6 ms·

Passenger jets travel about 500 miles an hour or faster. Bullet trains (which we don't even have in the US) are around 100-200mph at best. That's still a huge

Passenger jets travel about 500 miles an hour or faster. Bullet trains (which we don't even have in the US) are around 100-200mph at best. That's still a huge difference unfortunately, especially going 2500+ miles across the entire country.

anaganisk 4y ago
That's a bad way to compare. You are obviously not factoring in the checkin,boarding,de-boarding, and travel to airport times, which will almost add up to similar times. Japan has literally bought major cities in commute distance with bullet trains. What takes 10 hours in a flight will take 13 hours on fast trains. You factor that into your plan and travel comfortably and peacefully. If America is serious about trains, all it has to do is add more sleeper cars, and you will see how liberating train travel is.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  It's not a bad way to compare when looking at flights traveling 2500+ miles...
  - anaganisk 4y ago
    If US like the rest of the world, make trains popular and brings the costs down for trains and actually has more connectivity. The distance will quickly not become a problem. Like I said all we need is a sleeper coach, and we just have comfortable nap to the destination over night. India is able to transport millions of people in 2500+ KMs routes a day, you are looking at the people who are forced to pay and travel in those forsaken airliner comfort. Trains will only bring more people together when they connect more and make it affordable.
    - areyousure 4y ago
      In case anyone is curious, India has a single train route over 2500 miles long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibrugarh%E2%80%93Kanyakumari_Vivek_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibrugarh%E2%80%93Kanyakumari_... It runs twice a week and takes over 3 full days. Meanwhile, the fastest train in India averages under 60 mph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatimaan_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatimaan_Express
    - coredog64 4y ago
      2500 km == 1500 miles, or the driving distance from NYC to Dallas. If you wanted to go from Dallas to Los Angeles, that’s another 1400 miles (2300km).
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Trains have hauled passengers for about 200 years. I’d love them to increase in popularity and availability, but suspect that there won’t be huge change if it hasn’t happened by now.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  You have to board and get luggage on/off a train too ...
  - btilly 4y ago
    Train boarding is a lot faster than airplane boarding. Train stations are often conveniently located in crowded downtowns. Airports are located some distance away. Security is a lot more of a problem on planes because hijacking planes is a problem. Hijacking trains is pointless.
    - rvnx 4y ago
      Let's not forget that high-speed trains are very comfortable and do not have insane air turbulences
      - dzhiurgis 4y ago
        I took shinkansen last week. Some of it was quite wobbly. Passing oncoming train sounds like explosion that almost gives you heart attack. Entering tunnels blocks your ears due pressure difference. Yes the seats are obviously more comfy than plane (although one should compare with business class because it costs similar), but turbulence is not fair comparison.
    - coredog64 4y ago
      Hijacking a train in the US is currently pointless. While it’s true you can’t route a 200mph train into One WTC, a 200mph train full of people is now a good bargaining chip. You have a captive audience and you can derail the thing someplace where it can cause a lot of damage. At the end of the day, hijackings are about creating publicity. Don’t think that a popular high speed train would be completely immune from security requirements just because you can’t attack arbitrary targets.
      - TylerE 4y ago
        No it's not. Positive train control is universal on high speed lines. As soon as the train approaches a red or yellow without slowing the brakes will go into full emergency. Most such systems will also enforce a full stop if the speed limit (which the train knows, and is based on the derailment speed with a healthy margin). The only real credible threat is mass violence against the passengers. That could just as easily occur in any crowed public space.
- godelski 4y ago
  > What takes 10 hours in a flight will take 13 hours on fast trains. Okay, let's look at that bullet train. At best that's 200 mph. A trip from SF to NY is then going to be 12.85 hrs. Assuming we go in a perfectly straight line (trains can't do this) and no stops. We'll say 13 for ease. A nonstop flight (not hard to find) is about 5.5 hrs. In both situations we're only considering the travel time of the vehicle and not including anything like layovers/stops or boarding and unboarding. These are not one or two hour differences in travel time and thus security would make the difference, there are over 7hrs difference! You could fly all the way back to SFO before that bullet train rider gets to NYC (you're already through security). (We're also assuming that as trains get more popular that similar security theater isn't also introduced) Now I do think people would still take the train fwiw because even with a 7hr travel time takes up all your day and flying sucks. Plenty of people will make this trade as long as trains don't sardine pack like airlines do. But let's also not fool ourselves into thinking the times are roughly the same and that that train also isn't going to take closer to 16hrs to go across country. Which even means doubling the speed (400mph) still makes it slower than a plane with security check-ins.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    There are plenty that average 200mph and the Chinese seem to be getting a bit higher, with one operating at 286mph. They are working on considerably faster ones. Surely a US train could aim to be up there with the fastest? Even with that boost though, your point remains. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/travel/article/worlds-fastest-trains-cmd/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/travel/article/worlds-fastest-trains...
