4 ms·

Wait until you find out how fast passenger jets are.

pavlov 2y ago
Wait until you find out how quickly you can board and exit a train at a station that’s right in the center of the city, versus traveling to an airport, going through security, waiting to board, and then waiting some more for the plane to hopefully get its take-off slot from air control. You can get from London to Paris by train in less time than it takes to go from Manhattan to boarding a plane at JFK.
- aetherson 2y ago
  Ah yes, the fake line of argument that for airplanes you have to drive an hour to get to the airport two hours before your flight, while in the case of trains, a powerful genie comes into your house, packs your suitcase and whisks you away in his powerful arms directly to your seat on the train 13.21 seconds prior to departure. It's BS. In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens. You do not in fact need to get to airports hours in advance, and security theater in airports is still excruciating, but you can get PreCheck or Clear and cut the time way down. There is some time advantage to boarding trains, but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours. Paris and London are only 213 miles apart! It's about 2/3rds the distance that SF is from LA, much less say SF to Seattle or NYC to Chicago. Rail travel works great in Europe because distances are small, density is high, and the cities grew up centered around rail infrastructure.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens only in countries where they neglected building train stations before the cities grew to todays sizes. but even then it's not true. US cities are less dense, so it should be easier to find space. train stations are also much much smaller than airports and trains don't make as much noise as airplanes. there are many more reasons not to build airports in the middle of a city, none of which apply to trains. the main problem for trains is finding a route for the track into the city. that can be and is solved with tunnels though. or the chinese approach where the high speed trainstations are sometimes built away from the center of the city and instead the center is connected by a dense network of subway lines. a process that started less than 20 years ago but now puts many chinese cities at the top of the list of the largest subway networks in the world.
    - aetherson 2y ago
      So you're saying first we should invent time travel. Sounds practical! If you want to build a transit hub outside the city center and link it via subway, that's no easier or more convenient for a train station than for an airport.
      - em-bee 2y ago
        what i am saying is that i realize that building central trainstations in US cities is a bit harder due to not being able to reuse existing historical trainstations, it is certainly not as hard as building a central airport. and most importantly, it would be easier than in a comparable european city without a central trainstation because european cities tend to have dense historical centers where you can't build, whereas in the US it is probably possible to find some sufficiently central property that is up for redevelopment.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    London built several new stations in the centre of the city within the last few years, for the new Elizabeth Line. London Bridge, a major station, was rebuilt. Euston Station has a planned large expansion. It's impossible to build an airport in a city centre.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Not in a city center perhaps but Boston Logan is pretty close and London City isn't bad either.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours Just driving to the airport in Denver is nearly an hour for most of the city. It'll take a half hour to get from Uptown Dallas or Frisco or Saginaw to DFW. It's like a half hour to get from Orlando International to any of the Disney resorts. About 20 minutes from downtown KC to MCI. All of this is without any time parking or going through security and assuming traffic doesn't get bad. Dallas has a train station downtown. Same with Fort Worth. Kansas City Union Station is downtown. Manhattan has several train stations. A lot of cities have a big train station downtown, as many cities were built around the train station. A decently sized train station uses considerably less space than a busy airport. Which of these seem easier for the people in the city to actually get to and use? Dallas Union Station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aMwyguz98hptWPNo6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/aMwyguz98hptWPNo6 DFW Airport: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5iUpUoqvUkhJr1D98 https://maps.app.goo.gl/5iUpUoqvUkhJr1D98 Penn Station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JysFmwFhc3cwqHLC6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JysFmwFhc3cwqHLC6 JFK Airport: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MHWe4UM4wCk9iL1F7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/MHWe4UM4wCk9iL1F7 Don't get me wrong, I agree even door to door air travel will usually be faster when talking about the kinds of distances a lot of US travelers go at and often people act like a train is 0 minutes of time getting to/from the station, but arguing the whole travel time getting to/from the airport and dealing with more security is only 20 minutes is a massive stretch for a ton of Americans. Most people should budget probably an hour before their scheduled boarding time to deal with the about half hour drive, the time navigating the airport, and the time dealing with security. Plus add another half hour after landing to actually get someplace interesting.
    - aetherson 2y ago
      And then there's San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans... there are plenty of cities that have airports that are very convenient to them, and train stations that aren't. My point is if you have a substantial sized city that does not already have a large train station in its center, you aren't building a train station in its center, in the same way that if your city doesn't have an airport that you've built up around, you aren't going to build it. We're all at the mercy of history here, unless you're going to try to build a new planned community where there currently is only light population.
rsynnott 2y ago
That’s all very well if you’re going thousands of km. For a plane journey that takes less than 3 hours, though, the train may still win, because the train doesn’t involve… airports. No getting to the airport, security, hanging around because the train is inexplicably an hour late (trains are sometimes late, but even in the worst systems not on the scale/frequency of plane lateness), no half-hour spent boarding the train, no taxi-ing, no sitting around for 20 minutes at the end while they get around to opening the train door, no walking through a km worth of airport.
- b112 2y ago
  I am so often boggled at how crappy air travel is now. Used to be, decades ago, just show up and go to the plane like it was a bus. Some dude would take your luggage and throw it into the cargo hold. You'd be boarded and gone in 15. When landed, they'd open then cargo hold and hand out luggage. I had this experience in a transfer to a prop plane in Mexico. Fast, easy, quick.
  - jkolio 2y ago
    Unfortunately, the monetary and political interests in security theater became entrenched after 9/11. I'm afraid something similar might happen to trains eventually, if they're ever used in a sufficiently theatrical instance of violence. I'm enjoying the ease of access while it lasts.
    - alamortsubite 2y ago
      See Spain since 2004. Though it's still only a minor inconvenience compared to air travel.
    - seabass-labrax 2y ago
      This is sadly too true for the Channel Tunnel railway linking Britain with France. The post-Brexit border security easily takes in excess of half an hour as several hundred passengers shuffle single-file through the scanners. Although it is still marginally faster than flying for me due to my distance from an airport (as well as Britain's underdeveloped domestic aviation sector in general) the time spent at the station usually exceeds my actual journey now. What's most stupid about security for rail passengers is that the original fear from 9/11 doesn't even apply - you can't hijack a train and crash it into a skyscraper!

