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Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

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Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#31

Post by pmontra »

bergenty wrote: post #15

I don’t understand the point of high speed rail. You can just show up for a domestic flight 30 mins before and you get to your destination 4x faster. The only good thing about trains are the views.

Milan to Rome by rail is 30 minutes from home to a seat on the train (by underground, one train every 3 minutes,) 3 hours to the center of Rome.

By plane is 30 minutes to the closest airport or 90 minutes to the two further away (by train or bus, about one every 20/30 minutes.) Boarding time, probably at least one hour (factor in the connection time with the train or bus). Taxi to take off, one hour flight, taxi to terminal, leaving the plane.

At this point we're spent about the same time. We still have to possibly collect luggage and go from the airport to the city. The high speed train is a no brainer.

Naples is one hour of train further away. The choice between train or plane starts to be more nuanced. I went by train last time because I just sit down once and I don't have to move me and my luggage anymore.

Milan to Paris? Fly.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#33

Post by Greek0 »

The author speaks with an authoritative voice and presents the content as facts. Sadly, the article also contains factual errors. For example:

> This capacity could also be served by a fleet of just 40 737s [...], of which Boeing makes more than 500 per year. Bought new, this fleet would cost $3.6b, and with a lead time of, at most, a few months.

Boeing has a backlog of 4000 planes.[1] Current delivery lead times are 5-10 years, so getting 40 planes within months is ludicrous. Aircraft might be available on shorter timelines from aircraft lenders, but probably not in that timeframe either. It's also not what the article argues.

This puts a question mark over the content: which parts are actually correct and which are merely presented as fact without any checking?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_...

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#34

Post by mattlondon »

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…

London-Edinburgh is only just faster by train. There is not much in it TBH. It is about the break even point I guess.

There are other benefits like you can use your phone and get up and walk around more easily. If you go first class you can actually get some work done at tables and stuff. 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)

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#35

Post by bcrosby95 »

> Serving peripheral population centers in California is a nice thing to do

So you want to build a train network that costs hundred(s) of billions but skip adding a couple stations for millions of people the track is passing by? Sounds like a poor idea.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#36

Post by arinlen »

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…

> The author tries to make the argument that there's physical limits to high speed rail that mean it'll never catch on. But the limits are far more political than physical.

The author is showing considerable ignorance on the topic.

For decades it's well understood that railway top speed is lower than airwaily travel. That's irrelevant. For travelling, the key factors are door-to-door speed and rider comfort.

It makes no sense to look at plane speed as the defining factor because anyone onboarding to a flight has to endure mandatory 60m-90m waits within an airport to pass through security and embark, not to mention the fact that airports are very often located tens of km outside of city centers. Meanwhile, railway travel is hop on/hop off with central stations typically right in city centers.

Consequently, it's very well understood for decades now that high-speed railway is by far the fastest solution for trips up to a 600km-800km range. Above that threshold there's a tradeoff threshold with air travel, with longer travel distance favouring flights over train trips. Increasing high-speed rail's comercial speed only works to hike the crisp threshold where high-speed rail dominates air travel.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#37

Post by roeles »

This summer I took my first sleeper train, and it opened my eyes. Instead of treating the journey as wasted time, something to optimize away, it makes a lot of sense to me to make the most of it. The need for rushing dissappears and the experience becomes much more enjoyable.

Not long after my sleeper train holiday I had to travel from Schiphol Airport for work, where I was expected to be 4 hours before take off. Those 4 hours could have been spent working in a train in a quiet zone, or looking at the scenery pass by.

Next time I will try to take a train instead of an airplane.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#38

Post by rendall »

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…

> What is going on in the U.S. that we can't do this stuff?

Strong property rights, NIMBY local democracy with the good and bad that implies, free speech whereby this is all discussed by everyone with an opinion about it whether or not it's uninformed, that kind of thing.

Personally, I'd rather have the US style even though it's inefficient when it comes to HSR.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#39

Post by johannes1234321 »

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…

If you want a truly working high speed rail network look to Japan. Shinkansen trains are punctual and fast. That is possible with political will.

And yes, the German system is a fascinating mixture of really good parts and really bad parts. But while troubled, to large degrees it works to acceptable measure.

Re: Why high speed rail hasn’t caught on

#40

Post by 1123581321 »

addicted wrote: post #27
1123581321 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article—the author prefaces with their experience riding trains all over the world and has worked in rail. There is a ton of detail, much more interesting than the conclusion.

A clarification. They’ve not worked in rail. They’ve worked in hyperloop. A fantasy technology that does not, and probably never will, exist. Imagine being able to destroy the idea of constructing rail in a few paragraphs of a tiny blog and then choosing to work on hyperloop, which has all the problems mentioned about rail but also throws in creating and maintaining a vacuum pipe in addition.

I understand where you’re coming from. It’s really a shame that this article has the conclusion in it. I finished it feeling optimistic about our ability to implement reasonable-speed rail in the US.
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