    - nradov 4y ago
      There's no way any future US bullet train could hit 200 mph through the Sierra Nevada and Rocky mountain ranges unless we bore tunnels straight through. Transcontinental bullet trains across North America are a total pipe dream just based on simple geography. But bullet trains should play a role in our regional transportation infrastructure.
    - qbasic_forever 4y ago
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  > What takes 10 hours in a flight will take 13 hours on fast trains. How do you figure that? I'm thinking out loud here: If we use some real examples: I'm lucky in that most of my family lives near major travel hubs, so I can fly direct most of the time. However, they all live in various places along the east coast of the US whereas I'm on the west coast. My trip last summer to see one group of them represented a 3100 mile / 5000 kilometer journey. The flight was 5 hours and 30 minutes. Let's add 2 hours of airport shenanigans to cover showing up ahead of boarding, handling bags, picking up luggage on the far side, etc. So 7 hours 30 minutes of travel (not counting commute to or from airport, but you'd have to get to your high speed rail station as well) (as an addendum, I was able to take public transit on both sides - busses & BART on the bay area side, and a local commuter rail on the far side. I had to get picked up by car from the train station though, no busses in that town) The fastest Japanese and European high speed trains go 300 km/hr. That's 16 and a half hours of rolling at top speed - no stops, slowdowns, sharing slower track, etc. If you stop at major cities along the way (say one stop per US state), you're probably looking at 20 hours of time on the train - each stop meaning you have to stop for 5-10 minutes, slow down and speed up, generally not be able to hit top speed in the confines of the city, etc. The transit time would be nearly triple in the best case scenario for a coast to coast flight in the US. The only thing I can think that would mitigate this is, as you said, sleeper cars. West coast to east coast is generally considered a lost day between the travel time and the timezone shift. I guess if you start your train journey in the early morning and sleep on the train that evening, arriving in the early morning next day, it could make up for the "get to the family's place and immediately go to sleep" pattern. You're just sleeping enroute rather than at your destination. For "mid range" journeys, take a bullet train trip I did in Japan: Sendai -> Hiroshima. I spent 6 hours on the train, the flight would've been about and hour and a half plus the extra 2 hours of airport fun. Because it was a vacation I wasn't going to meaningfully fill the "saved" 2 to 3 hours and the train was way more comfortable. But, for business travel, this wouldn't have been good. In the US it's not an uncommon pattern to take a flight to the next major city for same-day business to avoid hotel costs. For flights so short the airport time exceeds or matches the train difference, obviously this doesn't matter (e.g. SF <-> LA travel if California high speed rail manages to survive until completion). But you may be sent from SF to Chicago and be expected to attend meetings upon arrival. Can't do that with high speed rail. Even if they went 50% faster, it'll take 7-8 hours to reach Chicago from California. For the record, I love high speed trains. I've enjoyed using them in the countries that have them. But the longest journey I've ever taken on one is that Sendai to Hiroshima trip, and the second longest is Munich to Berlin (I originated in Innsbruck, Austria but the leg to Munich was not on a high speed train). It'd be great if we could replace "intra-state" or "neighboring-state" flights with trains, places where they really are faster or at comparable travel times. Obviously none of this is looking at the fact that all of these high speed trains are electric, so they could be powered from zero-carbon or carbon-neutral sources, whereas air travel is a significant source of emissions. But that's a separate argument.
- sigstoat 4y ago
  > Japan has literally bought major cities in commute distance with bullet trains. Japan is the size of California. > You factor that into your plan and travel comfortably and peacefully. If train travel became as popular as air travel in the US, the TSA would pay just as much attention to making it as miserable as air travel.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  Purely European case - during height of Covid frenzy at end of 2021, I spent 2 weeks paragliding in south of Spain around Malaga. When departure time came, home country (Switzerland) changed covid rules into PCR-before-boarding, which was impossible to obtain where I was. So I took train since land borders were much more permissive. Instead of 1.5h flight + a bit of time extra around, it took me full 2 days with extra sleep in Barcelona of fastest bullet trains Europe has (TGV + Spanish equivalent, 300kmh was frequent speed) to get home. That's not even through-Europe crossing, rather a relatively small hop within south-western part of Europe. It was more expensive as flights too (but not that much, but then there was hotel). Any destination we went through for holidays in past few years are completely unreachable by trains, and the amount of hops (stress, delays, missed connections) is massive. Train networks have much more massive cascade issues with delays propagating like tsunami far and wide. Trains simply don't cover much apart from few very narrow cases in best possible situation globally. Everywhere else, train networks are much worse.
browningstreet 4y ago
Regional flight counts are proliferating… If we could train more of those the airlines might be able to run their continental flights more successfully.

anaganisk 4y ago

That's a bad way to compare. You are obviously not factoring in the checkin,boarding,de-boarding, and travel to airport times, which will almost add up to similar times. Japan has literally bought major cities in commute distance with bullet trains. What takes 10 hours in a flight will take 13 hours on fast trains. You factor that into your plan and travel comfortably and peacefully. If America is serious about trains, all it has to do is add more sleeper cars, and you will see how liberating train travel is.

