8 ms·

San Francisco-to-L.A. overnight train inches closer to reality

53 points by mikhael 3y ago

adrr 3y ago
Whats the price point? Trains have always had similar prices to flying. Nice thing about flying to SF is that i can fly in the morning and fly back out in the evening.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Stop downvoting this guy. It's a fair point.
  - objektif 3y ago
    What is the fair point? At this point we should be welcoming alternate form of transportation at any price point in my opinion as long as it is not 5-10x.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Investing on enhancing and integrating the Capitol Corridor, ACE, Caltrains, BART, Muni, and VTA into a unified system has a better RoI than a 400-500mi rail line that will most likely have a train leaving on an hourly cadence. It's a similar story for Los Angeles and San Diego. Flights cost around $100-200 for a round trip and take around 3 hours even factoring in security and commute to and from the airport. It would be the same length of time commuting from a railway station to the other, the railway would take 2 additional hours, and the price would be roughly comparable.
      - 1024core 3y ago
        > The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. > There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Exactly. The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else. That is the most useful metric. If spending $100B on SF to LA (400mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, then that's 400M passenger-miles, or 250 dollars per pax-mile. But if spending $5B on (say) SF to SJ (50mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, which is 50M passenger-miles, then it is 100 dollars per pax-mile, a much better tradeoff.
        alephnerd 3y ago
        > The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else San Jose to SF (Caltrain) has a yearly ridership of 5.5 Million. Los Angeles to SF has a yearly ridership of 2.2 Million. I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently.
        1024core 3y ago
        > I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently. I live in California, chief. You know what they say about making ASSumptions? And I was using round numbers to make the calculations easier and the point easier to understand.
  - Mountain_Skies 3y ago
    Replies are less likely to be downvoted when they aren't judgmental against those with dissimilar views as the poster.
- phailhaus 3y ago
  > Trains have always had similar prices to flying. They shouldn't though, it's absurd that they are that way in the US.
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    Hot take: trains do not appeal to the American culture in the same way it does to other cultures.
    - r14c 3y ago
      Speak for yourself pal. Trains being politically difficult doesn't make them unappealing, train lovers just don't have the industrial weight of aviation and big car behind them.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        The US had a massive, federally subsidized passenger rail industry since the 19th century. The first transcontinental railroad was one of the defining achievements of the country. The reason Americans abandoned passenger rail for airlines and cars wasn’t because of lack of support for railroads, it’s because airlines and cars rendered passenger rail obsolete. Freight rail still makes sense though, and the US uses more freight rail than any other country.
    - jerlam 3y ago
      Hot take: Americans don't love flying either. Airplanes are just the most cost-effective, reliable, and fastest method to get around for long-distance travel in the US. Train service is often so bad that people would rather drive their cars and sit in traffic for long periods of time, because train travel is still worse. Make train travel cheaper, reliable, comfortable, and to places that people actually want to go, and people will take them. Of course some of these problems are much harder to fix than others.
      - brodouevencode 3y ago
- paxys 3y ago
  They don't on the east coast. For example depending on the timing you can do NYC - DC or NYC - Boston for like $15 one way on Amtrak. There are 50+ trains a day, and they all go full. SF - LA is only slightly longer, and there's no reason for it to cost hundreds.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > NYC - Boston for like $15 one way Bullshit. I went to school in Boston. To get a one way like that I'd have to book weeks in advanced and it would be in the middle of the night. I'm on the Amtrak website right now and if I book a one way trip from South Station (boston) to Penn Station (NYC) for today, it is $250 (tbf, it would be a last minute booking). If I book one for weeks in advance, it's still at $40-100.
    - oogali 3y ago
      NYP-BOS May 7, 7:50pm-12:15am $20 [X] Weeks in advance [ ] Middle of the night
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        Why would I commute from NYC to Boston at 8pm on a Tuesday? The fact that this is one of the few counters you could find only proves my point.
        idunnoman1222 3y ago
        Ride is already too long to use as a commute
      - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        Hmm, maybe it's middle age catching up with me, but a train pulling in South St at quarter after midnight feels like the middle of the night to me.
