Why would anyone want to bother with trains if you can hop on an airplane for a lot cheaper and get to the destination faster?
China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
441–450 of 503 posts
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years. -Me 8 years ago Also the new route is a joke. The high speed rail was originally supposed to run from Dallas to San Antonio, and Austin to Houston.
> Yeah, I've been hearing about that for 10 years. You weren't paying attention then ;) because you could have been hearing about it as far back as the 80's, when Southwest first lobbied it to death (the twice-an-hour-takeoff Houston-Dallas route was their most profitable). I would love to be corrected on this by someone who was in State gov't at that time, but this is my understanding. > The high speed rail was orig…
From last few years, we are trying. Now look, I appreciate efforts to build such thing in democratic country. but honestly this can't be an excuse as someone is doing better job than us.
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#443I used Google maps in the past days to marvel about Beijing’s new airport, Daxing. If you look closely you see the train tracks that are being built southbound. You see that they are mostly straight, mostly on stilts (still being built) but further south they also cross through some towns - where lines of houses have been removed. You can see several camps along the route, probably for construction workers to live directly by the construction site (some farmland had to go for that) - judging from the number of buildings it must be 1000s of them. Then, close to the end, you see massive construction work for what seems to become a major transportation hub, similar to the express train stations in Xi’an (8 million people) or Shanghai Hongqiao (220000 passengers/day). Yet, there isn’t much around it - a few smaller towns and villages. A bit further south the tracks seem to end north of the city of Xiong. The first trains are scheduled to be run in 2 years.
It’s a glimpse of the next project in preparation: the megacity of Xiong’an, which is to be built until 2050 to complement Beijing and Tianjin, totalling an area of about 110 million people.
This is all just very hard to fathom.
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it could cost 50$ and take 2 hours, some people would appreciate having the choice.
But there's a work crew on the tracks so make the trip four hours instead.
It is an option, I can't drive because of medical problems, long distance traveling in cars is also problematic when you have kids that get bad motion sickness.
You also need to consider the opportunities that cheap long distance travel gives you, A poor student like I was can travel to a far city to study and afford to come home each 4 - 8 weeks. Because the small cities are linked to bigger ones you get more students or better quality students in the big city. The nation has more educated people, the students from the small city also have to live so they will spend money in the big city, so the big city has an influx of money. The small cities don't have airports, the students are also poor enough so they don't own cars, have where to park them in the big city or afford the fuel.
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to see what prices would be in the U.S, look at Japan. Tokyo to Kyoto one way is 13,080 yen ($120) for the cheapest ticket, for a distance of 226 miles. About the same distance as DC to New York. A lot of people think high speed rail would be cheaper to flying, in reality it's often the same or more than flying today. And it then costs billions of dollars to build the rail. As for subways, that unfortunat…
> Tokyo to Kyoto one way is 13,080 yen ($120) for the cheapest ticket, for a distance of 226 miles. About the same distance as DC to New York. > A lot of people think high speed rail would be cheaper to flying, in reality it's often the same or more than flying today. It's a lot more comfortable, and you end up in a downtown location instead of an airport on the outskirts of the city.
Plus you save a lot of time not having to go to and through the airport.
To compare travel times you can easily consider a 2-hour advantage to the train.
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe, it's just starting to be regarded as anti-social to fly. Enough so that it's noticable in increased train travel and decreased air travel: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/flygska... Not clear yet if this is the early stage of a global trend, and even it it is, it may take a long time to have an effect in the US, where there are fewer good alternatives.
If this is taken to its logical conclusion, everyone should drive. Trains are not more efficient than a the average car when measured in passenger mile per gallon equivalent. And trains are much less efficient when compared to a high MPG cars like a Prius. Whats the matter with the Europeans? Don't they care about the environment? https://theicct.org/blogs/staff/planes-trains-and-automobile...
> Trains are not more efficient than a the average car when measured in passenger mile per gallon equivalent. And trains are much less efficient when compared to a high MPG cars like a Prius.
