3 ms·

Very few rail corridors in the US are so sparsely populated that they can't be as cost-effective as in Europe, with the caveat that this doesn't mean cheap - a

by vidarh 3y ago

Very few rail corridors in the US are so sparsely populated that they can't be as cost-effective as in Europe, with the caveat that this doesn't mean cheap - a whole lot of European routes are heavily subsidised. E.g. even the old closed Amtrak corridor through Southern Montana would today serve more people than some perfectly viable routes in Norway, over a similar stretch (and there is work underway to try to resurrect it). But flights are often cheaper in Europe too despite subsidies for rail. Outside of the busiest corridors trains works best in those places where it's competing with cars or buses, not planes.

theluketaylor 3y ago
> But flights are often cheaper in Europe too despite subsidies for rail That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. Decades ago the EU punted on the complex topic of charging taxes on avgas and that is a key contributor to the existence of cheap airlines like ryanair.
- redeeman 3y ago
  > That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. okay, so by not taking money from them, we are... giving them money?
- novia 3y ago
  Why not just remove the subsidies for domestic flights that are 2.5 hours away by train instead of banning them?
  - acdha 3y ago
    It’s not fast enough any more. The fossil fuel companies were successful at preventing action for decades and in the intervening half century multiple generations of people have grown accustomed to cheap air travel. Making it more expensive will gradually reduce usage but that’s a slow process and there are a number of companies which didn’t even exist back when the science denial campaign started who would be trying their hardest to slow it down.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Given that almost all trains in America are powered by diesel, fossil fuel companies would not lose if passenger rail was more widely adopted. Passenger rail is not popular in America because cities are more spread out, not because of some fossil fuel company conspiracy.
      - acdha 3y ago
        Trains use less fuel and “almost all” is leaving out that Amtrak’s most popular service area is the electrified northeast corridor. Electric trains are also a century old and it’s a straightforward engineering task to confer them. The reason passenger travel isn’t more popular has more to do with the trillions spent subsidizing private vehicle usage. People respond to economic incentives and for the last century the message has been that taxpayers will help you drive.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Even then it'd still be preferable to fly. a 2.5 hour flight is 20+ hours by train at American passenger rail speeds. Going faster would require expensive track upgrades, which would need to be paid for by more expensive tickets.
Manuel_D 3y ago
If flights are considerably shorter than rail trips, then they'll outcompete passenger rail. Sure, it'd be cost effective to travel from New York to Chicago by rail. But it'd take way longer than a flight. By contrast, trains in Europe are often about as fast as planes since they avoid the overhead time cost of airport security. Transit time by be longer, but a 2 hour train ride is not much longer than a 1 hour flight when you include time spent in security lines.
- vidarh 3y ago
  For endpoints that are big enough to warrant airports that is true. But trains have the benefit of being able to serve lots of places in between better. You don't need a lot of people to take the whole journey. E.g. to take the North Coast Hiawatha route that they're hoping to resurrect through Souther Montana - it went from Chicago to Seattle. Very few people would be taking it all the way - it took ~47 hours. But many of the stops only have road connections without it. And as you point out the total time spent is not just the journey time anyway. But beyond the raw time spent, there's a difference in how. It's faster for me to fly to Paris, because I can get flights from an airport close enough to me to outweigh the security, and that's small enough to not usually be so bad. But I still have to go through security, wait around for my gate, walk to the gate and go through another round of waiting, and then I might have to wait for luggage at the other end. I'll happily spend the small amount of extra time to be able to just sit down in the Eurostar instead. The biggest issue with respect to choosing trains in the UK is that the cost of train tickets relative to air travel in the UK is criminal compared to much of the rest of Europe.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    > But I still have to go through security, wait around for my gate, walk to the gate and go through another round of waiting, and then I might have to wait for luggage at the other end. I'll happily spend the small amount of extra time to be able to just sit down in the Eurostar instead. But it's not a small amount of time. Planes travel 7-10 times faster than passenger rail (Amtrak runs at 50-70 mph, and can't go faster without track upgrades). If you're going to a city that's a 1 hour plane ride away that's still 7-10 hours of travel time just to skip security and baggage claim. Not exactly a good proposition. Even St. Paul to Chicago is not viable by rail when the flight is only 90 minutes. Even with a two hour security line that's still 1/3 the total transit time. "trains have the benefit of being able to serve lots of places in between better." Yes, but only when those places are fairly close and have enough population to fulfill travel demand. And the US doesn't have many regions with those conditions.