  - philwelch 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- angmarsbane 3y ago
  Similar in price, but difference in experience. I would much rather travel by train with kids <5 than by a plane.
- raydev 3y ago
  What's the total door-to-door commute time for you, including getting to the airport and going through security?
barbazoo 3y ago
> Company officials said they hope this new overnight passenger rail service would give Californians and other travelers a more comfortable, convenient and Earth-friendly alternative to short-haul flights. The renderings and anecdotal knowledge about that rail route make me think this is not going to be an electrically powered train. What fuel would it use?
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Even a coal-fired train has a lower carbon footprint per passenger-mile than a plane.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    A wood fired steam train is carbon neutral.
    - Ajay-p 3y ago
      https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cant-argue-with-that-technically-not-wrong https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cant-argue-with-that-technica...
  - not-my-account 3y ago
    Not always the case https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/trains-planes-carbon-footprint-pollution.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/trains-planes-car...
- cjensen 3y ago
  Diesel, like the vast majority of trains in the US. Even if the US performed electrification of trains, this would be a low-priority to electrify because it's not a major shipping route.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Even if the US performed electrification of trains, It does. > this would be a low-priority to electrify because it’s not a major shipping route. US rail electrification is more focused on passenger routes than shipping routes; an electric freight engine for mainline use has been introduced (just last year), but its not intended as the sole power source for a train, but rather to improve efficiency by being used in a consist with diesel engines, recharging with regenerative braking, reducing overall fuel use.
formvoltron 3y ago
Lol. Like here in Europe Bulgaria to Romania have trains.. everybody has trains. What's the big issue with putting a train in over there?
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Bulgaria to Romania has a high population density and is very flat compared to California, and especially when traveling from Sofia to Bucharest. Furthermore, planes and driving have always been an option in the US.
  - objektif 3y ago
    When it comes to trains there is always people who talks about the geographical challenges of building tracks or whatever. I mean these are mostly fixed cost investments and we know exactly how to do them. Why is it such a big deal to build bridges and tunnels?
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
      Fixed costs until it needs to be maintained.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      I take it you've never been to the US. Sofia to Bucharest is approx 400km. San Francisco to Los Angeles is 600km. Sofia to Bucharest is largely flat. San Francisco to Los Angeles requires building rail lines in multiple mountain ranges that rival the Carpathians. Imagine having to build a 600km high speed railway line through 3 mountain ranges the size and height of the Carpathians, oh and almost nobody lives in between the two metros. It does not make financial sense.
      - noirbot 3y ago
        Additionally, trying to buy any of the land in between, let alone get environmental damage clearances for building all those tunnels and bridges is probably borderline impossible. Most US rail was built in the era where we were actively taking the land by force and just demolishing nature in the pursuit of progress. It's not clear to me that we could build something like the highway system or a major new rail system in a way that wouldn't be massively detrimental to the environment or the communities along the routes without also making it insanely expensive/inefficient.
throwup238 3y ago
> Dreamstar trains would be running on the track that make up the Coast Line railroad line between Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay area, which travels primarily along the California coast. That line is already in use by Amtrak‘s Pacific Surfliner and Coast Starlight, among others. This isn’t the high speed train which is what I thought at first reading the headline. That’d require new tracks. This is just an overnight Amtrack that’ll inevitably get delayed like Amtrack always is and you’ll wake up not in San Francisco but in the middle of the Gilroy garlic festival.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > an overnight Amtrack that’ll inevitably get delayed like Amtrack always is If they strike an agreement with the track owner, I don’t see why that would be. Amtrak failed because nobody enforces the part of the law that gives passenger trains primacy.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    Amtrak only has primacy when on schedule. That actually makes some sense. The railroad plans a scheduled hole in the flow of freight trains that they can put a passenger train in. (Passenger trains are faster than many freight trains, so it takes some juggling to make it work.) If the passenger train is late, the planned spot to put it in isn't there. Now they have to create a spot for it on the fly. That isn't always possible (or possible at an acceptable cost) to the freight railroad.