Wait until you find out how quickly you can board and exit a train at a station that’s right in the center of the city, versus traveling to an airport, going through security, waiting to board, and then waiting some more for the plane to hopefully get its take-off slot from air control. You can get from London to Paris by train in less time than it takes to go from Manhattan to boarding a plane at JFK.

aetherson 2y ago
Ah yes, the fake line of argument that for airplanes you have to drive an hour to get to the airport two hours before your flight, while in the case of trains, a powerful genie comes into your house, packs your suitcase and whisks you away in his powerful arms directly to your seat on the train 13.21 seconds prior to departure. It's BS. In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens. You do not in fact need to get to airports hours in advance, and security theater in airports is still excruciating, but you can get PreCheck or Clear and cut the time way down. There is some time advantage to boarding trains, but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours. Paris and London are only 213 miles apart! It's about 2/3rds the distance that SF is from LA, much less say SF to Seattle or NYC to Chicago. Rail travel works great in Europe because distances are small, density is high, and the cities grew up centered around rail infrastructure.
- em-bee 2y ago
  In existing cities, train stations are just as hard to build in the city center as airports -- neither happens only in countries where they neglected building train stations before the cities grew to todays sizes. but even then it's not true. US cities are less dense, so it should be easier to find space. train stations are also much much smaller than airports and trains don't make as much noise as airplanes. there are many more reasons not to build airports in the middle of a city, none of which apply to trains. the main problem for trains is finding a route for the track into the city. that can be and is solved with tunnels though. or the chinese approach where the high speed trainstations are sometimes built away from the center of the city and instead the center is connected by a dense network of subway lines. a process that started less than 20 years ago but now puts many chinese cities at the top of the list of the largest subway networks in the world.
  - aetherson 2y ago
    So you're saying first we should invent time travel. Sounds practical! If you want to build a transit hub outside the city center and link it via subway, that's no easier or more convenient for a train station than for an airport.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      what i am saying is that i realize that building central trainstations in US cities is a bit harder due to not being able to reuse existing historical trainstations, it is certainly not as hard as building a central airport. and most importantly, it would be easier than in a comparable european city without a central trainstation because european cities tend to have dense historical centers where you can't build, whereas in the US it is probably possible to find some sufficiently central property that is up for redevelopment.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  London built several new stations in the centre of the city within the last few years, for the new Elizabeth Line. London Bridge, a major station, was rebuilt. Euston Station has a planned large expansion. It's impossible to build an airport in a city centre.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Not in a city center perhaps but Boston Logan is pretty close and London City isn't bad either.
- vel0city 2y ago
