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Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

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Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#61

Post by tialaramex »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #58
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To drive the train. But to stop the train, surely the contact surface of the brakes with the wheels is more important?

Just like on a car, if your break pads are capable of completely stopping the wheel, but the wheel is not capable of creating enough braking force with the surface, then you slide. If you lubricate between the wheels and surface, which is essentially what leaves do on rails, no amount of at-wheel breaking power will stop you. This is what antilock Brakes in cars prevent, they pulse the brakes to allow the tire to reg…

Note that a modern train also has the same system, only more so, a car would typically have 4 wheels, I think the Acela probably has like 96 or something.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#62

Post by rafram »

legitster wrote: post #51
rafram wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York to LA would be a terrible high-speed rail route. Just way too far. But the US has many city pairs - SF and LA, LA and Vegas, Denver and Salt Lake, Chicago and Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philly, and so on - where high-speed rail could easily replace most flights if it were built.

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil". Some of those routes sound nice, but they don't usually have enough daily traffic between them to warrant the massive infrastructure costs. LA to Vegas would rival the distance of the longest European high speed lines, but with many fewer stops between and a fraction of the passengers between. Outside of connector flights, I don't even know how many people even regula…

> LA to Vegas would rival the distance of the longest European high speed lines, but with many fewer stops between and a fraction of the passengers between.

Many fewer stops: that's a good thing. A fraction of the passengers? No, that's absolutely false. Brightline estimates 50 million trips between LA and Vegas every year [1], which is more than, for example, the total number of tourists to Paris every year.

> their population skews to one massive metropolitan center

Japan, sure, being a long and skinny group of islands definitely helps. But is that actually true of Europe? Germany has a great high-speed rail network (current on-time performance issues aside) with a very pluricentric population.

[1]: https://www.brightlinewest.com/overview/project#:~:text=Toda...

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#63

Post by M95D »

saubeidl wrote: post #38
toast0 wrote: post #35

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.

They're building a rail line Taipei to mainland? :-O

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#64

Post by legitster »

rafram wrote: post #62
legitster wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil". Some of those routes sound nice, but they don't usually have enough daily traffic between them to warrant the massive infrastructure costs. LA to Vegas would rival the distance of the longest European high speed lines, but with many fewer stops between and a fraction of the passengers between. Outside of connector flights, I don't even know how many people even regula…

> LA to Vegas would rival the distance of the longest European high speed lines, but with many fewer stops between and a fraction of the passengers between. Many fewer stops: that's a good thing. A fraction of the passengers? No, that's absolutely false. Brightline estimates 50 million trips between LA and Vegas every year [1], which is more than, for example, the total number of tourists to Paris every year. > their…

On their website, total traffic is 50 million, of which Brightline only anticipates about 9 million riders annually.

Their pricing is expected to be over $100 a person one-way: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/ticket-prices-leaked-h...

So this puts it at pretty low ridership and much higher ticket prices than equivalent lines around the world. (I'm very supportive of the project! It's just worth being realistic about the economics here.

My understanding of Germany's high speed network is that it is pretty comparable to the Acela - high speed in certain corridors, reasonably affordable, and dense population along the corridors. Which is pretty realistic goal for parts of the US. But often we compare to France's network which really outperforms nearly every other country outside of Japan.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#65

Post by kjkjadksj »

bombcar wrote: post #57
mrpopo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains are just the most efficient way of moving people between cities. They benefit everyone, even people with cars. You have a business trip and need to go from A to B by yourself? Take a train, it frees your brain and the highway for people traveling in groups or with lots of luggage. Incidentally it also avoids moving 2 tonnes of material for no reason.

A passenger train in the USA weighs about 1000 tons, plus another 150 or so tons of locomotive, before we add the passengers (seating 80 per car and about 11 cars for 880 passengers). That’s about a ton per passenger.

To be fair an EV would be at least two tons per passenger. I guess a 1990s honda civic is still one if the most efficient means of vehicular travel.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#66

Post by gbhdrew »

dc396 wrote: post #13
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #8

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.

Yes, US rail is pathetic, at least for passenger travel. However, a quick search on Google Flights shows a one-way ticket from LA to DC costs $98.00 on Frontier via Atlanta (YMMV) so I don't think it's correct to say there isn't cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

What serious person is pitching LA -> DC as a city pair for HSR?

The best routes are the ones that replace short-haul flights that are currently really inconvenient in terms of driving and rail service. A route like New York to Toronto would make plenty of sense, where you have two major population centers that are very close together, but a huge headache to travel between by rail today (at 12+ hours total on Amtrak and Via Rail).

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#67

Post by dc396 »

gbhdrew wrote: post #66
dc396 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, US rail is pathetic, at least for passenger travel. However, a quick search on Google Flights shows a one-way ticket from LA to DC costs $98.00 on Frontier via Atlanta (YMMV) so I don't think it's correct to say there isn't cheap, easy, high speed travel across the country.

What serious person is pitching LA -> DC as a city pair for HSR? The best routes are the ones that replace short-haul flights that are currently really inconvenient in terms of driving and rail service. A route like New York to Toronto would make plenty of sense, where you have two major population centers that are very close together, but a huge headache to travel between by rail today (at 12+ hours total on Amtrak…

The parent comment said "cross country".

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#68

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jcranmer wrote: post #45
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

> (We also have world-class municipal and regional rail in the New York area.) 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.

Metro-North and the LIRR have on-time rates rivalling the Swiss rail system.

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#69

Post by UncleThomas »

docdeek wrote: post #7
octaane wrote: post #2

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.

[flagged]

Re: Amtrak's New Acela Trains Are Here. They're Moving Slower Than the Old Ones

#70

Post by robocat »

mperham wrote: post #30
bombcar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly it. The USA has solved two problems: cheap and easy travel across town (in your car) and cheap and easy travel across the country (in a plane). Both COULD be done by rail, and some places do - sometimes on the same rail network. And when the ONLY option for transcontinental travel was rail - the USA has some impressive shit. Given the limitations and money available it’s surprising it’s as good as it…

> cheap and easy travel across town (in your car) It's only cheap and easy if you discount omnipresent traffic jams, 50,000 deaths per year, ever-worsening climate change and the inability to walk/bike anywhere anymore. Aside from that, it only costs the average American $1,000/mo to keep that cheap and easy transportation!

It's a strawman to only mention downsides.

People buy and use cars because the benefits exceed their costs.

It isn't easy to value the benefits nor the externalities.

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