4 ms·

It would be better to give all the cities nonstop advance ticketed service, complete with luggage handling and seat reservations. (just like aircraft) It's pos

by burfog 6y ago

It would be better to give all the cities nonstop advance ticketed service, complete with luggage handling and seat reservations. (just like aircraft) It's possible with rail. You just need to avoid stopping trains on the main line. Switch off on to a siding to serve the station. Switching should be at the fastest safe speed; slow trains do not belong on the main line.

DominikPeters 6y ago
Because trains take a long distance to brake, distance between trains needs to be pretty high on high-speed lines, which imposes a limit on this. (Not sure why you'd need any luggage handling, you can just bring all your luggage onto the train yourself.)
lmm 6y ago
Approximately nowhere does this. It wastes a lot of the capacity of the line and requires you to build wider right at the most expensive part of the line (the stations, which are hopefully in city centres), plus it sacrifices a lot of the convenience advantages of rail.
- burfog 6y ago
  What really sacrifices convenience: a. You show up, only to discover that the train just left. Since it isn't properly scheduled, you just have to get lucky. Enjoy waiting an hour or two for the next train. b. You show up, only to discover that there are too many people to fit on the train. Since you don't have a seat reservation, the train fills up and you don't get to board. Enjoy waiting an hour or two for the next train.
  - lmm 6y ago
    You can run trains much more frequently than every hour or two because you're running a simple service pattern that makes full use of the lines' capacity. Train travel is much more pleasant than air travel and being able to just turn up and go, and carry your own luggage, is a big part of that. This goes beyond fixing what's not broken - why are you trying to make the pleasant thing like the less pleasant thing?
    - burfog 6y ago
      Theoretically, they could run more frequently. They could run every 3 minutes. Reality: that won't happen It costs money to run trains that might be mostly empty, so they are run less often, which makes them less used, which makes them run less often, and so on. At best, reality looks more like this: https://www.mbta.com/schedules/CR-Lowell/timetable https://www.mbta.com/schedules/CR-Lowell/timetable That's 21 trains per weekday. Weekend days get only 8 trains. Amtrak is much much worse. At that service level, you could get 1 train per week, seasonal.
      - lmm 6y ago
        If trains are infrequent then stopping trains on the main line isn't a problem, and you'd really screw over the intermediate towns by skipping them sometimes. Reliable trains are a good thing. Frequent trains are a good thing. Your proposal doesn't help with either of those things and would waste money that could be spend improving them instead.

by burfog 6y ago

DominikPeters 6y ago

Because trains take a long distance to brake, distance between trains needs to be pretty high on high-speed lines, which imposes a limit on this. (Not sure why you'd need any luggage handling, you can just bring all your luggage onto the train yourself.)

lmm 6y ago

Approximately nowhere does this. It wastes a lot of the capacity of the line and requires you to build wider right at the most expensive part of the line (the stations, which are hopefully in city centres), plus it sacrifices a lot of the convenience advantages of rail.

burfog 6y ago
What really sacrifices convenience: a. You show up, only to discover that the train just left. Since it isn't properly scheduled, you just have to get lucky. Enjoy waiting an hour or two for the next train. b. You show up, only to discover that there are too many people to fit on the train. Since you don't have a seat reservation, the train fills up and you don't get to board. Enjoy waiting an hour or two for the next train.
- lmm 6y ago
  You can run trains much more frequently than every hour or two because you're running a simple service pattern that makes full use of the lines' capacity. Train travel is much more pleasant than air travel and being able to just turn up and go, and carry your own luggage, is a big part of that. This goes beyond fixing what's not broken - why are you trying to make the pleasant thing like the less pleasant thing?
  - burfog 6y ago
    Theoretically, they could run more frequently. They could run every 3 minutes. Reality: that won't happen It costs money to run trains that might be mostly empty, so they are run less often, which makes them less used, which makes them run less often, and so on. At best, reality looks more like this: https://www.mbta.com/schedules/CR-Lowell/timetable https://www.mbta.com/schedules/CR-Lowell/timetable That's 21 trains per weekday. Weekend days get only 8 trains. Amtrak is much much worse. At that service level, you could get 1 train per week, seasonal.
    - lmm 6y ago
      If trains are infrequent then stopping trains on the main line isn't a problem, and you'd really screw over the intermediate towns by skipping them sometimes. Reliable trains are a good thing. Frequent trains are a good thing. Your proposal doesn't help with either of those things and would waste money that could be spend improving them instead.