by vidarh 3y ago

theluketaylor 3y ago

> But flights are often cheaper in Europe too despite subsidies for rail That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. Decades ago the EU punted on the complex topic of charging taxes on avgas and that is a key contributor to the existence of cheap airlines like ryanair.

redeeman 3y ago
> That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. okay, so by not taking money from them, we are... giving them money?
novia 3y ago
Why not just remove the subsidies for domestic flights that are 2.5 hours away by train instead of banning them?
- acdha 3y ago
  It’s not fast enough any more. The fossil fuel companies were successful at preventing action for decades and in the intervening half century multiple generations of people have grown accustomed to cheap air travel. Making it more expensive will gradually reduce usage but that’s a slow process and there are a number of companies which didn’t even exist back when the science denial campaign started who would be trying their hardest to slow it down.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Given that almost all trains in America are powered by diesel, fossil fuel companies would not lose if passenger rail was more widely adopted. Passenger rail is not popular in America because cities are more spread out, not because of some fossil fuel company conspiracy.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Trains use less fuel and “almost all” is leaving out that Amtrak’s most popular service area is the electrified northeast corridor. Electric trains are also a century old and it’s a straightforward engineering task to confer them. The reason passenger travel isn’t more popular has more to do with the trillions spent subsidizing private vehicle usage. People respond to economic incentives and for the last century the message has been that taxpayers will help you drive.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Even then it'd still be preferable to fly. a 2.5 hour flight is 20+ hours by train at American passenger rail speeds. Going faster would require expensive track upgrades, which would need to be paid for by more expensive tickets.

Manuel_D 3y ago

If flights are considerably shorter than rail trips, then they'll outcompete passenger rail. Sure, it'd be cost effective to travel from New York to Chicago by rail. But it'd take way longer than a flight. By contrast, trains in Europe are often about as fast as planes since they avoid the overhead time cost of airport security. Transit time by be longer, but a 2 hour train ride is not much longer than a 1 hour flight when you include time spent in security lines.

vidarh 3y ago
For endpoints that are big enough to warrant airports that is true. But trains have the benefit of being able to serve lots of places in between better. You don't need a lot of people to take the whole journey. E.g. to take the North Coast Hiawatha route that they're hoping to resurrect through Souther Montana - it went from Chicago to Seattle. Very few people would be taking it all the way - it took ~47 hours. But many of the stops only have road connections without it. And as you point out the total time spent is not just the journey time anyway. But beyond the raw time spent, there's a difference in how. It's faster for me to fly to Paris, because I can get flights from an airport close enough to me to outweigh the security, and that's small enough to not usually be so bad. But I still have to go through security, wait around for my gate, walk to the gate and go through another round of waiting, and then I might have to wait for luggage at the other end. I'll happily spend the small amount of extra time to be able to just sit down in the Eurostar instead. The biggest issue with respect to choosing trains in the UK is that the cost of train tickets relative to air travel in the UK is criminal compared to much of the rest of Europe.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  > But I still have to go through security, wait around for my gate, walk to the gate and go through another round of waiting, and then I might have to wait for luggage at the other end. I'll happily spend the small amount of extra time to be able to just sit down in the Eurostar instead. But it's not a small amount of time. Planes travel 7-10 times faster than passenger rail (Amtrak runs at 50-70 mph, and can't go faster without track upgrades). If you're going to a city that's a 1 hour plane ride away that's still 7-10 hours of travel time just to skip security and baggage claim. Not exactly a good proposition. Even St. Paul to Chicago is not viable by rail when the flight is only 90 minutes. Even with a two hour security line that's still 1/3 the total transit time. "trains have the benefit of being able to serve lots of places in between better." Yes, but only when those places are fairly close and have enough population to fulfill travel demand. And the US doesn't have many regions with those conditions.