3 ms·

> Is the rail infrastructure that much expensive? Building and maintaining one runway at point A and one at point B is obviously much easier than building and

by jseban 5y ago

> Is the rail infrastructure that much expensive? Building and maintaining one runway at point A and one at point B is obviously much easier than building and maintaining a railroad between them.

mrtksn 5y ago
Is it? It's not that obvious to me at least. I suspect that it's more like function of distance, speed, landscape. Airports also tend to be at the middle of nowhere, IMHO you need to incorporate the cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to get somewhere from that nowhere.
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  Well, there are lots of other factors, but the general reasoning holds. If you have ten airports, you have 10 * (10 + 1) / 2 = 55 airlines. If you have 10 train stations, you have only as many rail lines as you're willing to build, which means countries end up spending most of the effort and money on lines connecting major city centers. Also, if you have an international airport, you're connected to every capital city of the world. The logistic advantages of air travel are huge. Kerosene will need to get a lot more expensive before these advantages lose out.
  - joking 5y ago
    a plane also can make 4 round trips in the time the train takes to make 1, but on the other side, a train can move 500-600 people while the plane moves 160.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Sure, there are advantages but advantages are not one sided. It's not like choosing between Netflix plans where you pay 9.99$ for 2 screen and HD streaming and you can upgrade to 14.99$ package with 4 screens and UHD streaming. It's more like choosing between Netflix and Amazon Prime. You might get fewer options to watch but you also get one day delivery and some really nice content too. Often, you end up having both. Also, trains can switch lines, disconnect, run on the same line back to back etc. Just look at the Europe railways map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_Map_of_Europe_2011.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_... I suspect, with some standardisation and automation, you can end up having very good point-to-point travel options by train. Even better than airlines maybe. The current inefficiencies could be due to poor management and weak integrations. Can you imagine how great could be to have Europe and Asia wide rail network where automated carriages and rail switching systems coordinate to achieve travel from any train station to any train station?

by jseban 5y ago

> Is the rail infrastructure that much expensive? Building and maintaining one runway at point A and one at point B is obviously much easier than building and maintaining a railroad between them.

mrtksn 5y ago

Is it? It's not that obvious to me at least. I suspect that it's more like function of distance, speed, landscape. Airports also tend to be at the middle of nowhere, IMHO you need to incorporate the cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to get somewhere from that nowhere.

PoignardAzur 5y ago
Well, there are lots of other factors, but the general reasoning holds. If you have ten airports, you have 10 * (10 + 1) / 2 = 55 airlines. If you have 10 train stations, you have only as many rail lines as you're willing to build, which means countries end up spending most of the effort and money on lines connecting major city centers. Also, if you have an international airport, you're connected to every capital city of the world. The logistic advantages of air travel are huge. Kerosene will need to get a lot more expensive before these advantages lose out.
- joking 5y ago
  a plane also can make 4 round trips in the time the train takes to make 1, but on the other side, a train can move 500-600 people while the plane moves 160.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Sure, there are advantages but advantages are not one sided. It's not like choosing between Netflix plans where you pay 9.99$ for 2 screen and HD streaming and you can upgrade to 14.99$ package with 4 screens and UHD streaming. It's more like choosing between Netflix and Amazon Prime. You might get fewer options to watch but you also get one day delivery and some really nice content too. Often, you end up having both. Also, trains can switch lines, disconnect, run on the same line back to back etc. Just look at the Europe railways map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_Map_of_Europe_2011.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_... I suspect, with some standardisation and automation, you can end up having very good point-to-point travel options by train. Even better than airlines maybe. The current inefficiencies could be due to poor management and weak integrations. Can you imagine how great could be to have Europe and Asia wide rail network where automated carriages and rail switching systems coordinate to achieve travel from any train station to any train station?