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As a german: This. Europe can afford to have better trains and public transit systems across the board because it's easier for us to have a consistent level of

As a german: This. Europe can afford to have better trains and public transit systems across the board because it's easier for us to have a consistent level of quality, since we simply have much less area to service and trains are a viable alternative for a massive portion of the populace.

HarryHirsch 11y ago
Not true, not true at all. The Boston-Washington Megalopolis is about the size and population of West Germany. But West Germany had proper rail service, and in the US it was always awful.
- rhino369 11y ago
  A big problem with the DC to Boston Amtrak run is that it subsidizes the entire rest of the Amtrak network, which loses money hand over fist. The DC/Boston line is profitable. But it's neglected and starved. If instead that money could used to revitalize that stretch, it could be much more useful. America rail went through each small town as it already existed and the track is too twisty to go very fast over a lot of the stretch. And it's all so we can have trains that go from DC to Chicago in like 12 hours + 0-3 hours of delays. That route is unnecessary. A DC to Chicago flight is 1:45 hours and is cheap as fuck. Plus we have buses that use the highways. Our rail sucks because we propping up useless routes.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    To be clear, these trains aren't empty. The Lake Shore Limited (Chicago <-> New York) goes sold out for days when winter storms take a shit on the Northeast air corridor and everyone's trying to get home from Christmas break. It's also $100 regardless of season.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    Maybe I should take the Empire Builder and/or the California Zephyr while there's still time. To be sure, there are a lot of subsidies built into a lot of transportation options and, if you eliminate Amtrak outside of the Northeast, a lot of those passengers need to get from A to B somehow (which may well be sub-segments of the long haul routes). But, yeah, from a utilitarian perspective I've never found inter-city Amtrak travel to make a lot of sense in the US outside of the Northeast (nor, in many cases, Europe for that matter).
    - ams6110 11y ago
      If you ever take one of the long Amtrak routes, be sure you have an extra 48 hour buffer in your schedule to allow for delays. I'm not kidding at all.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  Boston has hilarious amounts of single-family-building suburbia: https://www.google.de/maps/place/Boston,+MA,+USA/@42.2970681,-71.0723829,7556m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e3652d0d3d311b:0x787cbf240162e8a0 https://www.google.de/maps/place/Boston,+MA,+USA/@42.2970681... Germany simply doesn't have that. The infrastructural implications are massive.
legulere 11y ago
That's not true. France has a lower population density and is more centralized to fewer cities. This is an advantage for their high speed train network because they have fewer stops.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  As far as i know France doesn't have any 3000 mile train lines, so it's not even comparable.

HarryHirsch 11y ago

Not true, not true at all. The Boston-Washington Megalopolis is about the size and population of West Germany. But West Germany had proper rail service, and in the US it was always awful.

rhino369 11y ago
A big problem with the DC to Boston Amtrak run is that it subsidizes the entire rest of the Amtrak network, which loses money hand over fist. The DC/Boston line is profitable. But it's neglected and starved. If instead that money could used to revitalize that stretch, it could be much more useful. America rail went through each small town as it already existed and the track is too twisty to go very fast over a lot of the stretch. And it's all so we can have trains that go from DC to Chicago in like 12 hours + 0-3 hours of delays. That route is unnecessary. A DC to Chicago flight is 1:45 hours and is cheap as fuck. Plus we have buses that use the highways. Our rail sucks because we propping up useless routes.
- superuser2 11y ago
  To be clear, these trains aren't empty. The Lake Shore Limited (Chicago <-> New York) goes sold out for days when winter storms take a shit on the Northeast air corridor and everyone's trying to get home from Christmas break. It's also $100 regardless of season.
- ghaff 11y ago
  Maybe I should take the Empire Builder and/or the California Zephyr while there's still time. To be sure, there are a lot of subsidies built into a lot of transportation options and, if you eliminate Amtrak outside of the Northeast, a lot of those passengers need to get from A to B somehow (which may well be sub-segments of the long haul routes). But, yeah, from a utilitarian perspective I've never found inter-city Amtrak travel to make a lot of sense in the US outside of the Northeast (nor, in many cases, Europe for that matter).
  - ams6110 11y ago
    If you ever take one of the long Amtrak routes, be sure you have an extra 48 hour buffer in your schedule to allow for delays. I'm not kidding at all.
Mithaldu 11y ago
Boston has hilarious amounts of single-family-building suburbia: https://www.google.de/maps/place/Boston,+MA,+USA/@42.2970681,-71.0723829,7556m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e3652d0d3d311b:0x787cbf240162e8a0 https://www.google.de/maps/place/Boston,+MA,+USA/@42.2970681... Germany simply doesn't have that. The infrastructural implications are massive.

legulere 11y ago

That's not true. France has a lower population density and is more centralized to fewer cities. This is an advantage for their high speed train network because they have fewer stops.

Mithaldu 11y ago
As far as i know France doesn't have any 3000 mile train lines, so it's not even comparable.