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There isn't many people in the USA that love the idea of driving their car to ride a train so that they can then rent a car to get where they are going. Rails
by lotharcable 4y ago
There isn't many people in the USA that love the idea of driving their car to ride a train so that they can then rent a car to get where they are going.
Rails work very well in situations were you have high density living areas connected to high density working areas and everybody needs to get from the same point A to the same point B very often.
There is only a few places in the USA were such situations exist and they generally already have railways for people to use.
There was once a time were the USA had useful network of trains that people could actually use to get where they wanted to go, but the Federal government flushed that down the toilet in the first half of the 20th century in the name of "improving efficiency".
Pretty much every town, big or small, in the USA that was started before train going through the heart of it. If it didn't have a way to get there by rail there was no real point in building it.
But that hasn't been true for a long long time.
The idea being that large numbers of privately owned railways with small depots all over the place wasteful use of resources. It was much better to regulate and consolidate to remove the redundancies. They used to be proud about all the different depots and stops that were being destroyed and railway spurs that were being shutdown because they thought that it would reduce costs and economize the railway network.
The end result of all of this was the Interstate highway system.
Rail isn't going to come back.
- Judgmentality 4y ago> There isn't many people in the USA that love the idea of driving their car to ride a train so that they can then rent a car to get where they are going. You've just described airports, except with trains instead of planes. If I could take a train instead of fly I would.
- katbyte 4y agoEven if it’s more expensive and twice and long I will take a train over flying. Flying is awful and trains and nice.
- deepdriver 4y agoI wouldn’t. PTO is precious to me and planes are many times faster than trains.
- occz 4y agoHSR beats flying every time in medium-distances, which is where anyone is really pushing to build it.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoPlanes are technically faster once they get going, but the processes related to security, boarding, and the location of airports often being very far from city centres negates this for HSR train journeys <= 4 hours long. In theory you could replicate all the worst features of airports with rail, too, I suppose, but for obvious reasons it's easier to build a train station in a city centre than an airport.
- pengaru 4y ago> planes are many times faster than trains California's HSR trainset requirements specify sustained 220MPH. Your statement applies to the current dysmal US freight-prioritized train situation, not any respectable modern HSR implementation. A modern HSR in the USA not shared with freight should have no trouble beating ~500MPH air travel door-to-door. It should emit less co2 and cost less to boot. Plus good luck affording an entire room with a bed and private toilet on a plane, that's private jet amenities territory. Observation and dining cars are also nice experience enhancers trains easily offer but planes can't afford the space for.