- nradov 3y ago
  The coastal Amtrak rail line was recently closed by a landslide. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/california-storms-sever-amtrak-commuter-rail-line-once-again/706502/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/california-storms-sever...
- ravenstine 3y ago
  > you’ll wake up not in San Francisco but in the middle of the Gilroy garlic festival. I know this was meant as a humorous example of where one might end up because of a delay, but I can think of a million worse places to be stuck at than Gilroy. Better that than somewhere like Hanford, King City, Barstow, or even Bakersfield.
blueboo 3y ago
I used to be a cheerleader for trains in the US. But there are a dozen setbacks for every win. Building infrastructure like this just isnt in the cards at this stage overnight on land will happen on self driving cars before it happens on rails
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Building infrastructure like this just isnt in the cards at this stage What infrastructure? This new service would run on existing rails and terminate at existing stations. The only thing new would be the trains themselves. (The proposed later addition of a drive-on/drive-off car carrier service would involve some additional infrastructure.)
objektif 3y ago
This sounds great. Having traveled around the world I have to say US domestic travel experience is absolutely horrendous. Obviously it is a very big country but at least on the coast lines I wish we had affordable alternatives to flying and driving.
deleted 3y ago
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timcavel 3y ago
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Simulacra 3y ago
Until it's cheaper than flying, I don't see that it's going to get mass adoption. Because even if it did, the price would rise to equal or eclipse flying, like Amtraks DC to NYC corridor where a ticket can be more than the cost of airfare.
- tayo42 3y ago
  Ticket price maybe is the same, but airports are always out of the way and either require paying for expensive parking or cab rides. Also my experience with trains are they are way more casual of a travel experience. Show up a few minutes before and walk on. Airplanes are always an ordeal. Like You need to add security line buffer time. Or wait for for bags Less threat of a firey death in a Boeing plane to be topical too lol
  - noirbot 3y ago
    I dunno, I think we're still in a zone where Amtrak derailments have killed more people in the last decade than domestic aviation issues, and that's even before you account for the fact that there's probably multiple magnitudes more passenger/miles by plane than train. I definitely prefer the experience of rail travel - boarding and riding though.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  In Europe the train often costs more than flying in my (rather limited) experience. But you start and end your train ride very close to your destination and you aren’t locked in a shitty small seat. Every single bit of the trip is better, with the possible exception of the travel time. Even this might be better if you measure door to door.
alkibiades 3y ago
maybe im just a hater but rather take the 1 hour plane ride
- fullshark 3y ago
  You aren't a hater, just a rational human.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  … while I too would probably also take the plane, the door-to-door isn't an hour. For one, even the flight time alone is about 90 minutes, but you're going to be adding at least — and I'm being extremely generous here — another 90 minutes for boarding/unboarding, ticketing, security, and delays combined. It's no less than 3 hours, and I'm probably being way too generous even then.
jjice 3y ago
I'm all for regional train systems where it makes sense. I don't know enough about the travel habits of the west coast, but here in the North East, the Amtrak NE Regional is pretty handy sometimes. Going between Boston and New York is great and if you buy at the right time, you can get tickets for less than $40 each way. It's convenient and depending on your distance to an airport, only slightly longer, but much more convenient. I'm a big fan. That said, having successful train systems in the US is hard. The US is a huge country with a lot of empty space. If it's a regional train in dense areas, it can make sense (like the NE regional). Maybe the traffic of LA <-> SF makes sense, and if it does and it can be done cost effectively, then it'll work out. My assumption is that after building all the infrastructure into place, the cost of the tickets plus the additional travel time will not be worth it to most who are making this trip. I would love to be wrong, but I'm not counting on it. I love the experience of taking a train, and I take them a good bit here in the North East. That said, they're not the best solution in the US currently, it's it's hard to see a world where they become the best for travel outside commuter rails (the MBTA commuter rail is also fantastic) and dense areas (again, like the NE regional). Trains are not a catch all solution in the US. I hope for them to grow in popularity when they're appropriate, but I see a ton of online discourse (granted, it's likely from a vocal minority) about how trains are always better. They're not, and you can't compare US rail logistics to many regions to Europe.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > the cost of the tickets plus the additional travel time will not be worth it to most who are making this trip If they get the beds and service right, it would be because it’s convenient and comfortable. Like, have a Michelin-class meal, good wine, reliable service that knows the regulars and comfortable beds and good shock absorbers and you’re trumping planes as the first-class option. It doesn’t have to beat flying in all cases to be successful. Price always seemed like a weird niche for passenger rail to aim for—planes don’t have to maintain track!
