7 ms·

We really need bullet trains in the US. With fast wifi, comfortable sleeper cars, good food, and great scenery, I would happily spend a day or two on a train fo

We really need bullet trains in the US. With fast wifi, comfortable sleeper cars, good food, and great scenery, I would happily spend a day or two on a train for long trips instead of flying, without even considering pollution. You end up basically losing a day when flying anyway, even for short trips, and it's infinitely more stressful.

Trisell 7y ago
I wish we had these. Crossing Europe on one was magnificent. The issue is with states being what they are it would take something like the Eurotrain system and that won’t happen in our country any time soon. There just isn’t the desire to do this in this country. :(
- reaperducer 7y ago
  If you're interested in the history of why Europe has such a dense train network, and the United States doesn't, it's partially about war. There was a multi-part show I saw on BBC Four about a year ago that explained that Europe's train network isn't the result of some kind of visionary urban planning or anything altruistic. It's because European nations have such a long history of fighting one another. And in the early part of the last century, the continent went on a rail-building frenzy because of WWI. The United States have only gone to beating each other up once, and that was before trains were viable as large-scale tools of war. Perhaps if the Civil War was delayed by a couple of decades, things might be different. Of course, there are many other factors, but this is one that I find interesting and almost never explored.
  - hodgesrm 7y ago
    Rail was in fact critical for supply during the US Civil War. The Siege of Petersburg, whose eventual loss doomed the Confederacy, hinged on the important rail junction in the town. That's just one of many examples. Use of rail in the America conflict prefigured its application the war of 1870 and of course WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_railroads_in_the_American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_railroads_in_the_A...
  - gaustin 7y ago
    Rail was a hugely impactful tool during the US Civil War. I would guess that geography and the demographics of the American west are as much to blame as the relative lack of continental conflict in the rail era.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    The United States has a pretty dense rail network now, even after the cuts in the dark age of railroading - I'll point out that we have 6 major west-Midwest routes, 3 Midwest to east routes, plus an equal number of Midwest to south routings. We don't need more rail, we need subsidy to operate more passenger trains.
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      Even if the train ride were completely free I'd usually opt to drive. That's because most places in the US you need a car to get around. So I might as well just bring my own. Except for a hand full of major cities, the US just isn't dense enough for rail to work well.
      - danenania 7y ago
        How about ferry trains that also tack on cars for vehicles?
  - thatfrenchguy 7y ago
    All high speed rail lines are and have to be newly built lines though.
    - namibj 7y ago
      But you need local train service to allow for the long distances between stops you want on high-speed steel-wheel on steel rail systems. And, while there are alternatives with significantly higher acceleration/deceleration performance, they are not quite practical or use a lot more energy (Maglev could allow for frequent (100km @ 1000km/h top speed) stops, but it's extremely expensive to set up and there is basically no way to evade obstacles). These medium-speed tracks are old, but they allow up to 160km/h regularly if converted to ETCS (I think they need Level 2, due to the increased breaking distance), that is, with the normal regional trains introduced in the past few years.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    In the Seattle area they keep tearing up the old train right-of-ways and then claiming they need incredible tens of billions of dollars and several decades to create new right-of-way. The city also dug a new tunnel for cars. They decided the best use of the old tunnel was to fill it with rubble. Meanwhile, Seattle has some of the worst congestion in the country. I have no idea what goes on in the planning meetings for this stuff.
- Tharkun 7y ago
  Europe's train network isn't quite as wonderful as many would have you believe. Connections in cities like Paris are terrible and slow (they sometimes require crossing the entire city, which can take a very long time, especially with luggage). Sleeper trains have been mostly retired, only to be replaced with very expensive "high speed" connections which aren't quite as fast or as convenient as closing your eyes and waking up at your destination. Not to mention they're nearly always more expensive than cheap flights. There has been some talk of reviving some sleeper trains, but so far I haven't seen any new sleeper routes. Of course, Europe is a big place, but as far as I can tell, not much has improved over the last decade. If anything, cheap airfare has been on the rise and rail has been declining. Don't get me wrong, I love trains, and I would like nothing more than a fast and cheap inter-European rail network worthy of the name.
