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>Current technologies are too far behind in speed though. That depends entirely on the distance traveled; no one is suggesting a replacement of transcontinenta
by technofiend 7y ago
>Current technologies are too far behind in speed though.
That depends entirely on the distance traveled; no one is suggesting a replacement of transcontinental flights with trains. But there's plenty of medium and short haul flights (for example) that would be far more comfortable on a train with little difference in total travel time once you've factored airport security overhead.
I'll give you a practical example: my wife and I live in Houston and regularly visit New Orleans. It's a one hour and five minute flight on Southwest which is one of the few airlines that still allow two suitcases per passenger for free. That's a five to six hour drive if I choose to go by car and with rare exception I choose to drive. I'm happy to trade two to three more hours on the road versus the hassle of dealing with the airport.
>Passengers will trade better wifi, food, space, etc, in exchange for longer travel times but only up to a point.
The time to travel between Houston to New Orleans would be two to three hours by high speed train. That's competitive with the Southwest flight and fast enough I'd seriously consider versus driving myself. In fact at those speeds I'd start looking at longer trips either to Mexico, farther West to Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado or farther East to tourist destinations there. At least for me it would increase my travel options and I'd be sure to take advantage over it over flying.
- manigandham 7y agoSure, but then I'll point to my other comments that politically and economically this isn't viable. Adding a train line requires an immense real-estate investment, likely with lots of battles with existing land owners who don't want to sell. After that, you're stuck with that route whether it makes money or not, and how many riders really travel between those cities in the first place? This is the problem with CA's high speed rail line. They ended up placing both ends in the middle of nowhere when even the LA->SF route would have barely gotten the ridership needed to work. Planes can reroute all the time and independently control schedules and payloads to account for actual passenger demand, while also only needing an airport on either end which already exist. If a train was built, you'd be paying 10x more for a ticket than the airline. Is that something you would do? Something many others would do?
- technofiend 7y agoAnti rail sentiment has been with us since the advent of rail itself and really the arguments haven't changed. https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/anti-rail/images/propaganda-poster.gif https://www.archives.gov/files/education/lessons/anti-rail/i... The same arguments against rail can be made (for example) against new roads and exactly for the same reasons: they just go one place, you have to fight land owners to put them in and what if no one uses them?
- manigandham 7y agoSure, but then I'll point to my other comments that politically and economically this isn't viable. Adding a train line requires an immense real-estate investment, likely with lots of battles with existing land owners who don't want to sell. After that, you're stuck with that route whether it makes money or not, and how many riders really travel between those cities in the first place? Planes can reroute all the time and independently control schedules and payloads to account for actual passenger demand, while also only needing an airport on either end which already exist. If a train was built, you'd be paying 10x more for a ticket than the airline. Is that something you would do? Something many others would do? Just to get there at basically the same time in the end?