  - SkyMarshal 3y ago
    It might be difficult to steal First Class flyers, their opportunity cost is mileage rewards which can be used anywhere in the world the alliance accepts them. The train company might have to join that alliance and offer those rewards too, but would likely be opposed by the airlines it competes with.
xenadu02 3y ago
The tracks discussed in the article are BNSF. Amtrak already runs the Coast Starlight on that track and for much of it they can't even run the legal max 79mph due to poor track conditions. The delays cause them to miss their time slot and get further delayed by freight trains coming out of LA. BNSF has zero interest in upgrading the track to handle higher speeds. That would not help operating ratio even if it let them move more freight and charge higher rents. For US railroads operating ratio is God. The funny part is high-speed passenger service is usually very profitable. The trips are so short you don't need to turnover or time out crews. A lot of routes you don't even need to put them up in a hotel, they go out and come back. That keeps labor costs very low. For the curious I once ran the numbers on China high-speed rail vs California's HSR project in terms of miles of HS track. A rough estimate was about 3x the cost to do the project here in the US. Given wages and most importantly property values in California that actually isn't out of line. China has the same vast distances across low density areas as the USA does so you can't blame it on Europe and Japan being higher density. Because they cover large distances on some routes they pay (all else equal) more than others do. China has simply invested more in their rail infrastructure because they see it as a priority. FWIW The USA used to do those kinds of investments. It was government-backstops of investments that allowed the Transcontinental Railroad project to happen in the first place. Plus railroad land grants (free land if you build a railroad).
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > China has the same vast distances across low density areas as the USA does so you can't blame it on Europe and Japan being higher density They also have much easier procurement. It's easy to build a railway line in China when local municipalities can rezone entire swathes of farm and urban land with minimal legal recourse.
- linkjuice4all 3y ago
  The general layout and terrain of the line probably make it incredibly difficult to "speed up" regardless of how much money you dump into it. While it does go through some population centers it has to meander through mountains and follow rough/barren coast lines that don't really offer great opportunities for future growth and ridership. The high speed line through the central valley makes more sense when you consider these limitations. If they're able to speed things up enough then it does become competitive with air travel - but this is definitely a case of "time = money". It's much easier for higher-paid individuals to just take a a short flight for day trips to LA/SF than sit in a train or traffic.
kfarr 3y ago
If you could leave SF in the evening and have a comfortable bed to have a solid night sleep and arrive in LA in the morning, it would totally be worth more than a flight. As someone who did a lot of SF / LA travel for sales and marketing events the only way to get there early and be fresh for the presentations was to leave the night before on a flight ($100), stay at the airport hotel ($100-200) and then uber to the meeting / conference in the morning (always far away from LAX $50). So $350 is not crazy if you have high quality accommodations and I'm sure it could be much cheaper making this a very compelling option for both business and leisure travel even if it's slow!
Simon_ORourke 3y ago
Overnight sleeper trains have to have a place in the future West Coast mass transportation. Surely it's a lot cheaper, and maybe even more convenient to do a comfortable overnight trip rather than some high speed rail connection that's still a few hours.
- aworks 3y ago
  I've taken the overnight train from Edinburgh to London. It arrives early morning but you could stay in the train for several hours while it was in the station. Quite comfortable. On the other hand, I took an overnight train from Wuhan to Beijing. It was crowded, the cars not so modern, and I didn't sleep all that well. The high speed rail train between those two cities was a much shorter and better experience.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
idunnoman1222 3y ago
Once again, it’s only economical to build something if it’s “luxury” Hopefully when the cars and the line are rundown in 20 years regular people will be able to afford this as a way of travel

