London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail • Hacker News Board

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#71

Post by presentation » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #4

teractiveodular wrote: post #2

This article really needs to mention Japan, who pioneered and perfected the idea and its smooth integration into the subway network. It's common in Tokyo for a train to start as a limited express that travels long distances at speed, then transition into an all-stops subway, tunnel through Tokyo, and then morph back into an express for the long haul out. Some trains on the Toyoko Line do this twice: express, subway i…

Could you share a link with more details?

Not a link, but there are many lines that do this; the poster mentions Toyoko line, which (as of now) goes

Hannō > Kotake-Mukaihara: Seibu Ikebukuro Line

Kotake-Mukaihara > Shibuya: Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line

Shibuya > Yokohama: Tokyu Toyoko Line

Yokohama > Motomachi-Chūkagai: Minatomirai Line

Those are all different companies operating on the same rights of way seamlessly! When you reach the through service stops, it just looks like any normal stop - there is generally no interruption in service, it just stops for some seconds and proceeds onwards like nothing happened. If you visit Tokyo you would notice that sometimes you'll see Tokyo Metro-branded trains on JR tracks, or Toei-branded trains on Keio tracks, and so on.

Many lines are like this; if you look up any of the central railway lines in Tokyo on Wikipedia, you'll see on their station charts notes about their through services. Some more instances:

Odakyu Line > Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line > JR Joban line

Keio Line > Keio New Line > Toei Shinjuku Line

Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line > Tobu Skytree Line > Tobu Nikko Line

JR Chuo Sobu Line > Tokyo Metro Tozai Line > Tōyō Rapid Railway Line, and so on.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#72

Post by presentation » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #38

mjg59 wrote: post #27

It feels odd to talk about the US without bringing up BART, which has comparable characteristics to the Elizabeth Line (the yellow line is over 60 miles long, for instance, and headway through the core area is under 5 minutes at peak).

BART and the Lizzie line aren’t even vaguely comparable. The Lizzie line is just one line in London. The closest comparable line on the BART system is the yellow line. The Yellow line seems to operate a maximum of 5 trains/hour, over a distance of 62 miles, at a max speed of 70mph, and still uses a fixed block system. The Lizzie line in comparison operates 24 trains/hour in its central core, has a total distance of 7…

It's the closest thing the USA has got... which isn't much. "Will the US get on board?" Maybe in a century or two...

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#73

Post by ta1243 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #67

ta1243 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On different lines? By that definition there's about 300 trains per hour in the core of London across each underground line, elizabeth and thameslink. That's in each direction. That's one train departing from the core of London every 6 seconds, before you even consider surface rail.

I think you have a different definition of "different lines". BART is like a tree. The branches join together into one trunk. It's shared tracks into the same stations. So measuring the frequency of all the lines makes sense, as long as you only want to move between stations on the trunk. London is not like that (if I understand correctly). Elizabeth and Thameslink don't share tracks between common stations. So Londo…

OK, so it's about 12tph on bart on the core stations? Disappointingly difficult to get a map of bart which wasn't geographic.

So all the lines share track from Daly City to West Oakland, with some extending to Millbrae, and then branches on the east side of the bay?

From the map, it looks similar to the Picadilly Line, or Central line, or as mentioned upthread the Metropolitan line, but BART has 12tph on the core, where those services have twice that. Each "line" is just a branch on a core service.

The longest run is 53 miles (there's a completely separate service), which is a bit more than the Picadilly line (46) but not massively, and the frequency is under half that of the Picadilly. I think it's fair to compare BART with a single London Underground line (like the Picadilly, or the Central), just with half the frequency.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#74

Post by switch007 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

steve1977 wrote: post #51

switch007 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London could be cleaner but it's in no way wholly "absolutely disgusting" and "the most revolting environments, stations, trains and rolling stock"

What is your frame of reference?

Paris, Berlin, Madrid. Most familiar with London

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#75

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

teractiveodular wrote: post #36

rwmj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only they'd give them sensible names so I could remember whether a Commuter Rapid is faster than a Special Rapid or a Limited Express. (Maybe it makes more sense in Japanese)

The Japanese order is pretty consistent: futsu (Regular) < junkyu (Semi-Express) < kyuko (Express) < kaisoku (Rapid) < tokkyu (Limited Express) < chotokkyu (Superexpress, better known as Shinkansen/bullet train). It's the random branded Nantoka Liners that throw me off.

