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how are trains not a proven technology??? planes are faster, have flexible routing, and cheaper upfront cost sure the rest is simply not true. how do planes h

how are trains not a proven technology??? planes are faster, have flexible routing, and cheaper upfront cost sure the rest is simply not true. how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? wtf?

xnx 3y ago
Good questions. > how are trains not a proven technology??? The US currently has nothing that would be considered high speed rail by the rest of the world. It could be built here, but it would cost billions and take decades. Hofstadter's law strongly applies to major infrastructure projects in the US. "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." > how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? Planes can be put in service or redistributed to serve a certain route in hours. Extra train engines and train cars cannot be moved nearly as easily.
- jokteur 3y ago
  Exactly the same thing with trains. I live in Switzerland, and they are adapting the capacity of the trains route by route, and to the time of the day. The train I take every day to work has 12 cars in rush hour, and 4 cars off-peak, sometime 6 cars in the middle of the day, or 10 cars just after rush hour. They put extra trains in rush hour, have trains in standby is case of a breakdown of other trains, and they even introduce special trains dedicated for events (football games, big concerts, sports event). How is this "not flexible" ? The only valid point is that the US forgot how to efficiently build huge infrastructure projects. But it is not an impossible thing to solve. Sent some experts to France, Spain and ask them how to manage high-speed project within reasonable costs. France is building the Grand Paris Express (a lot of tunneling, more than 200km of tracks) for a reasonable cost, and is now reusing tunnel boring machines to build another project in Toulouse.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    It's not a technical issue with the costs in US; it's a political issue. On one hand, any construction project gets mired in massive amounts of red tape even when things go well. And then you have all the people who see public transit and similar projects as a threat to their neighborhood's "character" (i.e. who gets to live there), and who have mastered the art of using said red tape for their advantage.

xnx 3y ago

Good questions. > how are trains not a proven technology??? The US currently has nothing that would be considered high speed rail by the rest of the world. It could be built here, but it would cost billions and take decades. Hofstadter's law strongly applies to major infrastructure projects in the US. "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." > how do planes have "flexible capacity"? how do trains not have flexible capacity? Planes can be put in service or redistributed to serve a certain route in hours. Extra train engines and train cars cannot be moved nearly as easily.

jokteur 3y ago
Exactly the same thing with trains. I live in Switzerland, and they are adapting the capacity of the trains route by route, and to the time of the day. The train I take every day to work has 12 cars in rush hour, and 4 cars off-peak, sometime 6 cars in the middle of the day, or 10 cars just after rush hour. They put extra trains in rush hour, have trains in standby is case of a breakdown of other trains, and they even introduce special trains dedicated for events (football games, big concerts, sports event). How is this "not flexible" ? The only valid point is that the US forgot how to efficiently build huge infrastructure projects. But it is not an impossible thing to solve. Sent some experts to France, Spain and ask them how to manage high-speed project within reasonable costs. France is building the Grand Paris Express (a lot of tunneling, more than 200km of tracks) for a reasonable cost, and is now reusing tunnel boring machines to build another project in Toulouse.
- int_19h 3y ago
  It's not a technical issue with the costs in US; it's a political issue. On one hand, any construction project gets mired in massive amounts of red tape even when things go well. And then you have all the people who see public transit and similar projects as a threat to their neighborhood's "character" (i.e. who gets to live there), and who have mastered the art of using said red tape for their advantage.