53 points by mikhael 3y ago

adrr 3y ago

Whats the price point? Trains have always had similar prices to flying. Nice thing about flying to SF is that i can fly in the morning and fly back out in the evening.

alephnerd 3y ago
Stop downvoting this guy. It's a fair point.
- objektif 3y ago
  What is the fair point? At this point we should be welcoming alternate form of transportation at any price point in my opinion as long as it is not 5-10x.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Investing on enhancing and integrating the Capitol Corridor, ACE, Caltrains, BART, Muni, and VTA into a unified system has a better RoI than a 400-500mi rail line that will most likely have a train leaving on an hourly cadence. It's a similar story for Los Angeles and San Diego. Flights cost around $100-200 for a round trip and take around 3 hours even factoring in security and commute to and from the airport. It would be the same length of time commuting from a railway station to the other, the railway would take 2 additional hours, and the price would be roughly comparable.
    - 1024core 3y ago
      > The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. > There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Exactly. The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else. That is the most useful metric. If spending $100B on SF to LA (400mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, then that's 400M passenger-miles, or 250 dollars per pax-mile. But if spending $5B on (say) SF to SJ (50mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, which is 50M passenger-miles, then it is 100 dollars per pax-mile, a much better tradeoff.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        > The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else San Jose to SF (Caltrain) has a yearly ridership of 5.5 Million. Los Angeles to SF has a yearly ridership of 2.2 Million. I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently.
        1024core 3y ago
        > I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently. I live in California, chief. You know what they say about making ASSumptions? And I was using round numbers to make the calculations easier and the point easier to understand.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Replies are less likely to be downvoted when they aren't judgmental against those with dissimilar views as the poster.
phailhaus 3y ago
> Trains have always had similar prices to flying. They shouldn't though, it's absurd that they are that way in the US.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  Hot take: trains do not appeal to the American culture in the same way it does to other cultures.
  - r14c 3y ago
    Speak for yourself pal. Trains being politically difficult doesn't make them unappealing, train lovers just don't have the industrial weight of aviation and big car behind them.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      The US had a massive, federally subsidized passenger rail industry since the 19th century. The first transcontinental railroad was one of the defining achievements of the country. The reason Americans abandoned passenger rail for airlines and cars wasn’t because of lack of support for railroads, it’s because airlines and cars rendered passenger rail obsolete. Freight rail still makes sense though, and the US uses more freight rail than any other country.
  - jerlam 3y ago
    Hot take: Americans don't love flying either. Airplanes are just the most cost-effective, reliable, and fastest method to get around for long-distance travel in the US. Train service is often so bad that people would rather drive their cars and sit in traffic for long periods of time, because train travel is still worse. Make train travel cheaper, reliable, comfortable, and to places that people actually want to go, and people will take them. Of course some of these problems are much harder to fix than others.
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
paxys 3y ago
They don't on the east coast. For example depending on the timing you can do NYC - DC or NYC - Boston for like $15 one way on Amtrak. There are 50+ trains a day, and they all go full. SF - LA is only slightly longer, and there's no reason for it to cost hundreds.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > NYC - Boston for like $15 one way Bullshit. I went to school in Boston. To get a one way like that I'd have to book weeks in advanced and it would be in the middle of the night. I'm on the Amtrak website right now and if I book a one way trip from South Station (boston) to Penn Station (NYC) for today, it is $250 (tbf, it would be a last minute booking). If I book one for weeks in advance, it's still at $40-100.
  - oogali 3y ago
    NYP-BOS May 7, 7:50pm-12:15am $20 [X] Weeks in advance [ ] Middle of the night
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Why would I commute from NYC to Boston at 8pm on a Tuesday? The fact that this is one of the few counters you could find only proves my point.
      - idunnoman1222 3y ago
        Ride is already too long to use as a commute
    - NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
      Hmm, maybe it's middle age catching up with me, but a train pulling in South St at quarter after midnight feels like the middle of the night to me.
- philwelch 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
angmarsbane 3y ago
Similar in price, but difference in experience. I would much rather travel by train with kids <5 than by a plane.
raydev 3y ago
What's the total door-to-door commute time for you, including getting to the airport and going through security?

barbazoo 3y ago

> Company officials said they hope this new overnight passenger rail service would give Californians and other travelers a more comfortable, convenient and Earth-friendly alternative to short-haul flights. The renderings and anecdotal knowledge about that rail route make me think this is not going to be an electrically powered train. What fuel would it use?

