6 ms·

How to speed up US passenger rail, without bullet trains

65 points by petethomas 2y ago

biglyburrito 2y ago
https://archive.md/mFF1a https://archive.md/mFF1a
aposm 2y ago
There is no secret lost knowledge that enabled a steam-powered train to go from New York to Chicago in 16 hours in the 1930s. We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel. The current NYC to Chicago train takes 20 hours and is routinely several hours delayed... all we have to do is invest in infrastructure and rebuild our rail system, but that won't happen unless it's "sexy" and can compete with air travel, and the best way to do that is with HSR. So while our passenger rail system _could_ be a lot faster (without true HSR) if it was run well, I don't think that's going to happen until we get the marketability/"sexiness" of HSR.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  > We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. First-class passenger trains are much more comfortable, roomier, and less expensive, but as long as they're so wildly slower, they have a hard time competing with air travel.
  - alwa 2y ago
    I'm not sure they're much less expensive. To pick an arbitrary weeklong Tuesday-to-Tuesday trip in May, between New York and Chicago, the cheapest direct Amtrak fare—in coach, not in first class as you mentioned—is $336 (and 19 hours each way), whereas the same trip on Spirit Air is $96 (and 2 hours 30 minutes each way). The cheapest first class train fare is $1,621 for the round trip, vs $385 for first class airfare.
    - TrainedMonkey 2y ago
      Per hour they will be much cheaper. Part of self-fulfilling prophecy is that per hour price is mostly inelastic, so as trains get slower and take more time the price rises. And higher price means less people take trains...
      - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
        Per hour walking is even cheaper.
      - rimunroe 2y ago
        > Per hour they will be much cheaper. How many people do you think care about the per-hour cost of travel. I feel confident saying that the vast majority of the traveling public wants to spend as little time and money as possible to get to their destinations.
        Jgrubb 2y ago
        If I’m not mistaken, that’s the joke.
        rimunroe 2y ago
        D’oh! It completely flew over my head. Thanks. I’ve heard people who are really into trains bill rail travel as being worth it purely for the experience, so it sounded plausible that they were arguing it seriously
        fc417fc802 2y ago
        I think it's less a joke than an observation. There's some per hour cost that's approximately fixed, so for a given mode of travel the slower it gets the more expensive it becomes. The lack of investment in rail is a vicious cycle.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > First-class passenger trains are much more comfortable, roomier, and less expensive, but as long as they're so wildly slower, they have a hard time competing with air travel. Maybe, but around a third of all tourism spend in the US is business travel related [0]. You cannot justify spending an overnight train ride from NYC to Chicago when you can reach there within 2 hours by flight. The US is MASSIVE - much larger than most countries, and population centers are extremely spread out once you leave the Northeast. Outside the NE, the math (time wise or financially) doesn't play out well for rail based public transit. You see the same dynamics in China as well - the overwhelming majority of medium-long distance public transit is along the extremely dense coast. Expecting a French style TGV is unrealistic as long as San Francisco to Los Angeles is the same distance as Paris to Berlin - except with almost no major population centers in between, and plenty of massive mountain ranges. Same for the rest of the US outside of the NE. Similar extent with NY to Chicago as well (roughly the same distance as Berlin to St Petersburg) [0] - https://www.statista.com/topics/1832/business-travel/#topicOverview https://www.statista.com/topics/1832/business-travel/#topicO...
    - seabass-labrax 2y ago
      I don't see why it's a problem for a potential rail service for San Francisco and Los Angeles that there are no heavily populated areas between the two cities. There's no reason why you couldn't fill up a train with passengers at the start and travel non-stop to the destination, just as the vast majority of airlines operate. Trains still have all their usual benefits including better passenger comfort and higher energy efficiency, and there is the option to build intermediate stations if the demand increases in the future. I would also question the claim that overnight trains cannot be justified for business travel. If the cost is comparable to a hotel room - which is a big 'if', granted - this allows employees to be better rested and therefore work more effectively during the day.
