17
0x3f wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everything works with Suica, no? Although to be fair I guess tourists are _more_ likely to use the heritage lines with slightly different rules.

Tourists are often buying paper tickets. There's no way for a foreign Android phone to use a digital Suica, so people with Android are stuck with a physical card or paper tickets, and there's a lot of outdated information online that the physical cards are in low supply (They were last year but this year they're not).

When we visited Tokyo last year, what stopped us from even trying was the online information we came across was unclear and suggested we could only get the physical cards at the airport and at some tourist office, and we forgot to look for it at the airport... I don't know if that is correct or not, but compare Oyster in London which is advertised at practically every corner store, so even if you get into town not knowing the system, it's hard not to find somewhere you can get a card (or you can just use contactless - I haven't had an oyster card in years).

The UK is completely chaotic ticket-wise on a national level, though.

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