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Even a coal-fired train has a lower carbon footprint per passenger-mile than a plane.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  A wood fired steam train is carbon neutral.
  - Ajay-p 3y ago
    https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cant-argue-with-that-technically-not-wrong https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cant-argue-with-that-technica...
- not-my-account 3y ago
  Not always the case https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/trains-planes-carbon-footprint-pollution.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/trains-planes-car...
cjensen 3y ago
Diesel, like the vast majority of trains in the US. Even if the US performed electrification of trains, this would be a low-priority to electrify because it's not a major shipping route.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Even if the US performed electrification of trains, It does. > this would be a low-priority to electrify because it’s not a major shipping route. US rail electrification is more focused on passenger routes than shipping routes; an electric freight engine for mainline use has been introduced (just last year), but its not intended as the sole power source for a train, but rather to improve efficiency by being used in a consist with diesel engines, recharging with regenerative braking, reducing overall fuel use.

formvoltron 3y ago

Lol. Like here in Europe Bulgaria to Romania have trains.. everybody has trains. What's the big issue with putting a train in over there?

alephnerd 3y ago
Bulgaria to Romania has a high population density and is very flat compared to California, and especially when traveling from Sofia to Bucharest. Furthermore, planes and driving have always been an option in the US.
- objektif 3y ago
  When it comes to trains there is always people who talks about the geographical challenges of building tracks or whatever. I mean these are mostly fixed cost investments and we know exactly how to do them. Why is it such a big deal to build bridges and tunnels?
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    Fixed costs until it needs to be maintained.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    I take it you've never been to the US. Sofia to Bucharest is approx 400km. San Francisco to Los Angeles is 600km. Sofia to Bucharest is largely flat. San Francisco to Los Angeles requires building rail lines in multiple mountain ranges that rival the Carpathians. Imagine having to build a 600km high speed railway line through 3 mountain ranges the size and height of the Carpathians, oh and almost nobody lives in between the two metros. It does not make financial sense.
    - noirbot 3y ago
      Additionally, trying to buy any of the land in between, let alone get environmental damage clearances for building all those tunnels and bridges is probably borderline impossible. Most US rail was built in the era where we were actively taking the land by force and just demolishing nature in the pursuit of progress. It's not clear to me that we could build something like the highway system or a major new rail system in a way that wouldn't be massively detrimental to the environment or the communities along the routes without also making it insanely expensive/inefficient.

throwup238 3y ago

> Dreamstar trains would be running on the track that make up the Coast Line railroad line between Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay area, which travels primarily along the California coast. That line is already in use by Amtrak‘s Pacific Surfliner and Coast Starlight, among others. This isn’t the high speed train which is what I thought at first reading the headline. That’d require new tracks. This is just an overnight Amtrack that’ll inevitably get delayed like Amtrack always is and you’ll wake up not in San Francisco but in the middle of the Gilroy garlic festival.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> an overnight Amtrack that’ll inevitably get delayed like Amtrack always is If they strike an agreement with the track owner, I don’t see why that would be. Amtrak failed because nobody enforces the part of the law that gives passenger trains primacy.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Amtrak only has primacy when on schedule. That actually makes some sense. The railroad plans a scheduled hole in the flow of freight trains that they can put a passenger train in. (Passenger trains are faster than many freight trains, so it takes some juggling to make it work.) If the passenger train is late, the planned spot to put it in isn't there. Now they have to create a spot for it on the fly. That isn't always possible (or possible at an acceptable cost) to the freight railroad.
nradov 3y ago
The coastal Amtrak rail line was recently closed by a landslide. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/california-storms-sever-amtrak-commuter-rail-line-once-again/706502/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/california-storms-sever...
ravenstine 3y ago
> you’ll wake up not in San Francisco but in the middle of the Gilroy garlic festival. I know this was meant as a humorous example of where one might end up because of a delay, but I can think of a million worse places to be stuck at than Gilroy. Better that than somewhere like Hanford, King City, Barstow, or even Bakersfield.