  - bakuninsbart 7y ago
    They are not as expensive or very similar in price if you price in emissions.
    - Tharkun 7y ago
      Indeed. But sadly that's not how plane tickets are currently priced.
  - Erwin 7y ago
    The Austrian national rail company has bought up the sleeper trains from other companies and is trying to establish some international routes (under the Nightjet brand). They recently mentioned going to e.g. Copenhagen, but not without some subsidies from the government: the train set alone costs 15-25 million EUR and you can only use it once per day. Denmark doesn't want to run the night trains again, so it'd be interesting if someone else could establish the routes. Vienna-Milano for 2 in a cabin with no one else is 190 EUR each way or 240 if you want an en-suite toilet/shower and takes 19 hours. Or you could fly (1 hour 20 minutes) for 50 EUR return per person. So for the 380 EUR you save, you can go the evening before and spend an extra night in a 5-star hotel room in Milano, even accounting for transportation from the airport.
b_tterc_p 7y ago
Where/why are you going that you can spare two days?
- danenania 7y ago
  Anywhere, for any reason. I work remotely and could do so comfortably on the train, so what's the rush? I'd rather spend more time and have a good experience than be treated like livestock at the airport.
  - eanzenberg 7y ago
    That’s sweet for you. Majority of the nation does not have the luxury to spend days traveling.
    - danenania 7y ago
      Maybe not the majority, but certainly many millions of people in all kinds of jobs could conceivably work remotely for a day or two while traveling by train and lose less productive time than they would by taking a plane. Also, if we really had bullet trains that could do 200+ MPH, you could have cross-country express trains that take less than 24 hours, so it wouldn't even have to be multiple days.
    - pandapower2 7y ago
      That is interesting actually. You could argue that the tiny amount of leave Americans typically receive contributes to emissions. With people being unable to spare additional time for travel there is a strong disincentive to use any form of transport apart from flying.
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      If we don't solve this problem you won't have the luxury of travelling anywhere, we will be spending all our energy and capital just on surviving.
    - patall 7y ago
      However, one could also argue that the majority of the nation does not have the luxury to spend a single day traveling, so going by sleeper train is even better. I recently had a business trip to Switzerland and took the sleeper train from Berlin to Basel (9pm to 8am) where I arrived after a nice breakfast (in the train) so much more relaxed than after a hectic flight. Its more expensive but only because its basically hotel + trip.
closeparen 7y ago
You can already get from San Francisco to Chicago in 2.5 days, and from Chicago to New York in 1 day. The scenery is great, the sleepers are comfortable, and the food is decent. Assuming two week-long vacations, though, you'd easily spend more than half the time in transit.
- danenania 7y ago
  When I've tried trains in the US in the past, there were ridiculously bad delays pretty much every time, even for short trips. The consensus seems to be that they just aren't reliable due to right-of-way issues? If things have improved, I might have to give it another go at some point.
  - nraynaud 7y ago
    Taking the southwest chief, I received an email telling me it was 45min late. It was actually on time, I almost missed it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  Every time I check the prices for Amtrak it costs much more than flying, which is frankly absurd. Which is sad because I have a station within walking distance of my house. I should be able to explore the whole US from my house but it isn’t even remotely possible due to cost. How is it possible to fly through the air for cheaper than trundling along on a rail?
  - atlasunshrugged 7y ago
    The cost is just incredible - I'd always wanted to do cross country by train and was booking and the prices were just outrageous for a sleeper car versus a plane. I opted for the middle route of just having a seat on the train... 3 days later I regretted that decision, but it wasn't quite as bad as the Romania to Moldova overnight train, that one was rough
adrianN 7y ago
It would be a good start if the US would build proper train connections in the corridors where that makes financial sense today. For example the Northeast Corridor could use a lot more investment.
Aloha 7y ago
I think high speed rail is great, but it doesn't seem to work well on routes longer then 3-500 miles, if for no other reason than the construction cost is too high.
- KptMarchewa 7y ago
