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Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

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Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#321

Post by [deleted] »

whyenot wrote: post #217
Erik816 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And part of US Defense spending helps defend countries like Switzerland. Maybe we still spend too much, but we also "defend" a lot more countries than ourselves, and a lot more territory than Switzerland.

Switzerland is a neutral country and not part of NATO. The US has no obligation to defend them. Almost every adult male Swiss citizen has received military training. The country may not spend as much as the US, but Swiss citizens are willing to pay for their freedom in a different way. (..and yes, only men are conscripted. Switzerland is a great country, but there continue to be problems with sexism, even today)

[deleted]

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#322

Post by dtwest »

Retric wrote: post #222
dtwest wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building such a network is less economically feasible in America compared to Europe or China because of America's suburban sprawl. First, it'll cost more to build because you'll need to clear out a route of suburban housing to get between any two cities. Second, the population density of the US is less concentrated, which makes getting to the station take longer, and improves the relative attractiveness of other tran…

US population density is hardly the issue for two reasons, first nobody wants high speed rail in Alaska. But secondly high speed rail is between cities not every little podunk town. Linking Richmond, DC, Baltimore, NYC, Boston is a single 550 mile high speed rail line, which connects over 10% of the entire Americana population.

I mentioned the Northeast Corridor because it is the most viable location to have passenger rail in the US. But even there presents some issues (which I may not have explained very well in my original post).

I disagree with your assessment because American density is very different than European density. If you look at Google Earth, there is almost continuous suburban development along the entire Northeast route. In Europe, populations are clustered in smaller urban centers. High speed rail can only stop so many times and because of this, it is more difficult for the average American to get to a train station.

This situation is obvious to people who have lived in suburban America but can be surprising to those who have not. Imagine driving up to an hour to a city center, finding a place to long term park your car near the station and then taking a mode of transportation that isn't significantly faster than your car would've been. Then needing to take an expensive taxi once you arrive because your destination city has a limited public transportation system.

Comparing region densities at face value misses the issue, the way cities and regions are designed present unique transit challenges around the world.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#323

Post by beaunative »

ggm wrote: post #176
inquirerofsorts wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China high speed rail growth over 9 years. It's an excellent system and I much prefer it to domestic aviation. https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*Jj_k4U1AwuB5Ia-9oHuJKQ.gi...

I had included China and edited it out: I am unsure what the effective tax rate is for their national capital investment projects. Since the primary story was about tax, I didn't want to cloud things without knowing what Chinese salary tax effects were.

Major lines like the one between Beijing and Shanghai are profitable and publicly-traded, therefore doesn't require government subsidy.

Of course, Beijing-Shanghai line is the first and only to go public, just at the beginning of 2020, and we can get their financial numnbers easily.

Many other lines are not necesarrily profitable, but few of them require government subsidy besides the initial capital investment, that is their income is more than the operational cost.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#324

Post by beaunative »

ourlordcaffeine wrote: post #287
yitianjian wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Northeast has a density comparable to Europe. I do agree on the culture issue, however - Americans definitely prefer cars by default. Although in the Washington-Philadelphia-NYC-Boston corridor it may be possible, if there is ever a culture of large public works again.

Surely having big train stations with massive car parks just outside towns will fit well with car culture. My other idea is high speed trains where you can take your car with you, like eurotunnel but faster.

Putting cars on High Speed Trains would be uneconomical, a car easily weighs dozens of people, you wouldn't want to pay that kind of fare for a car.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#325

Post by flyinghamster »

thu2111 wrote: post #292
fergbrain wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically the freight companies own the lines and prioritize their own freight trains above passenger service.

And even more specifically, this means the US moves a lot more stuff by rail freight than in Europe, where the rail freight industry is sickly and dying.

I would dispute that, based on the amount of freight traffic I see on cab footage from Europe. What has changed is that much of it moves by container or unit train, so a lot of yard trackage is redundant now.

The other thing to note is that the freights are shorter and more frequent, rather than the 200+-car monstrosities we have in the States (made possible by remotely-controlled diesels mid-train or pushing).

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#326

Post by beaunative »

dtwest wrote: post #322
Retric wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US population density is hardly the issue for two reasons, first nobody wants high speed rail in Alaska. But secondly high speed rail is between cities not every little podunk town. Linking Richmond, DC, Baltimore, NYC, Boston is a single 550 mile high speed rail line, which connects over 10% of the entire Americana population.

I mentioned the Northeast Corridor because it is the most viable location to have passenger rail in the US. But even there presents some issues (which I may not have explained very well in my original post). I disagree with your assessment because American density is very different than European density. If you look at Google Earth, there is almost continuous suburban development along the entire Northeast route. In…

High speed rail is roughly double if not triple the speed of the car speed on a speedway, let alone car speed in city.

