4 ms·

Sadly our 1000 mile trips currently take ~24 hours rather than the 5-6 that it could. Multiple factors for that: slow trains; long stops; cargo rail gets priori

by dahart 4y ago

Sadly our 1000 mile trips currently take ~24 hours rather than the 5-6 that it could. Multiple factors for that: slow trains; long stops; cargo rail gets priority over passenger rail.

chrisfinazzo 4y ago
Yep. Even the fastest trains Amtrak offers ("Acela") are zoned - or permitted, not sure what the right term is here - up to 150 MPH, and only on specific portions of the route. Makes no sense at all.
- redtexture 4y ago
  The sense is that the Northeast corridor has too many curves and roadbed issues to be able to go faster. There would have to be constructed a new corridor, not in the same path as existing railroad rights of way, for not a small amount of money, and going through expensive real estate. The political will for that is not in existence, so far.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    And the fact is that while taking a train the full length of the Northeast Corridor takes too long to be practical most of the time, NYC to points north and NYC to points south works pretty well (i.e. is competitive with flying) with existing trains.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Easy to complain on the internet. Hard to change a hard left into a sweeping arc in the middle of New Haven. Even ignoring the money, if you try and do a project like that you are going to get slapped in the face by all the same "cutting apart muh neighborhood" rhetoric that gets used against highways. Grade separation and "just paying those people to go away" are both expensive enough to be non-starters.
    - tomjakubowski 4y ago
      Highways and rail create different kinds of disruption in neighborhoods. Highways constantly have traffic, creating noise and pollution all the time. Railroads are mostly quiet, with loud traffic in short bursts. Passenger railroads are narrower than urban highways. The US-101 freeway cuts through Echo Park and Westlake in Los Angeles, taking up as much as 330 feet of width, counting on/off ramps. California HSR has trench sections specced as narrow as 72 feet[1], and most of its urban rights-of-way are under 100 feet wide. Walking next to the 101 in Echo Park you can see how it so starkly divides what was once a single connected neighborhood. The light rail lines (about ~40-50 ft to cross) in other neighborhoods don't give that impression. [1]: https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/programs/eir_memos/Proj_Guidelines_TM1_1_21R00.pdf https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/programs/eir_...
      - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        I have no love for highway pits but to play if off like an HSR pit is some quaint little light rail is simply farcical. You're being dishonest or ignorant. The fact that you compare max-width of one to min-width of the other rules out one option. A pit is a pit. You're limited to crossing at a few specific points no matter how narrow it is and traveling to those points accounts for the bulk of the distance covered. The physical width only matters if you're evaluating the neighborhood for visual appeal and not actual livability. "Quiet most of the time" doesn't really count for much because people acclimate to the background noise levels and that one train per hour is just as jarring as that one motorcycle with the insane exhaust per hour. At least with subways and airports it's every couple minutes so you get more used to it.
        redtexture 4y ago
        High speed rail is like having a jet plane go by, given the intent to run at, say 150 to 200 miles per hour, and has its own troublesome neighbor issues. All corridors are troublesome.
aj7 4y ago
I regularly travel Tucson <-> Ft. Lauderdale. 2100 miles. Including ground transport, door to door is 10-12 hours.
- dahart 4y ago
  Wow, crazy! On Amtrak?
  - cbm-vic-20 4y ago
    On Amtrak, that's a 102 hour trip that takes you through Chicago and DC. Not an exaggeration. Given usual delays, that 102h is wildly optimistic. Coach seats: $387.
- jfengel 4y ago
  That's interesting. You must have some much better train routes out in the big empty spaces in between. What line is that? For me, in DC, the trip is half the distance (1,000 miles) and would take twice as long (25 hours, according to Google).
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    10-12 hours door to door if flying. It is 32 hours if driving 130-150 kph on the freeway (80-90 mph) without stopping for food, bathrooms, gas, or sleep. It's probably a few hundred hours with the train since you will have to go a few hundred or a few thousand kilometers north first. Interestingly, there is a long train line from Louisiana to Los Angeles called the Sunset Limited. Up until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 it ran between Orlando Florida and Los Angeles,
  - aj7 4y ago
    That line is Southwest Airlines.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

by dahart 4y ago

Sadly our 1000 mile trips currently take ~24 hours rather than the 5-6 that it could. Multiple factors for that: slow trains; long stops; cargo rail gets priority over passenger rail.

