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I think your math is wildly off... We did this before, so it's not that it can't be done efficiently. A lot of the cost savings comes from the millions of peop

I think your math is wildly off... We did this before, so it's not that it can't be done efficiently. A lot of the cost savings comes from the millions of people taking the trains in the cities, and the fact that you were going to build the rail anyways. So the costs are not as exaggerated as you seem to think...which is the point. They effectively amortize costs in a way no other transportation can even dream of.

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
I don't think my math is wildly off, but if you think it is, I invite you to show your work and what the non-off math should be. Claiming the numbers I mentioned are "exaggerated" is a bit misleading and insulting without this. The cost savings you mention aren't savings: If the extensions to the villages aren't build, the folks in the cities would still use the train just as much as they do now. The question, then, is the marginal cost of bringing an existing rail line, from a city where it already exists, to a village of 4 person-rides per hour. The millions of dollars it costs are just for the parts that go to the village. Or, simplified further: - having a train in the city which millions take, and then spending millions more dollars extending that train line to a village where 4 people/hour take it versus - having a a train in the city which millions of people take, and not spending millions more dollars extending that train line to a village where 4 people/hour take it The second one is economically feasible, the first one not so much. As for doing things efficiently, that is only 1 requirement. We also have laws, regulations, safety, the environment, and many more considerations to factor in. Once you do, the cost gets to the orders of magnitude I mentioned.
- smaudet 3y ago
  No. Your error is in assuming that all extensions to villages are built as just to villages. There are trains between cities, which presumably have non-zero traffic, or some mix of commercial/pedestrian traffic. That's where you garner the savings - you were already spending millions on intercity traffic. If you have your blinders on with this false-choice of city or city + villages, then you'd have a point, but this is not the case for rail between two cities. In Europe/US there are more than enough cities to make this feasible. A rail system doesn't solve the problem of truly remote regions where there are no nearby cities, but it does allow for intercity transport with stops at minor villages along the way. As for "providing the numbers", I'd encourage you to inspect the numbers for city rail systems, they operate on the same principle, albeit at a lower scale - trains operate on loops or lines through many neighborhoods, instead of a hub and spoke system that would require an exorbitantly expensive central hub and N lines, they can operate at a fraction of that cost with usually ~10 lines per city, servicing usually hundreds of stops (an order of magnitude savings). Compare that with the cost of vehicles with the same city (parking, fuel, licensing, insurance, road upkeep), its fairly obvious that the one system (line with many stops) is far superior to the other (individualized transport).
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    We're discussing a marginal rail extension to a village, versus no marginal rail extension to the village. That means we can choose to have all the benefits of the city linkages without any downsides of village linkages, unless there's a good reason to add the village linkages to the city linkages. We can have a train going between cities, which is good. But as soon as you want to branch off and have another line going tens or hundreds of miles in a different direction, to reach that village in the middle of nowhere (maybe 'it's just off a straight line by a little bit' - ok, that will be several million), and make sure to reinforce and grade the land first, and of course the village needs a station, etc. It adds up. The city nearest me has paid billions over 20 years to lay 75 miles of track. They're trying to do exactly what we're discussing: adding smaller towns into the commuter rail network which already serves larger cities fine. Billions with a "B". And you better believe the funding prospects involve more than 4 tickets per hour. Compare this to the cost of 1 or 2 self driving cars which serve the entire village (currently 1 car serves their needs, but they might grow). The people in the two cities will happily go back and forth between, whether the branch-to-nowhere is built or not. So whoever wants the branch-to-nowhere, has to justify the marginal cost of building it, which, yes, costs millions. Even if the village was literally on existing inter-city commuter rail steel, which it likely isn't, the station and required changes alone would likely cost millions. Can fewer than 4 tickets per hour at least pay for the ongoing operational cost of a station and regular stops there? Maybe. Also, please be nicer.
    - smaudet 3y ago
      > maybe 'it's just off a straight line by a little bit' - ok, that will be several million I understand your general point - diversions have realized material and labor costs. However, not all "diversions" need to be individually costly nor expensive. Partly, arguing over specific costs is political (varies by regional policies) or regional (costs of transporting goods/excavations into a particular geological region). However, again, as with any data set, it is possible to fit the line to the curve. If viewed strictly from a "point a to point b" situation, sure, you may incur costs by increasing the curvature of the line by routing through some village, however mother nature/politics sees fit to create those costs regardless (mountains, lakes, major roads, airport, etc). If you must make these million dollar "diversions" as you put it anyways (whether by tunneling, avoiding protected regions), then it should be possible to create low cost stations (the land should not cost much in excess of 40k$ and the station itself should be mostly concrete with possibly some electronic flagging mechanism, no need for fancy stations at every stop) within reasonably close vicinity to many villages on a route between two cities (not every station need run through a town center). This is still more economical than attempting to draw a straight line between two cities, which usually proves to be impossible anyways, due to the increased traffic from the additional rail network entry points. Regarding being nice, my apologies, "you" is not always intended as a personal attack, rather a pronoun closer to the somewhat archaic term "one".
creer 3y ago
France has been stopping these, tearing them down, selling train stations because of the cost of maintaining that stuff. Even without talking of ADDING some rail, just maintaining old rail and (rare) service is too expensive for a small village. Even when that would be the lifeline to the town nearby (which it can't be anymore because the large stores in that town are not near the train station anymore.)