  Yet it works in China. The reason why it won't work is because flight is essentially subsidized - if you were to pay for all flight externalities, it would be way costlier than trains even on longer routes. Probably not on routes such as LA-NYC or tho.
- wiggler00m 7y ago
  You can travel 1176.3 miles via high speed rail (shinkansen) in Japan (Hokkaido to Kyushu). 3 of the air routes that cover this journey are in the top 11 busiest domestic routes in the world (#3 Sapporo to Tokyo-Haneda;#4 Fukuoka to Tokyo-Haneda;#11 Tokyo-Haneda to Osaka-Itami). The highest ranking US domestic route is #30 (JFK-LAX), though by distance it's almost 3X (2827.2 miles).
thatfrenchguy 7y ago
two days is what Amtrak takes today though.
kelnos 7y ago
> You end up basically losing a day when flying anyway, even for short trips I wouldn't at all agree with that. I live in SF and can get door-to-door to a friend's house in San Diego in 3 hours. I can do similar things for LA, Vegas, Portland, and Seattle if I like. Even when I fly cross-country to visit family (near DC), yes, the flight out is a waste of a day (unless I take a red-eye and hope I can sleep), but the flight back is just 3 hours after adjusting for the time zone change. I can take an early flight out in the morning and still put in a full day of work, or have a full day visiting and fly back after dinner. I really don't want to spend several days just on travel, were I to take a train. I would consider that a waste of valuable time that I could be spending at my destination. I might enjoy a long multi-day train ride as a vacation (once every few years, perhaps), but not when my plan is just to get from point A to point B. I'll usually take the train from DC to NYC, or NYC to Boston, when I'm out east visiting friends, but I recently looked at doing DC to Boston direct, and was disappointed to see that I'd burn 7 hours on a train for only $20 less than a much shorter flight. And some of the trains were more expensive than the flight!
- irq11 7y ago
  ”I live in SF and can get door-to-door to a friend's house in San Diego in 3 hours. I can do similar things for LA, Vegas, Portland, and Seattle if I like” Takes about a half hour from SF to SFO by car or BART. You need to get to the airport an hour before boarding. Boarding takes half an hour. That’s two hours. Flight time to SAN is about 1.5 hours. So now we’re at 3.5 hours, without counting commute time to your friend’s house. And that’s pretty much optimal, in my experience. Maybe you can shave a half hour off, but unless you live next to the airport, you’ll miss as many flights as you catch if you try it regularly. ”Even when I fly cross-country...the flight back is just three hours after adjusting for time-zone change.” Now you’re just making things up. Quick google tells me that’s a five-hour flight, not counting the lead time, taxi, etc.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    > Takes about a half hour from SF to SFO by car or BART. You need to get to the airport an hour before boarding. Boarding takes half an hour. That’s two hours. Flight time to SAN is about 1.5 hours. So now we’re at 3.5 hours, without counting commute time to your friend’s house. Feel free to see my other reply in the thread. It takes me 15 mins to get to SFO by car (sure, if I lived in, say, the Marina, it would take longer; but I don't, so it doesn't), and I generally get to the airport 40 minutes before takeoff (arrive an hour before boarding? People do that? I don't even do that for an international flight), so in general I walk up to the gate just as boarding is starting. I usually time it so I'll arrive at the airport about 10 mins before boarding starts, which gives me plenty of time to get through the TSA Pre line (usually Terminal 3 for me, which tends to be pretty quick unless you pick your flights for peak times). > Now you’re just making things up. Quick google tells me that’s a five-hour flight, not counting the lead time, taxi, etc. I think you misunderstood. Yes, it's a 5-6 hour flight, as you say. If I leave DCA or IAD at 6am Eastern time, I arrive at SFO at 8-9am Pacific time, and have a full day ahead of me. Or I can have dinner at my sister's place, head to the airport, leave DCA/IAD on a 9pm flight, and be home a little after midnight, at which point I go to bed and have a normal day the next day. That's what I mean when I say "adjusting for the time-zone change". And sure, there's more on either end for airport transit and boarding, but... so what? If I do the morning flight, I have an early morning, certainly -- I need to leave my sister's house by 4:30am -- but I can close my eyes for a bit on the plane, and it's not so bad when I land. Will I be a little more tired than usual come evening? Sure, but maybe I just go to bed a couple hours earlier. The original assertion was "[you lose] a day when flying, even for short trips", which is just patently false.
atlasunshrugged 7y ago
Unfortunately, the sleeper cars are often quite expensive (I recently did DC to LA via Chicago and if I remember correctly the sleeper car price was about 2.5x what a flight would have cost me). But totally agreed if they could get the cost down for a nice sleeper car to a reasonable level

