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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 l
by 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 agoArbitraging 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 agoThe cost to provide a large amount of space is much cheaper for rail.
- closeparen 8y agoA 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 agoThat'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]