41–50 of 76 posts
The trains are new. The wires etc they run on aren't. When there's funding to update those, the trains will run faster.
If this was done in the opposite way, we likely would still be working on infrastructure (it's a bigger project) and the trains would still not run faster cuz they would be old.
We need to hold the fourth estate to better account.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The area in question (Northeast) is about the only place in the US that matches the population density of the parts of Europe served by high-speed rail. It's not a question of wealth but of efficiency. Even if you took every single meter of high speed rail that France has built in the last 50 years, you would barely cover 2/3 of the distance of a single line between New York and LA.
Florida has high speed rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline
Important context buried at the bottom: "Passenger rail analysts said that it isn’t unusual for rail operators to pad their schedules when introducing new trains, especially if they will run alongside older ones. For example, during a rollout, a railroad might schedule more generous dwell time at stops, they said." Also, the new schedule is only about 15 mins longer than the old one...this is a big nothingburger.
You’re right on this point, but my read of the article was that you can buy the fastest trains in the world but if your infrastructure is not up to enabling them, they won’t go much faster than the ones you have already.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"Passenger rail analysts said that it isn’t unusual for rail operators to pad their schedules when introducing new trains, especially if they will run alongside older ones. For example, during a rollout, a railroad might schedule more generous dwell time at stops, they said." Why? For marketing purposes?
I would guess to account for any unfamiliarity from the operators (new systems, etc) and allowing more time to sort out any other kinks. (they also pad the schedules for old trains too -- this is to accommodate small slowdowns without causing cascading delays).
US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.
> US rail is so pathetic National passenger rail. We still have the world's largest rail network [1]. It's just focussed on freight. (We also have world-class municipal and regional rail in the New York area.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_tran...
If by world-class you mean something that most of the world would consider a rail system, yes (in comparison to most US cities' attempts which aren't really worth even pretending constitutes regional rail). If you mean something that most of the world would consider as something worth emulating, nope.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The area in question (Northeast) is about the only place in the US that matches the population density of the parts of Europe served by high-speed rail. It's not a question of wealth but of efficiency. Even if you took every single meter of high speed rail that France has built in the last 50 years, you would barely cover 2/3 of the distance of a single line between New York and LA.
Florida has high speed rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline
But it is worth calling out that good regional rail services exist in the US, and they don't even have to be that fast to be successful!
US rail is so pathetic. Not the rail’s fault per se, but it's pretty embarrassing for a a supposedly wealthy country to not be able to offer its citizens cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.
Most people don't want trains. Most places where people want trains have them (high density places).
[1]: https://www.news8000.com/news/amtraks-borealis-line-celebrat...
Important context buried at the bottom: "Passenger rail analysts said that it isn’t unusual for rail operators to pad their schedules when introducing new trains, especially if they will run alongside older ones. For example, during a rollout, a railroad might schedule more generous dwell time at stops, they said." Also, the new schedule is only about 15 mins longer than the old one...this is a big nothingburger.
> the new schedule is only about 15 mins longer than the old one...this is a big nothingburger Then why the new cars? Are they cheaper to run? If so, the real price of a ticket (or losses [1]) should go down. [1] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We do have cheap easy high speed travel across the country. It's just not rail. In the US, rail is for freight. In the US, cross country distances are too large for terrestrial transport to be high speed. A flight network allows for much better speed, without needing to have continuous infrastructure. Rail in general requires pretty specific alignment and limits on turns and slope; high speed rail has even tighter to…
China is about the same size as the US. Here's a map of their HSR network: https://www.travelchinaguide.com/images/map/railway.jpg Flights are nowhere near as efficient as rail, not to speak of the environmental issues. It's factors like this that show how the US is falling behind in international competition.
Openrailwaymap plots tracks by max speed, and you can see the map of China here: https://openrailwaymap.org/?style=maxspeed&lat=30.9587685707... --the tracks that are red-to-purple are the ones that are high speed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Old trains: padded schedule No — Old trains: schedule based on experiences from having ran them for at least a year (i.e. all seasons) New trains' buffers are larger because you don't know e.g. how shit the brakes are when you have tons of leaves on your rails. (Yes this is an actual thing¹.) [¹ Ed.: in case anyone is incredulous at the leaves thing: https://www.groupe-sncf.com/en/group/behind-the-scenes/traff... ]
The contact surface area of a steel wheel on a rail is about the size of a dime. That's what you have to work with to stop the train.