Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 145 posts

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#91

Post by rbanffy »

ghaff wrote: post #87
satvikpendem wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China it's a matter of politics rather than financial sense, of unifying the country hence why they have them in ethnic minority areas too. The trains would be like roads, sure, most people wouldn't take them from one end to the other, A to Z, but there are enough people to take them from A to D, J to N, Q to T, so to speak. If one could commute in one hour from Boston to DC for example each way, daily without fly…

Zoom isn’t a replacement for in-person meetings all of the time but it’s pretty good for a lot of purposes. I’m on a non-profit board and we do have a couple meetings a year when we ask people to try to make it in person but the rest is planned to be virtual.

Remote work is a good replacement for commuting.

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#92

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

CalRobert wrote: post #85
999900000999 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You take it for a variety of reasons. The only profitable routes are Boston to Washington DC. Outside of that it's both better and worse. Sometimes you meet friendly people, sometimes your stuck next to folks with hygiene issues. I've had way more chance encounters flying, went out with a girl once. It's cool, but so underfunded that I don't think it'll ever catch up to say Japan. An 18 hour highspeed NYC to LA train…

In fairness, we don't have many profitable freeways either.

    In fairness, we don't have ~~many~~ ANY profitable freeways either.

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#93

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

vl wrote: post #43
adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #10

> The train is still longer, and time is money, we are taught. But certainty has value, too, even if it means at 11:29 p.m. departure. Unfortunately this is misleading. Outside of the Northeast Acela corridor, there is no certainty in train travel in the U.S.. Although legally passenger trains are now supposed to have right of way over freight trains, in practice that’s just not the case. So a 14.5 hr train journey c…

Delays? What if you can’t buy tickets at all. I was looking at Tucson to Seattle trip on a relatively short notice - all sleeping tickets were sold out multiple weeks in advance. And due to the length of the trip it’s not practical with non-sleeping seat.

    due to the length of the trip it’s not practical with non-sleeping seat
I don't know what this anti-train propaganda is going on in this post, but this is laughable. All of the seats are sleepers on Amtrak at least. I went from Cincinnati to San Diego without a sleeper.

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#94

Post by b40d-48b2-979e »

rbanffy wrote: post #90
satvikpendem wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China it's a matter of politics rather than financial sense, of unifying the country hence why they have them in ethnic minority areas too. The trains would be like roads, sure, most people wouldn't take them from one end to the other, A to Z, but there are enough people to take them from A to D, J to N, Q to T, so to speak. If one could commute in one hour from Boston to DC for example each way, daily without fly…

> it's Zoom I heard something like that about the Concorde at the Air and Space Museum. What killed it was not fuel costs, but cheaper long-distance phone calls and fax machines. But if a country takes the Chinese approach and pushed inexpensive rail as a way to open new economic opportunities, the idea of flying as your daily commute moves from ridiculous to feasible (if you replace the airplane with a train).

    What killed it was not fuel costs
No, it was definitely the cost to operate it and the sonic boom associated with flying at that speed. The company operating the Concorde never made a profit.

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#95

Post by Loughla »

stockresearcher wrote: post #74
Loughla wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I took a consulting job in a small town in Illinois called Quincy. I couldn't fly there without connecting in St. Louis, but I could take the train from Chicago. It was billed at 6 hours. It absolutely left on time but had to wait for three freight trains on the way. 9 hours later we got to the "station". One of the other passengers said that their previous trip was cancelled and Amtrak bought everyone bus tickets…

Quincy IL, the capital of Forgottonia. Used to be a bigger city, was destroyed by politics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgottonia

From talking to people there, it seems like Quincy itself was less destroyed by politics and more just sort of left to rot by families with "important names" in the area who are resistant to change.

No idea which is accurate, that's just a consistent theme from almost every conversation when I was consulting there.

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#97

Post by mememememememo »

satvikpendem wrote: post #58
Reason077 wrote: post #19

> ”… booked the train overnight and into game day across a 650-mile route … A 14½-hour weekend train ride” Just by way of comparison, in China the 819-mile train route between Beijing and Shanghai takes 4.5 hours.

Imagine if we had passenger rail like Asia does, it would be amazing. But sadly it's all a matter of political will, the US simply does not want to create such a rail system where we can take bullet trains from NYC to LA.

Asia, including India soon!

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#98

Post by mememememememo »

shiroiuma wrote: post #71
satvikpendem wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we had passenger rail like Asia does, it would be amazing. But sadly it's all a matter of political will, the US simply does not want to create such a rail system where we can take bullet trains from NYC to LA.

There is no world where bullet trains between NYC and LA would make any financial sense at all. The trains can't possibly go fast enough for passengers to be satisfied with the speed (even maglev isn't fast enough), and the cost of track construction and maintenance would never be paid for by ridership. I live in Japan; bullet trains are great here, but the distances they cover are quite short by American standards.…

What amazes me is frequency of shinkansen for Tokyo-Osaka. Like more frequent than some metros! Just rock up Must change how people think.

Re: Midnight train from GA: A view of America from the tracks as airports struggle

#100

Post by pstuart »

adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #10

> The train is still longer, and time is money, we are taught. But certainty has value, too, even if it means at 11:29 p.m. departure. Unfortunately this is misleading. Outside of the Northeast Acela corridor, there is no certainty in train travel in the U.S.. Although legally passenger trains are now supposed to have right of way over freight trains, in practice that’s just not the case. So a 14.5 hr train journey c…

We should nationalize the rail lines, ensure Positive Train Control is mandatory, invest in the rails and sidetracks to allow for faster trains and less traffic jams.

It could be structured so the current owners don't lose money on the deal but America gets a faster, better utilized train system. So much winning!

Post reply on HN