Trisell 7y ago

I wish we had these. Crossing Europe on one was magnificent. The issue is with states being what they are it would take something like the Eurotrain system and that won’t happen in our country any time soon. There just isn’t the desire to do this in this country. :(

reaperducer 7y ago
If you're interested in the history of why Europe has such a dense train network, and the United States doesn't, it's partially about war. There was a multi-part show I saw on BBC Four about a year ago that explained that Europe's train network isn't the result of some kind of visionary urban planning or anything altruistic. It's because European nations have such a long history of fighting one another. And in the early part of the last century, the continent went on a rail-building frenzy because of WWI. The United States have only gone to beating each other up once, and that was before trains were viable as large-scale tools of war. Perhaps if the Civil War was delayed by a couple of decades, things might be different. Of course, there are many other factors, but this is one that I find interesting and almost never explored.
- hodgesrm 7y ago
  Rail was in fact critical for supply during the US Civil War. The Siege of Petersburg, whose eventual loss doomed the Confederacy, hinged on the important rail junction in the town. That's just one of many examples. Use of rail in the America conflict prefigured its application the war of 1870 and of course WWI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_railroads_in_the_American_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_railroads_in_the_A...
- gaustin 7y ago
  Rail was a hugely impactful tool during the US Civil War. I would guess that geography and the demographics of the American west are as much to blame as the relative lack of continental conflict in the rail era.
- Aloha 7y ago
  The United States has a pretty dense rail network now, even after the cuts in the dark age of railroading - I'll point out that we have 6 major west-Midwest routes, 3 Midwest to east routes, plus an equal number of Midwest to south routings. We don't need more rail, we need subsidy to operate more passenger trains.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    Even if the train ride were completely free I'd usually opt to drive. That's because most places in the US you need a car to get around. So I might as well just bring my own. Except for a hand full of major cities, the US just isn't dense enough for rail to work well.
    - danenania 7y ago
      How about ferry trains that also tack on cars for vehicles?
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  All high speed rail lines are and have to be newly built lines though.
  - namibj 7y ago
    But you need local train service to allow for the long distances between stops you want on high-speed steel-wheel on steel rail systems. And, while there are alternatives with significantly higher acceleration/deceleration performance, they are not quite practical or use a lot more energy (Maglev could allow for frequent (100km @ 1000km/h top speed) stops, but it's extremely expensive to set up and there is basically no way to evade obstacles). These medium-speed tracks are old, but they allow up to 160km/h regularly if converted to ETCS (I think they need Level 2, due to the increased breaking distance), that is, with the normal regional trains introduced in the past few years.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  In the Seattle area they keep tearing up the old train right-of-ways and then claiming they need incredible tens of billions of dollars and several decades to create new right-of-way. The city also dug a new tunnel for cars. They decided the best use of the old tunnel was to fill it with rubble. Meanwhile, Seattle has some of the worst congestion in the country. I have no idea what goes on in the planning meetings for this stuff.
Tharkun 7y ago
Europe's train network isn't quite as wonderful as many would have you believe. Connections in cities like Paris are terrible and slow (they sometimes require crossing the entire city, which can take a very long time, especially with luggage). Sleeper trains have been mostly retired, only to be replaced with very expensive "high speed" connections which aren't quite as fast or as convenient as closing your eyes and waking up at your destination. Not to mention they're nearly always more expensive than cheap flights. There has been some talk of reviving some sleeper trains, but so far I haven't seen any new sleeper routes. Of course, Europe is a big place, but as far as I can tell, not much has improved over the last decade. If anything, cheap airfare has been on the rise and rail has been declining. Don't get me wrong, I love trains, and I would like nothing more than a fast and cheap inter-European rail network worthy of the name.
- bakuninsbart 7y ago
  They are not as expensive or very similar in price if you price in emissions.
  - Tharkun 7y ago
    Indeed. But sadly that's not how plane tickets are currently priced.
- Erwin 7y ago
  The Austrian national rail company has bought up the sleeper trains from other companies and is trying to establish some international routes (under the Nightjet brand). They recently mentioned going to e.g. Copenhagen, but not without some subsidies from the government: the train set alone costs 15-25 million EUR and you can only use it once per day. Denmark doesn't want to run the night trains again, so it'd be interesting if someone else could establish the routes. Vienna-Milano for 2 in a cabin with no one else is 190 EUR each way or 240 if you want an en-suite toilet/shower and takes 19 hours. Or you could fly (1 hour 20 minutes) for 50 EUR return per person. So for the 380 EUR you save, you can go the evening before and spend an extra night in a 5-star hotel room in Milano, even accounting for transportation from the airport.