blueboo 3y ago

I used to be a cheerleader for trains in the US. But there are a dozen setbacks for every win. Building infrastructure like this just isnt in the cards at this stage overnight on land will happen on self driving cars before it happens on rails

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Building infrastructure like this just isnt in the cards at this stage What infrastructure? This new service would run on existing rails and terminate at existing stations. The only thing new would be the trains themselves. (The proposed later addition of a drive-on/drive-off car carrier service would involve some additional infrastructure.)

objektif 3y ago

This sounds great. Having traveled around the world I have to say US domestic travel experience is absolutely horrendous. Obviously it is a very big country but at least on the coast lines I wish we had affordable alternatives to flying and driving.

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timcavel 3y ago

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Simulacra 3y ago

Until it's cheaper than flying, I don't see that it's going to get mass adoption. Because even if it did, the price would rise to equal or eclipse flying, like Amtraks DC to NYC corridor where a ticket can be more than the cost of airfare.

tayo42 3y ago
Ticket price maybe is the same, but airports are always out of the way and either require paying for expensive parking or cab rides. Also my experience with trains are they are way more casual of a travel experience. Show up a few minutes before and walk on. Airplanes are always an ordeal. Like You need to add security line buffer time. Or wait for for bags Less threat of a firey death in a Boeing plane to be topical too lol
- noirbot 3y ago
  I dunno, I think we're still in a zone where Amtrak derailments have killed more people in the last decade than domestic aviation issues, and that's even before you account for the fact that there's probably multiple magnitudes more passenger/miles by plane than train. I definitely prefer the experience of rail travel - boarding and riding though.
lostlogin 3y ago
In Europe the train often costs more than flying in my (rather limited) experience. But you start and end your train ride very close to your destination and you aren’t locked in a shitty small seat. Every single bit of the trip is better, with the possible exception of the travel time. Even this might be better if you measure door to door.

alkibiades 3y ago

maybe im just a hater but rather take the 1 hour plane ride

fullshark 3y ago
You aren't a hater, just a rational human.
deathanatos 3y ago
… while I too would probably also take the plane, the door-to-door isn't an hour. For one, even the flight time alone is about 90 minutes, but you're going to be adding at least — and I'm being extremely generous here — another 90 minutes for boarding/unboarding, ticketing, security, and delays combined. It's no less than 3 hours, and I'm probably being way too generous even then.

jjice 3y ago

I'm all for regional train systems where it makes sense. I don't know enough about the travel habits of the west coast, but here in the North East, the Amtrak NE Regional is pretty handy sometimes. Going between Boston and New York is great and if you buy at the right time, you can get tickets for less than $40 each way. It's convenient and depending on your distance to an airport, only slightly longer, but much more convenient. I'm a big fan. That said, having successful train systems in the US is hard. The US is a huge country with a lot of empty space. If it's a regional train in dense areas, it can make sense (like the NE regional). Maybe the traffic of LA <-> SF makes sense, and if it does and it can be done cost effectively, then it'll work out. My assumption is that after building all the infrastructure into place, the cost of the tickets plus the additional travel time will not be worth it to most who are making this trip. I would love to be wrong, but I'm not counting on it. I love the experience of taking a train, and I take them a good bit here in the North East. That said, they're not the best solution in the US currently, it's it's hard to see a world where they become the best for travel outside commuter rails (the MBTA commuter rail is also fantastic) and dense areas (again, like the NE regional). Trains are not a catch all solution in the US. I hope for them to grow in popularity when they're appropriate, but I see a ton of online discourse (granted, it's likely from a vocal minority) about how trains are always better. They're not, and you can't compare US rail logistics to many regions to Europe.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> the cost of the tickets plus the additional travel time will not be worth it to most who are making this trip If they get the beds and service right, it would be because it’s convenient and comfortable. Like, have a Michelin-class meal, good wine, reliable service that knows the regulars and comfortable beds and good shock absorbers and you’re trumping planes as the first-class option. It doesn’t have to beat flying in all cases to be successful. Price always seemed like a weird niche for passenger rail to aim for—planes don’t have to maintain track!
- SkyMarshal 3y ago
  It might be difficult to steal First Class flyers, their opportunity cost is mileage rewards which can be used anywhere in the world the alliance accepts them. The train company might have to join that alliance and offer those rewards too, but would likely be opposed by the airlines it competes with.