chrisfinazzo 4y ago

Yep. Even the fastest trains Amtrak offers ("Acela") are zoned - or permitted, not sure what the right term is here - up to 150 MPH, and only on specific portions of the route. Makes no sense at all.

redtexture 4y ago
The sense is that the Northeast corridor has too many curves and roadbed issues to be able to go faster. There would have to be constructed a new corridor, not in the same path as existing railroad rights of way, for not a small amount of money, and going through expensive real estate. The political will for that is not in existence, so far.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And the fact is that while taking a train the full length of the Northeast Corridor takes too long to be practical most of the time, NYC to points north and NYC to points south works pretty well (i.e. is competitive with flying) with existing trains.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Easy to complain on the internet. Hard to change a hard left into a sweeping arc in the middle of New Haven. Even ignoring the money, if you try and do a project like that you are going to get slapped in the face by all the same "cutting apart muh neighborhood" rhetoric that gets used against highways. Grade separation and "just paying those people to go away" are both expensive enough to be non-starters.
  - tomjakubowski 4y ago
    Highways and rail create different kinds of disruption in neighborhoods. Highways constantly have traffic, creating noise and pollution all the time. Railroads are mostly quiet, with loud traffic in short bursts. Passenger railroads are narrower than urban highways. The US-101 freeway cuts through Echo Park and Westlake in Los Angeles, taking up as much as 330 feet of width, counting on/off ramps. California HSR has trench sections specced as narrow as 72 feet[1], and most of its urban rights-of-way are under 100 feet wide. Walking next to the 101 in Echo Park you can see how it so starkly divides what was once a single connected neighborhood. The light rail lines (about ~40-50 ft to cross) in other neighborhoods don't give that impression. [1]: https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/programs/eir_memos/Proj_Guidelines_TM1_1_21R00.pdf https://www.hsr.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/docs/programs/eir_...
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      I have no love for highway pits but to play if off like an HSR pit is some quaint little light rail is simply farcical. You're being dishonest or ignorant. The fact that you compare max-width of one to min-width of the other rules out one option. A pit is a pit. You're limited to crossing at a few specific points no matter how narrow it is and traveling to those points accounts for the bulk of the distance covered. The physical width only matters if you're evaluating the neighborhood for visual appeal and not actual livability. "Quiet most of the time" doesn't really count for much because people acclimate to the background noise levels and that one train per hour is just as jarring as that one motorcycle with the insane exhaust per hour. At least with subways and airports it's every couple minutes so you get more used to it.
      - redtexture 4y ago
        High speed rail is like having a jet plane go by, given the intent to run at, say 150 to 200 miles per hour, and has its own troublesome neighbor issues. All corridors are troublesome.

aj7 4y ago

I regularly travel Tucson <-> Ft. Lauderdale. 2100 miles. Including ground transport, door to door is 10-12 hours.

dahart 4y ago
Wow, crazy! On Amtrak?
- cbm-vic-20 4y ago
  On Amtrak, that's a 102 hour trip that takes you through Chicago and DC. Not an exaggeration. Given usual delays, that 102h is wildly optimistic. Coach seats: $387.
jfengel 4y ago
That's interesting. You must have some much better train routes out in the big empty spaces in between. What line is that? For me, in DC, the trip is half the distance (1,000 miles) and would take twice as long (25 hours, according to Google).
- orangepurple 4y ago
  10-12 hours door to door if flying. It is 32 hours if driving 130-150 kph on the freeway (80-90 mph) without stopping for food, bathrooms, gas, or sleep. It's probably a few hundred hours with the train since you will have to go a few hundred or a few thousand kilometers north first. Interestingly, there is a long train line from Louisiana to Los Angeles called the Sunset Limited. Up until Hurricane Katrina in 2005 it ran between Orlando Florida and Los Angeles,
- aj7 4y ago
  That line is Southwest Airlines.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]