  > but it's on the order of 20-40 minutes, not hours Just driving to the airport in Denver is nearly an hour for most of the city. It'll take a half hour to get from Uptown Dallas or Frisco or Saginaw to DFW. It's like a half hour to get from Orlando International to any of the Disney resorts. About 20 minutes from downtown KC to MCI. All of this is without any time parking or going through security and assuming traffic doesn't get bad. Dallas has a train station downtown. Same with Fort Worth. Kansas City Union Station is downtown. Manhattan has several train stations. A lot of cities have a big train station downtown, as many cities were built around the train station. A decently sized train station uses considerably less space than a busy airport. Which of these seem easier for the people in the city to actually get to and use? Dallas Union Station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/aMwyguz98hptWPNo6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/aMwyguz98hptWPNo6 DFW Airport: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5iUpUoqvUkhJr1D98 https://maps.app.goo.gl/5iUpUoqvUkhJr1D98 Penn Station: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JysFmwFhc3cwqHLC6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/JysFmwFhc3cwqHLC6 JFK Airport: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MHWe4UM4wCk9iL1F7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/MHWe4UM4wCk9iL1F7 Don't get me wrong, I agree even door to door air travel will usually be faster when talking about the kinds of distances a lot of US travelers go at and often people act like a train is 0 minutes of time getting to/from the station, but arguing the whole travel time getting to/from the airport and dealing with more security is only 20 minutes is a massive stretch for a ton of Americans. Most people should budget probably an hour before their scheduled boarding time to deal with the about half hour drive, the time navigating the airport, and the time dealing with security. Plus add another half hour after landing to actually get someplace interesting.
  - aetherson 2y ago
    And then there's San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans... there are plenty of cities that have airports that are very convenient to them, and train stations that aren't. My point is if you have a substantial sized city that does not already have a large train station in its center, you aren't building a train station in its center, in the same way that if your city doesn't have an airport that you've built up around, you aren't going to build it. We're all at the mercy of history here, unless you're going to try to build a new planned community where there currently is only light population.

rsynnott 2y ago

That’s all very well if you’re going thousands of km. For a plane journey that takes less than 3 hours, though, the train may still win, because the train doesn’t involve… airports. No getting to the airport, security, hanging around because the train is inexplicably an hour late (trains are sometimes late, but even in the worst systems not on the scale/frequency of plane lateness), no half-hour spent boarding the train, no taxi-ing, no sitting around for 20 minutes at the end while they get around to opening the train door, no walking through a km worth of airport.

b112 2y ago
I am so often boggled at how crappy air travel is now. Used to be, decades ago, just show up and go to the plane like it was a bus. Some dude would take your luggage and throw it into the cargo hold. You'd be boarded and gone in 15. When landed, they'd open then cargo hold and hand out luggage. I had this experience in a transfer to a prop plane in Mexico. Fast, easy, quick.
- jkolio 2y ago
  Unfortunately, the monetary and political interests in security theater became entrenched after 9/11. I'm afraid something similar might happen to trains eventually, if they're ever used in a sufficiently theatrical instance of violence. I'm enjoying the ease of access while it lasts.
  - alamortsubite 2y ago
    See Spain since 2004. Though it's still only a minor inconvenience compared to air travel.
  - seabass-labrax 2y ago
    This is sadly too true for the Channel Tunnel railway linking Britain with France. The post-Brexit border security easily takes in excess of half an hour as several hundred passengers shuffle single-file through the scanners. Although it is still marginally faster than flying for me due to my distance from an airport (as well as Britain's underdeveloped domestic aviation sector in general) the time spent at the station usually exceeds my actual journey now. What's most stupid about security for rail passengers is that the original fear from 9/11 doesn't even apply - you can't hijack a train and crash it into a skyscraper!