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On the plus side this will at least further discourage use of planes for domestic travel... We really need development of HSR across the US. Maybe if they mak

On the plus side this will at least further discourage use of planes for domestic travel... We really need development of HSR across the US. Maybe if they make flying miserable enough we can actually make some progress on that front.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
After a few train hijackings or whatever I'm sure we'll need mugshots to ride it too.
- JimmyAustin 4y ago
  Given that it’s hard to hijack a train and put it on a course for Cuba, I don’t think train hijackings are a real threat.
  - olliej 4y ago
    The TSA was born out of 9/11 - prior to 9/11 the assumption was “we’re been taken to Cuba” and so no one fought back until it was sadly too late. In the post-9/11 world people aren’t going to just silently wait for rescue, and the core threat (the ability to enter the cockpit) has been stopped. Hijacking a plane to go somewhere (at least in US airspace) isn’t going to work. So any attack will be terrorism. Assuming something planned (as 9/11 was) you can “easily” kill a lot of people with a train - as numerous accidental derailments have demonstrated.
- pengaru 4y ago
  If trains could sprout wings and become guided missiles sure... but passenger HSR is fairly constrained in its destructive/terrorism potential compared to jets.
- olliej 4y ago
  The reason 9/11 was possible was that pre 9/11 passengers on aircraft were expected to cooperate a wait for authorities and hostage negotiators. Post 9/11 that’s not a thing that people will allow happen, but now even if they did, breaking into cockpits is essentially not possible - as evidenced by the pilot murder/suicides that now require at least two people in the cockpit at all times. The most common reason for guns and threats of gun usage on flights in the last decade of us flights have been us air marshals getting in arguments, or simply leaving their guns lying around aircraft. The TSA theater is BS that has nothing to do with making people safer, so the existence of an actual threat isn’t relevant.
callmetom 4y ago
[dead]
olliej 4y ago
The reason people fly domestically in the US is that non plane travel is both slower and more expensive than flying. “High speed rail” is less than half the speed of a 787 say, so a beat case scenario would make it an 11 hour trip. Except that best case scenario would require the route have no stops and be essentially flat and a straight line with essentially no stops. I would guess in practice a best case high speed rail would have that be in the order of twenty hours. It also wouldn’t stop the TSA wanting to have pervert scans and mugshots. The moment any significant amount of people started using it, the TSA would want to “protect” us.
- twiss 4y ago
  What trip is "it" you're referring to that would take 11-20 hours? The busiest domestic US air route is Las Vegas - Los Angeles, which takes only a bit more than an hour. There is an idea to connect them by high-speed rail which would make the trip 3 hours: https://www.hsrail.org/brightline-west/ https://www.hsrail.org/brightline-west/. That would be faster than driving, which lots of people do as well.
  - olliej 4y ago
    SFO->NYC is a 5 and a half hour flight, which is 11-20 hours on high speed rail. That's obviously an extreme example. But yours is an extreme as well: the busiest domestic flight air might be LV<->LA, but that doesn't mean it's a significant amount of domestic traffic. Now high speed rail between some of the major centers is obviously something that makes sense, but it also _only_ makes sense for major centers. So the myriad routes regional airlines make possible (and that I suspect make up a significant proportion of total US air traffic) are of questionable value for high speed rail, if high speed rail were even possible. You mention people driving to Vegas. People are driving to Vegas from LA because it's cheaper than flying, and LA->LV isn't even an insane drive: google maps says it's four hours which is about as long as I spend commuting each day in the SF Bay Area, so that seems reasonable. I'm going to say my google "la to Las Vegas drive" is optimistic and say in practice it's a 5 hour drive, but that's only two hours slower than the high speed rail under that pessimistic view, which itself is 1-2 hours slower than flying. At the same time flying is cheaper than high speed rail - I looked at a bunch of prices on Eurostar from London to Paris and Brussels (because la->lv be further than Brussels but less than Paris) and the cheapest prices I found were consistently more expensive than flights. Now I can't see why we would expect high speed rail in the US would be cheaper than flying when in Europe rail is more expensive than flying, and existing non high speed rail service in the US is already more expensive than flying.
rs999gti 4y ago
What is with this constant, current obsession with trains? The NAFTA zone has a huge highway system that can take you anywhere.
- timbit42 4y ago
  Two of the biggest reasons are: HSR would be faster than roads (HS = high speed) and it would also reduce CO2 emissions. Compared to planes, it may be faster depending on the flight pre-check time but it would still reduce CO2.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    Meh, lets just go back to boarding a plane on the runway with minimal checks and upgrade pilot cabin doors. These arguments that planes (and to some extent buses) are faster because of how shitty preflight checks are on airplanes are ridiculous. Fix the pre flight checks.
    - timbit42 4y ago
      Definitely. Just cancel the TSA.

acidburnNSA 4y ago

After a few train hijackings or whatever I'm sure we'll need mugshots to ride it too.