      - 0_____0 2y ago
        Infrastructure can also drive development in places that it reaches. If you work in SF but fancy living in Hollister, and the train only takes 30 minutes to get there, why not?
  - jakelazaroff 2y ago
    China’s new high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai — about the same distance as between New York and Chicago — takes a little less than four and a half hours. That’s about two hours longer than a flight between the two cities. If you include the time spent arriving early, going through security, etc, it probably comes out about even.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      And the region between Beijing to Shanghai is fairly flat and densely populated (Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei), which makes it easier to justify and build out the associated infra, as plenty of other slower lines can also be run concurrently - specifically by connecting Tianjin (one of the most important cities in China) Meanwhile, the only major population centers between NY and Chicago are Pittsburg and Columbus - both of whom combined have a fraction of the population that Jiagnsu or Shandong have. Furthermore, land acquisition is different in a country like the US versus China. Mass expropriation or eminent domain of land is politically untenable in the US, but something that is easier to implement in China as a significant amount of land remains under local municipal ownership instead of private ownership.
      - jakelazaroff 2y ago
        If you pass Columbus, you’d also go through Indianapolis. Or you could go north and pass through Cleveland and Detroit. Anyway, if you only support building infrastructure in regions of the U.S. that are as densely populated as eastern China, you’d basically never build anything.
        alephnerd 2y ago
        > If you pass Columbus, you’d also go through Indianapolis. Or you could go north and pass through Cleveland and Detroit. Which 1. Already exists 2. Leads to the same problem as before - the population size just does not justify those investments, nor is there any business demand when a flight will always remain faster. > Anyway, if you only support building infrastructure in regions of the U.S. that are as densely populated as eastern China, you’d basically never build anything I support building infrastructure that solves an actual problem - and public transit connectivity between NY and Chicago isn't one of those. It will remain slower than flight transit (so most business and plenty of personal travel will remain flight based) and car ownership remains high in the US, so for personal travel, the independence of driving would still outcompete rail. Those billions of dollars on such a hypothetical are better spent on plenty of other alternative programs - for example the local transit expansion grants which the Biden admin bundled as part of the IIJA, which helped expand bus and local rail transit instead. Even China has stopped financing these kinds of mega-projects becuase of tightening financial due dilligence, and tries to tie investments with an actual business case [0]. Heck, now prices are roughly the same between a domestic flight and HSR on the major lines in China. [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/china-bullet-trains-ticket-prices.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/china-bullet-tra... ---------- The only network that could even justify a high speed rail is the DC-Philadelphia-NYC-Boston corridor (so an extended Acela Line), but are you also fine with the federal government expropriating land to speed up development OR spending decades democratically building consensus. And even then DCA to JFK or Logan will remain time competitive for business travel
- roenxi 2y ago
  Without disagreeing, it is a weird one to see described as a marketing problem. The political process is extremely low bandwidth; it is tough to express an opinion on more than one issue with one vote and usually the priority is not transport. Presumably the major reason that HSR isn't being deployed is that it is uneconomic or there is no legal way to do it.
- panny 2y ago
  >We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel. Trains replace road trips, not air travel. You can travel from New York to Miami for $175 on Amtrak. That's a lot cheaper and much more comfortable than driving 1300 miles. Saying you can do this faster or possibly cheaper on a budget airline is missing the point, because traveling on a budget airline is not enjoyable. There's no scenery. You're packed in like sardines. Best case scenario, every hour you spend in the plane is miserable. Every hour you spend waiting in airport security lines is miserable. Every hour spent waiting on the runway for delays is miserable. Waiting for your baggage only to find it is lost again is miserable. You can't get up to stretch your legs, sit down, the seat belt light is on. On the Amtrak there are dining cars, cafe cars, observation cars. There's five toilets on each car, you never have to wait. There's free wifi. There are no middle seats to be miserable in. You can bring your own beer and drink it on the train. You can't do any of that in car or on an airline. Riding the train is more fun than flying, and a lot less hazardous than driving. If it takes a little longer than flying, that just means more time for fun.