While the article you're quoting does indeed claim that is the case, it does have (Amtrak) in parentheses.
Here's some data I have:
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/kandatoshiaki/20141002-00039...
A Shinkansen eats 270,000 yen worth of electricity for a single trip from Tokyo to Osaka, and 1 kWh is 12-14.8 yen. A full train would seat about 1300 passengers. So every passenger pays about 208 yen, which works out to about 16 kWh. To side-step awkward conversions, let's look at the electric cars with the best efficiency on https://pushevs.com/electric-car-range-efficiency-epa/, highway efficiency:
2019-2020 Jaguar I-Pace 29.1 kWh/100 km (5 passengers => 5.82 kWh/100 km per passenger)
2019 Tesla Model X 22.5 kWh/100 km (7 passengers => 3.21 kWh/100 km per passenger)
Tokyo-Osaka is 515 km by train, 506 km by car. So in the Tesla you'd use 16.2426 kWh per passenger, which is pretty much the same.
Here come the less reliable figures: this Yahoo Answers thread suggests Shinkansen are about 58% full on average. I don't have any data for cars, but I usually don't see many cars that are completely packed, but I have seen Shinkansen that were over-capacity.
I also have a feeling it would be pretty tough to attain this figure in the car. Occasionally you'd have to spend time in traffic jams, and it's a 5-6 hour ride anyway. Plus, if the Shinkansen were to go as slow as the car, it would probably use much less energy.
One more data bite I've seen is that the railway company in Germany currently uses 57% renewable energy (https://www.railway-technology.com/news/deutsche-bahn-signs-...).
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that's why Japan and Europe don't have high speed rail either.
They were built before environmental regulation was implemented, the same as the US interstate system. None of those could be built today as cheaply or easily as pre-1970s. If at all.
The French high speed lines were built between 1981 and 2017, and ongoing.
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#448So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…
"The US is the world's largest economy…" If your Federal Reserve stopping adding nonsense imputed and hedonic values to the tune of about ~$7 trillion to your economy's GDP, you would find yourself in second place. Which might make help explain away your confusion :)
Right, because you can totally trust the Chinese numbers...
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#449So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…
Different cultures: individualism (US) and team play (communism). Team play always wins if done properly.
What a bunch of BS. Communism is not team play. It's slavery and tyranny. The US has more team play than most places because people are free to pick their teams.
Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe, it's just starting to be regarded as anti-social to fly. Enough so that it's noticable in increased train travel and decreased air travel: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/flygska... Not clear yet if this is the early stage of a global trend, and even it it is, it may take a long time to have an effect in the US, where there are fewer good alternatives.
If this is taken to its logical conclusion, everyone should drive. Trains are not more efficient than a the average car when measured in passenger mile per gallon equivalent. And trains are much less efficient when compared to a high MPG cars like a Prius. Whats the matter with the Europeans? Don't they care about the environment? https://theicct.org/blogs/staff/planes-trains-and-automobile...
Shame that article totally fails to measure what is actually important. It's not about energy efficiency, but about CO2 emmisions per passenger mile. In Europe, most trains are electric already. Around 50% of electricity in Europe is generated using renewables or nuclear, and this fraction is rapidly increasing. In France, Norway, Sweden and Austria, almost all electricity is renewable or nuclear. So electric trains cause very little CO2 emmisions in these locations. Electric cars are a medium term solution, but it's going to take a while to move the needle on CO2 emmissions, whereas trains can do so already. Large electric plans are a much more difficult proposition. The best bet there for decarbonization is probably to continue to use hydrocarbons, but to generate them from atmospheric CO2 using "spare" electricity from renewables, but that's going to cost a lot, make plane travel several times more expensive, and not likely to happen anytime soon. So, right now, in Europe, travelling by train rather than plane is a sensible call, and with high-speed rail, will usually take much less time than driving.