JimmyAustin 4y ago
Given that it’s hard to hijack a train and put it on a course for Cuba, I don’t think train hijackings are a real threat.
- olliej 4y ago
  The TSA was born out of 9/11 - prior to 9/11 the assumption was “we’re been taken to Cuba” and so no one fought back until it was sadly too late. In the post-9/11 world people aren’t going to just silently wait for rescue, and the core threat (the ability to enter the cockpit) has been stopped. Hijacking a plane to go somewhere (at least in US airspace) isn’t going to work. So any attack will be terrorism. Assuming something planned (as 9/11 was) you can “easily” kill a lot of people with a train - as numerous accidental derailments have demonstrated.
pengaru 4y ago
If trains could sprout wings and become guided missiles sure... but passenger HSR is fairly constrained in its destructive/terrorism potential compared to jets.
olliej 4y ago
The reason 9/11 was possible was that pre 9/11 passengers on aircraft were expected to cooperate a wait for authorities and hostage negotiators. Post 9/11 that’s not a thing that people will allow happen, but now even if they did, breaking into cockpits is essentially not possible - as evidenced by the pilot murder/suicides that now require at least two people in the cockpit at all times. The most common reason for guns and threats of gun usage on flights in the last decade of us flights have been us air marshals getting in arguments, or simply leaving their guns lying around aircraft. The TSA theater is BS that has nothing to do with making people safer, so the existence of an actual threat isn’t relevant.

callmetom 4y ago

[dead]

olliej 4y ago

The reason people fly domestically in the US is that non plane travel is both slower and more expensive than flying. “High speed rail” is less than half the speed of a 787 say, so a beat case scenario would make it an 11 hour trip. Except that best case scenario would require the route have no stops and be essentially flat and a straight line with essentially no stops. I would guess in practice a best case high speed rail would have that be in the order of twenty hours. It also wouldn’t stop the TSA wanting to have pervert scans and mugshots. The moment any significant amount of people started using it, the TSA would want to “protect” us.

twiss 4y ago
What trip is "it" you're referring to that would take 11-20 hours? The busiest domestic US air route is Las Vegas - Los Angeles, which takes only a bit more than an hour. There is an idea to connect them by high-speed rail which would make the trip 3 hours: https://www.hsrail.org/brightline-west/ https://www.hsrail.org/brightline-west/. That would be faster than driving, which lots of people do as well.
- olliej 4y ago
  SFO->NYC is a 5 and a half hour flight, which is 11-20 hours on high speed rail. That's obviously an extreme example. But yours is an extreme as well: the busiest domestic flight air might be LV<->LA, but that doesn't mean it's a significant amount of domestic traffic. Now high speed rail between some of the major centers is obviously something that makes sense, but it also _only_ makes sense for major centers. So the myriad routes regional airlines make possible (and that I suspect make up a significant proportion of total US air traffic) are of questionable value for high speed rail, if high speed rail were even possible. You mention people driving to Vegas. People are driving to Vegas from LA because it's cheaper than flying, and LA->LV isn't even an insane drive: google maps says it's four hours which is about as long as I spend commuting each day in the SF Bay Area, so that seems reasonable. I'm going to say my google "la to Las Vegas drive" is optimistic and say in practice it's a 5 hour drive, but that's only two hours slower than the high speed rail under that pessimistic view, which itself is 1-2 hours slower than flying. At the same time flying is cheaper than high speed rail - I looked at a bunch of prices on Eurostar from London to Paris and Brussels (because la->lv be further than Brussels but less than Paris) and the cheapest prices I found were consistently more expensive than flights. Now I can't see why we would expect high speed rail in the US would be cheaper than flying when in Europe rail is more expensive than flying, and existing non high speed rail service in the US is already more expensive than flying.

rs999gti 4y ago

What is with this constant, current obsession with trains? The NAFTA zone has a huge highway system that can take you anywhere.

timbit42 4y ago
Two of the biggest reasons are: HSR would be faster than roads (HS = high speed) and it would also reduce CO2 emissions. Compared to planes, it may be faster depending on the flight pre-check time but it would still reduce CO2.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  Meh, lets just go back to boarding a plane on the runway with minimal checks and upgrade pilot cabin doors. These arguments that planes (and to some extent buses) are faster because of how shitty preflight checks are on airplanes are ridiculous. Fix the pre flight checks.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    Definitely. Just cancel the TSA.