CogitoCogito 4y ago
It's not a bad way to compare when looking at flights traveling 2500+ miles...
- anaganisk 4y ago
  If US like the rest of the world, make trains popular and brings the costs down for trains and actually has more connectivity. The distance will quickly not become a problem. Like I said all we need is a sleeper coach, and we just have comfortable nap to the destination over night. India is able to transport millions of people in 2500+ KMs routes a day, you are looking at the people who are forced to pay and travel in those forsaken airliner comfort. Trains will only bring more people together when they connect more and make it affordable.
  - areyousure 4y ago
    In case anyone is curious, India has a single train route over 2500 miles long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibrugarh%E2%80%93Kanyakumari_Vivek_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dibrugarh%E2%80%93Kanyakumari_... It runs twice a week and takes over 3 full days. Meanwhile, the fastest train in India averages under 60 mph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatimaan_Express https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatimaan_Express
  - coredog64 4y ago
    2500 km == 1500 miles, or the driving distance from NYC to Dallas. If you wanted to go from Dallas to Los Angeles, that’s another 1400 miles (2300km).
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Trains have hauled passengers for about 200 years. I’d love them to increase in popularity and availability, but suspect that there won’t be huge change if it hasn’t happened by now.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
You have to board and get luggage on/off a train too ...
- btilly 4y ago
  Train boarding is a lot faster than airplane boarding. Train stations are often conveniently located in crowded downtowns. Airports are located some distance away. Security is a lot more of a problem on planes because hijacking planes is a problem. Hijacking trains is pointless.
  - rvnx 4y ago
    Let's not forget that high-speed trains are very comfortable and do not have insane air turbulences
    - dzhiurgis 4y ago
      I took shinkansen last week. Some of it was quite wobbly. Passing oncoming train sounds like explosion that almost gives you heart attack. Entering tunnels blocks your ears due pressure difference. Yes the seats are obviously more comfy than plane (although one should compare with business class because it costs similar), but turbulence is not fair comparison.
  - coredog64 4y ago
    Hijacking a train in the US is currently pointless. While it’s true you can’t route a 200mph train into One WTC, a 200mph train full of people is now a good bargaining chip. You have a captive audience and you can derail the thing someplace where it can cause a lot of damage. At the end of the day, hijackings are about creating publicity. Don’t think that a popular high speed train would be completely immune from security requirements just because you can’t attack arbitrary targets.
    - TylerE 4y ago
      No it's not. Positive train control is universal on high speed lines. As soon as the train approaches a red or yellow without slowing the brakes will go into full emergency. Most such systems will also enforce a full stop if the speed limit (which the train knows, and is based on the derailment speed with a healthy margin). The only real credible threat is mass violence against the passengers. That could just as easily occur in any crowed public space.
godelski 4y ago
> What takes 10 hours in a flight will take 13 hours on fast trains. Okay, let's look at that bullet train. At best that's 200 mph. A trip from SF to NY is then going to be 12.85 hrs. Assuming we go in a perfectly straight line (trains can't do this) and no stops. We'll say 13 for ease. A nonstop flight (not hard to find) is about 5.5 hrs. In both situations we're only considering the travel time of the vehicle and not including anything like layovers/stops or boarding and unboarding. These are not one or two hour differences in travel time and thus security would make the difference, there are over 7hrs difference! You could fly all the way back to SFO before that bullet train rider gets to NYC (you're already through security). (We're also assuming that as trains get more popular that similar security theater isn't also introduced) Now I do think people would still take the train fwiw because even with a 7hr travel time takes up all your day and flying sucks. Plenty of people will make this trade as long as trains don't sardine pack like airlines do. But let's also not fool ourselves into thinking the times are roughly the same and that that train also isn't going to take closer to 16hrs to go across country. Which even means doubling the speed (400mph) still makes it slower than a plane with security check-ins.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  There are plenty that average 200mph and the Chinese seem to be getting a bit higher, with one operating at 286mph. They are working on considerably faster ones. Surely a US train could aim to be up there with the fastest? Even with that boost though, your point remains. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/travel/article/worlds-fastest-trains-cmd/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/travel/article/worlds-fastest-trains...
  - nradov 4y ago
    There's no way any future US bullet train could hit 200 mph through the Sierra Nevada and Rocky mountain ranges unless we bore tunnels straight through. Transcontinental bullet trains across North America are a total pipe dream just based on simple geography. But bullet trains should play a role in our regional transportation infrastructure.