b_tterc_p 7y ago

Where/why are you going that you can spare two days?

danenania 7y ago
Anywhere, for any reason. I work remotely and could do so comfortably on the train, so what's the rush? I'd rather spend more time and have a good experience than be treated like livestock at the airport.
- eanzenberg 7y ago
  That’s sweet for you. Majority of the nation does not have the luxury to spend days traveling.
  - danenania 7y ago
    Maybe not the majority, but certainly many millions of people in all kinds of jobs could conceivably work remotely for a day or two while traveling by train and lose less productive time than they would by taking a plane. Also, if we really had bullet trains that could do 200+ MPH, you could have cross-country express trains that take less than 24 hours, so it wouldn't even have to be multiple days.
  - pandapower2 7y ago
    That is interesting actually. You could argue that the tiny amount of leave Americans typically receive contributes to emissions. With people being unable to spare additional time for travel there is a strong disincentive to use any form of transport apart from flying.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    If we don't solve this problem you won't have the luxury of travelling anywhere, we will be spending all our energy and capital just on surviving.
  - patall 7y ago
    However, one could also argue that the majority of the nation does not have the luxury to spend a single day traveling, so going by sleeper train is even better. I recently had a business trip to Switzerland and took the sleeper train from Berlin to Basel (9pm to 8am) where I arrived after a nice breakfast (in the train) so much more relaxed than after a hectic flight. Its more expensive but only because its basically hotel + trip.

closeparen 7y ago

You can already get from San Francisco to Chicago in 2.5 days, and from Chicago to New York in 1 day. The scenery is great, the sleepers are comfortable, and the food is decent. Assuming two week-long vacations, though, you'd easily spend more than half the time in transit.

danenania 7y ago
When I've tried trains in the US in the past, there were ridiculously bad delays pretty much every time, even for short trips. The consensus seems to be that they just aren't reliable due to right-of-way issues? If things have improved, I might have to give it another go at some point.
- nraynaud 7y ago
  Taking the southwest chief, I received an email telling me it was 45min late. It was actually on time, I almost missed it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Every time I check the prices for Amtrak it costs much more than flying, which is frankly absurd. Which is sad because I have a station within walking distance of my house. I should be able to explore the whole US from my house but it isn’t even remotely possible due to cost. How is it possible to fly through the air for cheaper than trundling along on a rail?
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  The cost is just incredible - I'd always wanted to do cross country by train and was booking and the prices were just outrageous for a sleeper car versus a plane. I opted for the middle route of just having a seat on the train... 3 days later I regretted that decision, but it wasn't quite as bad as the Romania to Moldova overnight train, that one was rough

adrianN 7y ago

It would be a good start if the US would build proper train connections in the corridors where that makes financial sense today. For example the Northeast Corridor could use a lot more investment.

Aloha 7y ago

I think high speed rail is great, but it doesn't seem to work well on routes longer then 3-500 miles, if for no other reason than the construction cost is too high.

