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I'm tired of flying. It's a miserable experience to begin with, and getting worse, and now all this junk is happening. Next year my wife and I are planning to t

I'm tired of flying. It's a miserable experience to begin with, and getting worse, and now all this junk is happening. Next year my wife and I are planning to try out a train trip to NYC, from Minnesota. It will take quite a bit longer, but I hope it will be a more pleasant trip.

josu 2y ago
Related information: In the US (maybe everywhere?) air travel is safer than railroad travel. The railroad experience is usually much better though, I agree (compared to economy class). https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...
- somenameforme 2y ago
  That commonly repeated datum is one of those that falls under the lies, dirty lies, and then statistics - type of lies. Because most people would think this means that if you instead had a private jet and just started flying literally everywhere (instead of driving) then it'd be much more safe, right? Nope - it'd be dramatically more dangerous in fact. This owes to the fact that the stat compares deaths per mile, but the real risk in a plane is not measured in miles, but in takeoff/landing/pressurization cycles. Whether the plane then flies for 10 miles or 5000, the risk is pretty much the same. And so if you mask out the danger by looking at deaths/mile then yeah - they're safer. But if you look at it in terms of 'what are my odds of dying on an average trip' - then they're much less safe than driving. You can really intuit this by imagining some ultra-high risk interstellar starship. If it traveled quadrillions upon quadrillions of miles, but 99% of them randomly blew up and killed everybody on board, then it'd still be far safer than driving in terms of deaths/mile. The deaths/mile datum is not really very useful for modes of transport where the risk models are very different, and that's very much the case for driving vs flying.
  - coldpie 2y ago
    This would be a great point to support with some sources with hard numbers! > But if you look at it in terms of 'what are my odds of dying on an average trip' - then they're much less safe than driving. But is that an interesting stat to look at? You would need to multiply that number by the number of trips, to get a useful measure of risk.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      Sure thing. This site [1] gives a hull loss rate of 1 per 4.94 million flights for jets. For vehicles, the average person makes two trips a day over a total of 29.2 miles. [2] So we can say the average trip is 14.6 miles. And the average fatality rate is 1.33 per 100 million miles traveled [3]. So that's 1.33 fatalities per (100 / 14.6) = 6.8 million trips, or 1 fatality per 5.17 million trips. On a first level analysis, vehicles are already slightly safer than jets on a trip for trip basis. But this dramatically understates the actual difference, because the mortality numbers I'm using for vehicles are per person, not per fatal incident. In other words 1 PERSON dies per 5.17 million vehicle trips. And I'm comparing that against one entire JET 'dying' per 4.94 million flights, which is generally going to have tens to hundreds of people on it. If you do an apples to apples comparison in terms of trips (as would be the case if somebody just replaced their car with a private plane), vehicles would be orders of magnitude safer than jets, trip for trip. [1] - https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-01/ https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-0... [2] - https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-motorists-drive/ https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-moto... [3] - https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
- coldpie 2y ago
  > (compared to economy class) I've flown first class and it is still a miserable fucking experience. I hate airplanes.
sleepydog 2y ago
I've started taking longer train trips when I need to get from NYC to anywhere in the Northeast corridor (between DC and Boston), instead of driving or flying. Often the price is the same or higher than flying, and the time is longer (even accounting for getting to/from the airport), but the ride is much more pleasant, with plenty of leg room, pleasant views, more quiet. A few times I even had a pleasant conversation in the meal car. I used to live in Japan and I'm intensely jealous of the high-speed trains there. A bullet-train equivalent in the northeast corridor, or between LA/SF would be a dream. I can't imagine that it wouldn't pay for itself in under 10 years and reduce air traffic considerably.
- hollerith 2y ago
  >A bullet-train equivalent in the northeast corridor, or between LA/SF would be a dream. There's a train between Miami and Orlando with an average speed of 69 mph. My guess as to why it happened there instead of in the northeast corridor is that the costs of procuring rights of way were significantly lower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline
  - slau 2y ago
    I’m bit confused by your comment as a bullet train is significantly faster than this train you mention. The French TGV has hit 574 km/h (356 mph) nearly 20 years ago. I can’t immediately find the average speed of the TGV, but considering there’s hundreds of km between stops, and that the cruising speed is just over 300 km/h (186 mph), I’d wager it’s significantly higher than the 111 km/h of the Brightline. In Europe, the high speed rail standard dictates 200 km/h (124 mph) for retrofitted rail and 250 km/h (155 mph) for dedicated high speed rail.
    - orwin 2y ago
      > The French TGV has hit 574 km/h (356 mph) nearly 20 years ago. I can’t immediately find the average speed of the TGV, but considering there’s hundreds of km between stops, and that the cruising speed is just over 300 km/h (186 mph), I’d wager it’s significantly higher than the 111 km/h of the Brightline. It really depends. Often, on the same line, you will have at least 2 TGVs: one with a single stop midpoint(or none), and another with multiple stops. Rennes-Paris (330 km train station to train station) could take me as low as 1h10, and as high as 1h55 depending on which train i took. So the minimum seems to be 165 km/h (sightly more than the Brightline) and the max around 280.