More importantly, just don't think of city as static, inanimatable object. Many american cities are created because of the rails if you remember the history, High speed rail may not create new cities, but can definitely reshape parts of the city.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#327

Post by microtheo »

nickik wrote: post #85
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #32

They are using the same technique they use in Japan. In Tokyo, you get full signal strength, wherever you are (even in tunnels going underwater). That's because they have mobile antennas everywhere , including lining all the railway lines. I'll bet that their service ain't so cheap, though (I was roaming, when I was there, and that was definitely not cheap).

In Switzerland we defiantly do not have that, specially not in tunnels.

I mean, we have it in the big ones. When I go through the Lötschberg or Gotthard I get full 4G coverage.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#328

Post by thu2111 »

flyinghamster wrote: post #325
thu2111 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even more specifically, this means the US moves a lot more stuff by rail freight than in Europe, where the rail freight industry is sickly and dying.

I would dispute that, based on the amount of freight traffic I see on cab footage from Europe. What has changed is that much of it moves by container or unit train, so a lot of yard trackage is redundant now. The other thing to note is that the freights are shorter and more frequent, rather than the 200+-car monstrosities we have in the States (made possible by remotely-controlled diesels mid-train or pushing).

Here's a report by the European rail freight industry:

https://www.railfreightforward.eu/sites/default/files/userco...

"Maintaining its current modal share of 18% will pose a challenge for the rail freight sector due to three main factors: an expected change of goods structure, general logistic trends and the high intensity of road innovation."

Railways are poor at moving freight in Europe due to:

a) Sharing tracks with high speed passenger trains, which makes scheduling complicated

b) Lack of agility compared to trucks which can go anywhere, change their routes at the drop of a hat, can turn up and leave at any time you wish.

c) Being government subsidised, often nationalised, there's no innovation anywhere, nobody cares, all the usual problems of socialised infrastructure. Trucking is entirely privatised with many small firms instead of a tiny number of government run firms, so is more customer focused.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#329

Post by mschuster91 »

thu2111 wrote: post #328
flyinghamster wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would dispute that, based on the amount of freight traffic I see on cab footage from Europe. What has changed is that much of it moves by container or unit train, so a lot of yard trackage is redundant now. The other thing to note is that the freights are shorter and more frequent, rather than the 200+-car monstrosities we have in the States (made possible by remotely-controlled diesels mid-train or pushing).

Here's a report by the European rail freight industry: https://www.railfreightforward.eu/sites/default/files/userco... "Maintaining its current modal share of 18% will pose a challenge for the rail freight sector due to three main factors: an expected change of goods structure, general logistic trends and the high intensity of road innovation." Railways are poor at moving freight in Europe due to: a) Sharing tracks w…

There's more at play.

1) our train length is limited - see the parallel comment. UIC limits our trains to 750m top, we don't have the space required for train yards that can handle longer trains, and the signal blocks are too short apart to handle trains longer than that (basic railway safety, a train must always have enough free space in front so that it can brake from full speed to zero in case of crossing a red light without crashing into the train in front). US trains run in multiple kilometers of length, so they have vastly greater capacity.

2) our car height is limited because our networks are largely electrified which means you can't double stack containers on them

3) our infrastructure is densely packed which means that you can't just run a train uplink to a random warehouse, and for those industries that do have a train uplink, the shunting required is expensive (need to maintain locomotives and trained drivers, which are in rare supply compared to truck drivers).

> Being government subsidised, often nationalised, there's no innovation anywhere, nobody cares, all the usual problems of socialised infrastructure

WTF? That's just flat out wrong and ideological. There is no real innovation anywhere in railways, the only thing that the US makes different is that freight trains are prioritized and longer, but that's hardly innovative (and again, as Europe is smaller and denser, impossible to replicate).

With smaller innovations (I'd call these "improvements") the situation looks different - e.g. the digitalization of train control aka ETCS, automated couplers, more efficient/silent braking systems... the tech exists, vendors exist - but good luck getting all the private freight companies to on-board to that new tech, as they don't want to bear the cost of progress! That, and solely that, is why Europe is still stuck with screw couplers and dumb freight carriages.

Re: Stable 1.2 Gigabit/s Internet achieved in moving train in Switzerland

#330

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

eythian wrote: post #306
koyote wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember going through a tunnel in a shinkansen at around 300kph and doing a speed test as I was surprised to still have full 4g signal. It was faster than the max speed I'd ever recorded back in London. Meanwhile when I was living in the US I had to put my phone next to the window to receive ANY signal at all. This was on a university campus. I would love to know how Japan built their system (was it publicly funde…

I'm not sure if it's the same thing in Japan, but how they get signal in the metro in Amsterdam is interesting. Effectively it's coax cable running along the tunnel with holes in the shielding to let the signal leak out. Article (in Dutch): https://tweakers.net/nieuws/141195/mobiel-netwerk-met-leaky-...

Might be. I don't know. I'm told that the Japanese system is a form of GSM that is fairly weak, so there is a need for very many repeaters.
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