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I learned recently, there used to be trains on the Bay Bridge! https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/50-years-since-trains-crossed-Bay-Bridge-3217302.php https://

I learned recently, there used to be trains on the Bay Bridge! https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/50-years-since-trains-crossed-Bay-Bridge-3217302.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/50-years-since-trains-cr... I'm surprised there's not an easy rule of thumb: if a road has over two lanes in each direction, the route is busy enough to sustain trains/light rail.

anamax 5y ago
> if a road has over two lanes in each direction, the route is busy enough to sustain trains/light rail. That's necessary, but not sufficient. Rail requires enough commonality or at least linearity of both source and destination. If it's an octopus on either end of said road, rail doesn't work.
- TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
  What, does hub-and-spoke not work?
  - anamax 5y ago
    The claim was that rail works if there is enough traffic between two points. That claim is false. It's false even if it's the same traffic at both points. Hub and spoke is a specific kind of a set of pairs of points. (One point in each pair is in all members of the set.) Hub and spoke doesn't work unless there's enough traffic to each of the endpoints.
bryananderson 5y ago
You can step inside (and perhaps even ride) a Key System bridge unit at the Western Railway Museum near Suisun City, which has its own electrified railway line! Once upon a time, this line was part of an electric railway connecting Oakland and San Francisco to Sacramento. A hundred years later, electrification between Sacramento and the Bay is a long-term wish list item for Capitol Corridor. It is such a shame that the US allowed its passenger rail system to atrophy.
- genocidicbunny 5y ago
  It didn't just atrophy, in many places in the US it was actively attacked and killed off in favour of the automobile.
Animats 5y ago
The Key System - "Wheels of Progress" (1945-1948)[1] [1] https://archive.org/details/MarchofP1945 https://archive.org/details/MarchofP1945

anamax 5y ago

> if a road has over two lanes in each direction, the route is busy enough to sustain trains/light rail. That's necessary, but not sufficient. Rail requires enough commonality or at least linearity of both source and destination. If it's an octopus on either end of said road, rail doesn't work.

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
What, does hub-and-spoke not work?
- anamax 5y ago
  The claim was that rail works if there is enough traffic between two points. That claim is false. It's false even if it's the same traffic at both points. Hub and spoke is a specific kind of a set of pairs of points. (One point in each pair is in all members of the set.) Hub and spoke doesn't work unless there's enough traffic to each of the endpoints.

bryananderson 5y ago

You can step inside (and perhaps even ride) a Key System bridge unit at the Western Railway Museum near Suisun City, which has its own electrified railway line! Once upon a time, this line was part of an electric railway connecting Oakland and San Francisco to Sacramento. A hundred years later, electrification between Sacramento and the Bay is a long-term wish list item for Capitol Corridor. It is such a shame that the US allowed its passenger rail system to atrophy.

genocidicbunny 5y ago
It didn't just atrophy, in many places in the US it was actively attacked and killed off in favour of the automobile.

Animats 5y ago

The Key System - "Wheels of Progress" (1945-1948)[1] [1] https://archive.org/details/MarchofP1945 https://archive.org/details/MarchofP1945