josu 2y ago

Related information: In the US (maybe everywhere?) air travel is safer than railroad travel. The railroad experience is usually much better though, I agree (compared to economy class). https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...

somenameforme 2y ago
That commonly repeated datum is one of those that falls under the lies, dirty lies, and then statistics - type of lies. Because most people would think this means that if you instead had a private jet and just started flying literally everywhere (instead of driving) then it'd be much more safe, right? Nope - it'd be dramatically more dangerous in fact. This owes to the fact that the stat compares deaths per mile, but the real risk in a plane is not measured in miles, but in takeoff/landing/pressurization cycles. Whether the plane then flies for 10 miles or 5000, the risk is pretty much the same. And so if you mask out the danger by looking at deaths/mile then yeah - they're safer. But if you look at it in terms of 'what are my odds of dying on an average trip' - then they're much less safe than driving. You can really intuit this by imagining some ultra-high risk interstellar starship. If it traveled quadrillions upon quadrillions of miles, but 99% of them randomly blew up and killed everybody on board, then it'd still be far safer than driving in terms of deaths/mile. The deaths/mile datum is not really very useful for modes of transport where the risk models are very different, and that's very much the case for driving vs flying.
- coldpie 2y ago
  This would be a great point to support with some sources with hard numbers! > But if you look at it in terms of 'what are my odds of dying on an average trip' - then they're much less safe than driving. But is that an interesting stat to look at? You would need to multiply that number by the number of trips, to get a useful measure of risk.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    Sure thing. This site [1] gives a hull loss rate of 1 per 4.94 million flights for jets. For vehicles, the average person makes two trips a day over a total of 29.2 miles. [2] So we can say the average trip is 14.6 miles. And the average fatality rate is 1.33 per 100 million miles traveled [3]. So that's 1.33 fatalities per (100 / 14.6) = 6.8 million trips, or 1 fatality per 5.17 million trips. On a first level analysis, vehicles are already slightly safer than jets on a trip for trip basis. But this dramatically understates the actual difference, because the mortality numbers I'm using for vehicles are per person, not per fatal incident. In other words 1 PERSON dies per 5.17 million vehicle trips. And I'm comparing that against one entire JET 'dying' per 4.94 million flights, which is generally going to have tens to hundreds of people on it. If you do an apples to apples comparison in terms of trips (as would be the case if somebody just replaced their car with a private plane), vehicles would be orders of magnitude safer than jets, trip for trip. [1] - https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-01/ https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-0... [2] - https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-motorists-drive/ https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-moto... [3] - https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
coldpie 2y ago
> (compared to economy class) I've flown first class and it is still a miserable fucking experience. I hate airplanes.

sleepydog 2y ago

I've started taking longer train trips when I need to get from NYC to anywhere in the Northeast corridor (between DC and Boston), instead of driving or flying. Often the price is the same or higher than flying, and the time is longer (even accounting for getting to/from the airport), but the ride is much more pleasant, with plenty of leg room, pleasant views, more quiet. A few times I even had a pleasant conversation in the meal car. I used to live in Japan and I'm intensely jealous of the high-speed trains there. A bullet-train equivalent in the northeast corridor, or between LA/SF would be a dream. I can't imagine that it wouldn't pay for itself in under 10 years and reduce air traffic considerably.

hollerith 2y ago
>A bullet-train equivalent in the northeast corridor, or between LA/SF would be a dream. There's a train between Miami and Orlando with an average speed of 69 mph. My guess as to why it happened there instead of in the northeast corridor is that the costs of procuring rights of way were significantly lower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline
- slau 2y ago
  I’m bit confused by your comment as a bullet train is significantly faster than this train you mention. The French TGV has hit 574 km/h (356 mph) nearly 20 years ago. I can’t immediately find the average speed of the TGV, but considering there’s hundreds of km between stops, and that the cruising speed is just over 300 km/h (186 mph), I’d wager it’s significantly higher than the 111 km/h of the Brightline. In Europe, the high speed rail standard dictates 200 km/h (124 mph) for retrofitted rail and 250 km/h (155 mph) for dedicated high speed rail.
  - orwin 2y ago
    > The French TGV has hit 574 km/h (356 mph) nearly 20 years ago. I can’t immediately find the average speed of the TGV, but considering there’s hundreds of km between stops, and that the cruising speed is just over 300 km/h (186 mph), I’d wager it’s significantly higher than the 111 km/h of the Brightline. It really depends. Often, on the same line, you will have at least 2 TGVs: one with a single stop midpoint(or none), and another with multiple stops. Rennes-Paris (330 km train station to train station) could take me as low as 1h10, and as high as 1h55 depending on which train i took. So the minimum seems to be 165 km/h (sightly more than the Brightline) and the max around 280.