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
Teknoman117 4y ago
> What takes 10 hours in a flight will take 13 hours on fast trains. How do you figure that? I'm thinking out loud here: If we use some real examples: I'm lucky in that most of my family lives near major travel hubs, so I can fly direct most of the time. However, they all live in various places along the east coast of the US whereas I'm on the west coast. My trip last summer to see one group of them represented a 3100 mile / 5000 kilometer journey. The flight was 5 hours and 30 minutes. Let's add 2 hours of airport shenanigans to cover showing up ahead of boarding, handling bags, picking up luggage on the far side, etc. So 7 hours 30 minutes of travel (not counting commute to or from airport, but you'd have to get to your high speed rail station as well) (as an addendum, I was able to take public transit on both sides - busses & BART on the bay area side, and a local commuter rail on the far side. I had to get picked up by car from the train station though, no busses in that town) The fastest Japanese and European high speed trains go 300 km/hr. That's 16 and a half hours of rolling at top speed - no stops, slowdowns, sharing slower track, etc. If you stop at major cities along the way (say one stop per US state), you're probably looking at 20 hours of time on the train - each stop meaning you have to stop for 5-10 minutes, slow down and speed up, generally not be able to hit top speed in the confines of the city, etc. The transit time would be nearly triple in the best case scenario for a coast to coast flight in the US. The only thing I can think that would mitigate this is, as you said, sleeper cars. West coast to east coast is generally considered a lost day between the travel time and the timezone shift. I guess if you start your train journey in the early morning and sleep on the train that evening, arriving in the early morning next day, it could make up for the "get to the family's place and immediately go to sleep" pattern. You're just sleeping enroute rather than at your destination. For "mid range" journeys, take a bullet train trip I did in Japan: Sendai -> Hiroshima. I spent 6 hours on the train, the flight would've been about and hour and a half plus the extra 2 hours of airport fun. Because it was a vacation I wasn't going to meaningfully fill the "saved" 2 to 3 hours and the train was way more comfortable. But, for business travel, this wouldn't have been good. In the US it's not an uncommon pattern to take a flight to the next major city for same-day business to avoid hotel costs. For flights so short the airport time exceeds or matches the train difference, obviously this doesn't matter (e.g. SF <-> LA travel if California high speed rail manages to survive until completion). But you may be sent from SF to Chicago and be expected to attend meetings upon arrival. Can't do that with high speed rail. Even if they went 50% faster, it'll take 7-8 hours to reach Chicago from California. For the record, I love high speed trains. I've enjoyed using them in the countries that have them. But the longest journey I've ever taken on one is that Sendai to Hiroshima trip, and the second longest is Munich to Berlin (I originated in Innsbruck, Austria but the leg to Munich was not on a high speed train). It'd be great if we could replace "intra-state" or "neighboring-state" flights with trains, places where they really are faster or at comparable travel times. Obviously none of this is looking at the fact that all of these high speed trains are electric, so they could be powered from zero-carbon or carbon-neutral sources, whereas air travel is a significant source of emissions. But that's a separate argument.
sigstoat 4y ago
> Japan has literally bought major cities in commute distance with bullet trains. Japan is the size of California. > You factor that into your plan and travel comfortably and peacefully. If train travel became as popular as air travel in the US, the TSA would pay just as much attention to making it as miserable as air travel.
saiya-jin 4y ago
Purely European case - during height of Covid frenzy at end of 2021, I spent 2 weeks paragliding in south of Spain around Malaga. When departure time came, home country (Switzerland) changed covid rules into PCR-before-boarding, which was impossible to obtain where I was. So I took train since land borders were much more permissive. Instead of 1.5h flight + a bit of time extra around, it took me full 2 days with extra sleep in Barcelona of fastest bullet trains Europe has (TGV + Spanish equivalent, 300kmh was frequent speed) to get home. That's not even through-Europe crossing, rather a relatively small hop within south-western part of Europe. It was more expensive as flights too (but not that much, but then there was hotel). Any destination we went through for holidays in past few years are completely unreachable by trains, and the amount of hops (stress, delays, missed connections) is massive. Train networks have much more massive cascade issues with delays propagating like tsunami far and wide. Trains simply don't cover much apart from few very narrow cases in best possible situation globally. Everywhere else, train networks are much worse.

browningstreet 4y ago

Regional flight counts are proliferating… If we could train more of those the airlines might be able to run their continental flights more successfully.