4 ms·
Tangent, but the US freight rail networks are much better than Europe. US is good at freight rail and bad at passenger service, Europe is vice versa.
by nerfhammer 10y ago
Tangent, but the US freight rail networks are much better than Europe. US is good at freight rail and bad at passenger service, Europe is vice versa.
- xiaoma 10y agoActually, I find Europe's passenger service uninspiring compared to Japan or especially Taiwan.
- reddytowns 10y agoTaiwan's trains are subsidized
- xiaoma 10y agoSo are Japan's. The idea isn't to get a profit off of tickets vs operating costs. The idea is to improve the efficiency of the country and economy. It's an investment. If the US had a similar political climate the east coast would already have high speed rail from New York to Miami.
- nerfhammer 10y agoRail needs to be profitable, but roads certainly don't. For some reason.
- reddytowns 10y agoJapan has a very low subsidy and most of its railways are private and receive none.
- knd775 10y agoI think that Japan's population density and relatively small size makes it much easier to make money on railways.
- fapjacks 10y agoBut they don't need to be, really, when they can just put it on a boat for the whole journey, or most of the journey and then just truck it a few hours inland.