xenadu02 3y ago

The tracks discussed in the article are BNSF. Amtrak already runs the Coast Starlight on that track and for much of it they can't even run the legal max 79mph due to poor track conditions. The delays cause them to miss their time slot and get further delayed by freight trains coming out of LA. BNSF has zero interest in upgrading the track to handle higher speeds. That would not help operating ratio even if it let them move more freight and charge higher rents. For US railroads operating ratio is God. The funny part is high-speed passenger service is usually very profitable. The trips are so short you don't need to turnover or time out crews. A lot of routes you don't even need to put them up in a hotel, they go out and come back. That keeps labor costs very low. For the curious I once ran the numbers on China high-speed rail vs California's HSR project in terms of miles of HS track. A rough estimate was about 3x the cost to do the project here in the US. Given wages and most importantly property values in California that actually isn't out of line. China has the same vast distances across low density areas as the USA does so you can't blame it on Europe and Japan being higher density. Because they cover large distances on some routes they pay (all else equal) more than others do. China has simply invested more in their rail infrastructure because they see it as a priority. FWIW The USA used to do those kinds of investments. It was government-backstops of investments that allowed the Transcontinental Railroad project to happen in the first place. Plus railroad land grants (free land if you build a railroad).

alephnerd 3y ago
> China has the same vast distances across low density areas as the USA does so you can't blame it on Europe and Japan being higher density They also have much easier procurement. It's easy to build a railway line in China when local municipalities can rezone entire swathes of farm and urban land with minimal legal recourse.
linkjuice4all 3y ago
The general layout and terrain of the line probably make it incredibly difficult to "speed up" regardless of how much money you dump into it. While it does go through some population centers it has to meander through mountains and follow rough/barren coast lines that don't really offer great opportunities for future growth and ridership. The high speed line through the central valley makes more sense when you consider these limitations. If they're able to speed things up enough then it does become competitive with air travel - but this is definitely a case of "time = money". It's much easier for higher-paid individuals to just take a a short flight for day trips to LA/SF than sit in a train or traffic.

kfarr 3y ago

If you could leave SF in the evening and have a comfortable bed to have a solid night sleep and arrive in LA in the morning, it would totally be worth more than a flight. As someone who did a lot of SF / LA travel for sales and marketing events the only way to get there early and be fresh for the presentations was to leave the night before on a flight ($100), stay at the airport hotel ($100-200) and then uber to the meeting / conference in the morning (always far away from LAX $50). So $350 is not crazy if you have high quality accommodations and I'm sure it could be much cheaper making this a very compelling option for both business and leisure travel even if it's slow!

Simon_ORourke 3y ago

Overnight sleeper trains have to have a place in the future West Coast mass transportation. Surely it's a lot cheaper, and maybe even more convenient to do a comfortable overnight trip rather than some high speed rail connection that's still a few hours.

aworks 3y ago
I've taken the overnight train from Edinburgh to London. It arrives early morning but you could stay in the train for several hours while it was in the station. Quite comfortable. On the other hand, I took an overnight train from Wuhan to Beijing. It was crowded, the cars not so modern, and I didn't sleep all that well. The high speed rail train between those two cities was a much shorter and better experience.

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idunnoman1222 3y ago

Once again, it’s only economical to build something if it’s “luxury” Hopefully when the cars and the line are rundown in 20 years regular people will be able to afford this as a way of travel