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago

I don't think my math is wildly off, but if you think it is, I invite you to show your work and what the non-off math should be. Claiming the numbers I mentioned are "exaggerated" is a bit misleading and insulting without this. The cost savings you mention aren't savings: If the extensions to the villages aren't build, the folks in the cities would still use the train just as much as they do now. The question, then, is the marginal cost of bringing an existing rail line, from a city where it already exists, to a village of 4 person-rides per hour. The millions of dollars it costs are just for the parts that go to the village. Or, simplified further: - having a train in the city which millions take, and then spending millions more dollars extending that train line to a village where 4 people/hour take it versus - having a a train in the city which millions of people take, and not spending millions more dollars extending that train line to a village where 4 people/hour take it The second one is economically feasible, the first one not so much. As for doing things efficiently, that is only 1 requirement. We also have laws, regulations, safety, the environment, and many more considerations to factor in. Once you do, the cost gets to the orders of magnitude I mentioned.

smaudet 3y ago
No. Your error is in assuming that all extensions to villages are built as just to villages. There are trains between cities, which presumably have non-zero traffic, or some mix of commercial/pedestrian traffic. That's where you garner the savings - you were already spending millions on intercity traffic. If you have your blinders on with this false-choice of city or city + villages, then you'd have a point, but this is not the case for rail between two cities. In Europe/US there are more than enough cities to make this feasible. A rail system doesn't solve the problem of truly remote regions where there are no nearby cities, but it does allow for intercity transport with stops at minor villages along the way. As for "providing the numbers", I'd encourage you to inspect the numbers for city rail systems, they operate on the same principle, albeit at a lower scale - trains operate on loops or lines through many neighborhoods, instead of a hub and spoke system that would require an exorbitantly expensive central hub and N lines, they can operate at a fraction of that cost with usually ~10 lines per city, servicing usually hundreds of stops (an order of magnitude savings). Compare that with the cost of vehicles with the same city (parking, fuel, licensing, insurance, road upkeep), its fairly obvious that the one system (line with many stops) is far superior to the other (individualized transport).
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  We're discussing a marginal rail extension to a village, versus no marginal rail extension to the village. That means we can choose to have all the benefits of the city linkages without any downsides of village linkages, unless there's a good reason to add the village linkages to the city linkages. We can have a train going between cities, which is good. But as soon as you want to branch off and have another line going tens or hundreds of miles in a different direction, to reach that village in the middle of nowhere (maybe 'it's just off a straight line by a little bit' - ok, that will be several million), and make sure to reinforce and grade the land first, and of course the village needs a station, etc. It adds up. The city nearest me has paid billions over 20 years to lay 75 miles of track. They're trying to do exactly what we're discussing: adding smaller towns into the commuter rail network which already serves larger cities fine. Billions with a "B". And you better believe the funding prospects involve more than 4 tickets per hour. Compare this to the cost of 1 or 2 self driving cars which serve the entire village (currently 1 car serves their needs, but they might grow). The people in the two cities will happily go back and forth between, whether the branch-to-nowhere is built or not. So whoever wants the branch-to-nowhere, has to justify the marginal cost of building it, which, yes, costs millions. Even if the village was literally on existing inter-city commuter rail steel, which it likely isn't, the station and required changes alone would likely cost millions. Can fewer than 4 tickets per hour at least pay for the ongoing operational cost of a station and regular stops there? Maybe. Also, please be nicer.
  - smaudet 3y ago
    > maybe 'it's just off a straight line by a little bit' - ok, that will be several million I understand your general point - diversions have realized material and labor costs. However, not all "diversions" need to be individually costly nor expensive. Partly, arguing over specific costs is political (varies by regional policies) or regional (costs of transporting goods/excavations into a particular geological region). However, again, as with any data set, it is possible to fit the line to the curve. If viewed strictly from a "point a to point b" situation, sure, you may incur costs by increasing the curvature of the line by routing through some village, however mother nature/politics sees fit to create those costs regardless (mountains, lakes, major roads, airport, etc). If you must make these million dollar "diversions" as you put it anyways (whether by tunneling, avoiding protected regions), then it should be possible to create low cost stations (the land should not cost much in excess of 40k$ and the station itself should be mostly concrete with possibly some electronic flagging mechanism, no need for fancy stations at every stop) within reasonably close vicinity to many villages on a route between two cities (not every station need run through a town center). This is still more economical than attempting to draw a straight line between two cities, which usually proves to be impossible anyways, due to the increased traffic from the additional rail network entry points. Regarding being nice, my apologies, "you" is not always intended as a personal attack, rather a pronoun closer to the somewhat archaic term "one".

creer 3y ago

France has been stopping these, tearing them down, selling train stations because of the cost of maintaining that stuff. Even without talking of ADDING some rail, just maintaining old rail and (rare) service is too expensive for a small village. Even when that would be the lifeline to the town nearby (which it can't be anymore because the large stores in that town are not near the train station anymore.)