KptMarchewa 7y ago
Yet it works in China. The reason why it won't work is because flight is essentially subsidized - if you were to pay for all flight externalities, it would be way costlier than trains even on longer routes. Probably not on routes such as LA-NYC or tho.
wiggler00m 7y ago
You can travel 1176.3 miles via high speed rail (shinkansen) in Japan (Hokkaido to Kyushu). 3 of the air routes that cover this journey are in the top 11 busiest domestic routes in the world (#3 Sapporo to Tokyo-Haneda;#4 Fukuoka to Tokyo-Haneda;#11 Tokyo-Haneda to Osaka-Itami). The highest ranking US domestic route is #30 (JFK-LAX), though by distance it's almost 3X (2827.2 miles).

thatfrenchguy 7y ago

two days is what Amtrak takes today though.

kelnos 7y ago

> You end up basically losing a day when flying anyway, even for short trips I wouldn't at all agree with that. I live in SF and can get door-to-door to a friend's house in San Diego in 3 hours. I can do similar things for LA, Vegas, Portland, and Seattle if I like. Even when I fly cross-country to visit family (near DC), yes, the flight out is a waste of a day (unless I take a red-eye and hope I can sleep), but the flight back is just 3 hours after adjusting for the time zone change. I can take an early flight out in the morning and still put in a full day of work, or have a full day visiting and fly back after dinner. I really don't want to spend several days just on travel, were I to take a train. I would consider that a waste of valuable time that I could be spending at my destination. I might enjoy a long multi-day train ride as a vacation (once every few years, perhaps), but not when my plan is just to get from point A to point B. I'll usually take the train from DC to NYC, or NYC to Boston, when I'm out east visiting friends, but I recently looked at doing DC to Boston direct, and was disappointed to see that I'd burn 7 hours on a train for only $20 less than a much shorter flight. And some of the trains were more expensive than the flight!

irq11 7y ago
”I live in SF and can get door-to-door to a friend's house in San Diego in 3 hours. I can do similar things for LA, Vegas, Portland, and Seattle if I like” Takes about a half hour from SF to SFO by car or BART. You need to get to the airport an hour before boarding. Boarding takes half an hour. That’s two hours. Flight time to SAN is about 1.5 hours. So now we’re at 3.5 hours, without counting commute time to your friend’s house. And that’s pretty much optimal, in my experience. Maybe you can shave a half hour off, but unless you live next to the airport, you’ll miss as many flights as you catch if you try it regularly. ”Even when I fly cross-country...the flight back is just three hours after adjusting for time-zone change.” Now you’re just making things up. Quick google tells me that’s a five-hour flight, not counting the lead time, taxi, etc.
- kelnos 7y ago
  > Takes about a half hour from SF to SFO by car or BART. You need to get to the airport an hour before boarding. Boarding takes half an hour. That’s two hours. Flight time to SAN is about 1.5 hours. So now we’re at 3.5 hours, without counting commute time to your friend’s house. Feel free to see my other reply in the thread. It takes me 15 mins to get to SFO by car (sure, if I lived in, say, the Marina, it would take longer; but I don't, so it doesn't), and I generally get to the airport 40 minutes before takeoff (arrive an hour before boarding? People do that? I don't even do that for an international flight), so in general I walk up to the gate just as boarding is starting. I usually time it so I'll arrive at the airport about 10 mins before boarding starts, which gives me plenty of time to get through the TSA Pre line (usually Terminal 3 for me, which tends to be pretty quick unless you pick your flights for peak times). > Now you’re just making things up. Quick google tells me that’s a five-hour flight, not counting the lead time, taxi, etc. I think you misunderstood. Yes, it's a 5-6 hour flight, as you say. If I leave DCA or IAD at 6am Eastern time, I arrive at SFO at 8-9am Pacific time, and have a full day ahead of me. Or I can have dinner at my sister's place, head to the airport, leave DCA/IAD on a 9pm flight, and be home a little after midnight, at which point I go to bed and have a normal day the next day. That's what I mean when I say "adjusting for the time-zone change". And sure, there's more on either end for airport transit and boarding, but... so what? If I do the morning flight, I have an early morning, certainly -- I need to leave my sister's house by 4:30am -- but I can close my eyes for a bit on the plane, and it's not so bad when I land. Will I be a little more tired than usual come evening? Sure, but maybe I just go to bed a couple hours earlier. The original assertion was "[you lose] a day when flying, even for short trips", which is just patently false.

atlasunshrugged 7y ago

Unfortunately, the sleeper cars are often quite expensive (I recently did DC to LA via Chicago and if I remember correctly the sleeper car price was about 2.5x what a flight would have cost me). But totally agreed if they could get the cost down for a nice sleeper car to a reasonable level