Even shinkansen lines have different speed classes, the fastest ones weren't covered by the previous cheaper JR pass.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#76

Post by ta1243 » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #70

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have a different definition of "different lines". BART is like a tree. The branches join together into one trunk. It's shared tracks into the same stations. So measuring the frequency of all the lines makes sense, as long as you only want to move between stations on the trunk. London is not like that (if I understand correctly). Elizabeth and Thameslink don't share tracks between common stations. So Londo…

Some of London's Underground lines do share track along some of their length, like BART, but overall this is an exception rather than a rule, e.g. some of the District and Circle overlap, and indeed the Metropolitan also shares with the Circle. And I agree that for the purpose of a trip within this core, you'd only care about that 5 minute wait, which is pretty reasonable, much as often passengers won't care if this…

Looking at the service pattern it seems the bart "routes" are more like separate branches of the same line.

In reality there's not much difference between the Hammersmith/City, Circle, and District lines, especially the wimbleware part of the district line.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#77

Post by emblaegh » Thu, Jul 11, 2024, 6:25 PM UTC

88 wrote: post #20

Odd to see the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) presented in such a positive light. As an engineering project Crossrail became famous for being repeatedly delayed (eventually opening four years late) and many billions over budget. Since opening the Elizabeth Line has been beset by high numbers of service cancellations and poor punctuality (usually blamed on having to share track outside the central tunnel section with othe…

As someone who lives on the lizzy line, it's definitely far from perfect. It is improving however, and I cannot overstate the blessing that it has been on my life.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#78

Post by jmalicki » Sun, Jul 14, 2024, 5:14 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #67

ta1243 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On different lines? By that definition there's about 300 trains per hour in the core of London across each underground line, elizabeth and thameslink. That's in each direction. That's one train departing from the core of London every 6 seconds, before you even consider surface rail.

I think you have a different definition of "different lines". BART is like a tree. The branches join together into one trunk. It's shared tracks into the same stations. So measuring the frequency of all the lines makes sense, as long as you only want to move between stations on the trunk. London is not like that (if I understand correctly). Elizabeth and Thameslink don't share tracks between common stations. So Londo…

Another analogy might be the NYC subway, where in Manhattan you have lines like 1/2/3, A/C/E, B/D/F/M, N/R/W etc. that share a number of stops in southern Manhattan, so along the 1/2/3 or A/C/E, the sum of tph matters... but as they break from that "trunk" in the boroughs, or at the ends of Manhattan, the individual lines matters.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#79

Post by sofixa » Sun, Jul 14, 2024, 11:41 AM UTC

presentation wrote: post #68

sofixa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article also notes that the Parisian RER was inspired by Tokyo, and throws casual shade by noting that public transport in Paris at 3 billion trips per year is just a small fraction of Tokyo's 15 billion trips. The Paris metro area is 11 million, while Tokyo's is 38 million. So the difference isn't as huge as it initially seems, and I'd bet Paris will start catching up with the Grand Paris Express (4 new automa…

When you say "surpass Tokyo", it really depends what you mean by Tokyo's metro. A lot of the stats literally talk about the central Tokyo subway network, which consists of 13 lines [1]; when in reality that's just one amongst a huge number of other operators that comprise the Greater Tokyo rail system, arguably consisting of 121 lines, excluding trams [2]. Given that this article is about regional transit, I think th…

Number of lines is an irrelevant metric, especially when you think about the fact that there are multiple private operators in Tokyo, and thus multiple competing lines in various places. Compared to Paris where lines were always centrally planned, and thus there is only overlap if there are capacity issues (lines A, 1, to a lesser extent 14 and E).

Length of track will similarly be skewed towards the city with the overlapping competing lines.

Passenger kilometres travelled, number of trips, etc are more relevant.

Re: London, Paris, Seoul Show Commuting Power of Fast Regional Rail

#80

Post by Nesco » Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 11:31 AM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #62

Nesco wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is way less dense than France and Europe at large. Only in BoWash such an high density network would make sense

I don't think this argument really holds up in a world where China built twenty-eight thousand miles of HSR in two decades, a lot of it connecting disparate urban areas much like what the US has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin...

Those lines generate insane losses just to operate and maintain them