6 ms·

Unfortunately, trains are difficult to build in the US, which is a car-focussed culture.

rndgermandude 8y ago
Not really that difficult, you got a ton of empty space between cities where you can put rails. Then do the stations outside of the crowded city centers, just like airports. For "short" routes, I'd prefer trains. E.g. I prefer Cologne/Berlin by train in Germany, would even if the station was - just like an airport - outside of the city. The train ride is a lot more relaxed, not really longer if you calculate the total travel time, more space, no security theater (and related queuing), luggage check, etc.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Arbitraging a fickle TSA policy (less intense enforcement on rail vs. air travel) is not a good reason to build permanent infrastructure. Rail and air operators will be similarly incentivized to carry as many passengers per trip as they can, so I would expect seat sizing/comfort to converge.
  - ant6n 8y ago
    The cost to provide a large amount of space is much cheaper for rail.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      A train takes three days to do what an airliner can in six hours. So a marginal sqft of train car needs to cost something like 1/12th a marginal sqft of airliner just to break even on a per-ticket basis.
      - ant6n 8y ago
        That's only true for Amtrak in the US, where trains are pitifully slow, and on top of that you picked one of the least favorable relations in terms of distance and speed. High speed rail achieves up to 200km/h (avg) as the bird flies, commercial aviation in the medium range may do about 400km/h on average (e.g. the 960km of New York - Chicago in about 2:30). Consider that the turn-around of an airplane is about an hour, and for a train it's likely less than that, and the 1/12 factor you bring up may end up being much less in practice. Or put another way, there are plenty of medium/high speed rail operations that are profitable while giving a large amount of space to passengers.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
zrail 8y ago
There is an absolutely gigantic rail network in the United States. It's almost entirely privately owned by freight rail companies and they're not interested in passenger traffic. Amtrak is the basically only long haul passenger traffic carrier and for almost all of their routes they do not get priority above freight traffic. This makes it very difficult to stay on schedule, which leads to a bad reputation, which leads to decreases in passenger traffic. The only real exception to this rule is the Acela express train on the eastern seaboard. There, Amtrak owns most of the rail and thus can run their passenger trains at a faster speed with priority. Acela gets good reviews and has tons of traffic.

Not really that difficult, you got a ton of empty space between cities where you can put rails. Then do the stations outside of the crowded city centers, just like airports. For "short" routes, I'd prefer trains. E.g. I prefer Cologne/Berlin by train in Germany, would even if the station was - just like an airport - outside of the city. The train ride is a lot more relaxed, not really longer if you calculate the total travel time, more space, no security theater (and related queuing), luggage check, etc.

closeparen 8y ago
Arbitraging a fickle TSA policy (less intense enforcement on rail vs. air travel) is not a good reason to build permanent infrastructure. Rail and air operators will be similarly incentivized to carry as many passengers per trip as they can, so I would expect seat sizing/comfort to converge.
- ant6n 8y ago
  The cost to provide a large amount of space is much cheaper for rail.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    A train takes three days to do what an airliner can in six hours. So a marginal sqft of train car needs to cost something like 1/12th a marginal sqft of airliner just to break even on a per-ticket basis.
    - ant6n 8y ago
      That's only true for Amtrak in the US, where trains are pitifully slow, and on top of that you picked one of the least favorable relations in terms of distance and speed. High speed rail achieves up to 200km/h (avg) as the bird flies, commercial aviation in the medium range may do about 400km/h on average (e.g. the 960km of New York - Chicago in about 2:30). Consider that the turn-around of an airplane is about an hour, and for a train it's likely less than that, and the 1/12 factor you bring up may end up being much less in practice. Or put another way, there are plenty of medium/high speed rail operations that are profitable while giving a large amount of space to passengers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

zrail 8y ago

There is an absolutely gigantic rail network in the United States. It's almost entirely privately owned by freight rail companies and they're not interested in passenger traffic. Amtrak is the basically only long haul passenger traffic carrier and for almost all of their routes they do not get priority above freight traffic. This makes it very difficult to stay on schedule, which leads to a bad reputation, which leads to decreases in passenger traffic. The only real exception to this rule is the Acela express train on the eastern seaboard. There, Amtrak owns most of the rail and thus can run their passenger trains at a faster speed with priority. Acela gets good reviews and has tons of traffic.