  - pseudo0 2y ago
    Except that NY to Miami route you cited takes 28 to 33 hours... You could do that trip in a single long day driving, plus save money if you're a group of 3+ people. And then you'd have a car at your destination, which is pretty mandatory in most parts of the US. It might be decent for a solo traveler, but for the stereotypical family road trip to Florida, the car still wins out.
    - panny 2y ago
      You're not going to drive 18 hours straight. It would be wildly dangerous for you to try as you will fall asleep at the wheel. Even if you tried it, you're going to have to make stops for gas, bathroom, and to eat, which will push the trip beyond one day. Which means you're going to have to get at least one hotel room along the way (more expense and time). And, you're assuming perfect traffic conditions, which doesn't exist, we all know. You can go to the bathroom on the train. You can sleep on the train. You can eat on the train. Which means the 28 hours is the total time and the $175 is total price. Avg gas price is 3.37/gal. (https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price) Avg new car milage is 25 mpg, 52*3.37 is ... $175. Same as the train fare, but that's just the gas. Taking the car is just dangerous and miserable IMO. Train wins.
- 6510 2y ago
  https://darienite.com/great-10-hour-new-york-chicago-railroad-never-cameron-transportation-20577 https://darienite.com/great-10-hour-new-york-chicago-railroa... They do Beijing to Shanghai in 5 hours so you have to make New York to Chicago in 4 or it doesn't count. The numbers are funny. Flying from New York to Chicago takes less than 2 hours but all things considered you lose 8 hours https://www.trippy.com/fly/New-York-City-to-Chicago https://www.trippy.com/fly/New-York-City-to-Chicago You might as well drive it in 12.
jeffbee 2y ago
America's only current, prominent bullet train is CAHSR and the goal of that project is not to speed up passenger rail. The project has nothing whatsoever to do with making existing rail riders happier or incrementally increasing ridership. The avowed purpose of CAHSR is to enable California to grow and prosper without having to build more airports and more freeways. So it's not really worth considering it as a choice between an expensive HSR on the one hand and slightly better Amtrak San Joaquin on the other. Only one of these projects would actually be suited to purpose.
- xeromal 2y ago
  A private company called brightview (I think) built a small section of highish speed rail in Florida and is now building a line from the outskirts of LA to Vegas. I'm excited for it to open up
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    You have stretched "now building" beyond the bounds of reason. But yes, Brightline has an altogether superior press secretary.
    - xeromal 2y ago
      If you tell me when and where, I'll put money down on brightline's completion vs california high speed rail having any functioning sections in the next 10 years I have absolutely zero faith in california high speed rail doing anything within my lifetime while China can build hundreds of miles in a few years.
      - sroussey 2y ago
        It should have followed the 5 and by passed the towns in the Central Valley. The republicans there felt that was a terrible idea and should instead go through where there was much more built out. But stuff would have been built out from the stops, they didn’t need to swing in like that. And so many more landowners as you approach cities and the need to slow down. Such a cluster.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
Or, y'know, just build a bullet train. USA. Biggest economy on earth. Most powerful nation. Third largest nation by population. Could maybe build one bullet train, like the 20 other nations that already have them in service, and the 13 other nations that have them in development. Or just settle for mediocrity. Whatever.
- 0_____0 2y ago
  IMO: The US suffers from the notion of exceptionalism spawned from its position of massive advantage after WWII, as well as a deep seated aversion to mass transit that was borne out of the backlash against desegregation. I'm probably missing many smaller factors, but I'd be interested to know if someone thinks that I've incorrectly identified those two as major factors.
  - WillPostForFood 2y ago
    No, American exceptionalism is not a post-WWII idea. It was core to the expansion of the country in the 19th century.
  - dabiged 2y ago
    Not from North America. But I disagree that the exceptionalism started post WWII. How do you explain the country's ability to perform civil engineering feats prior to WWII. The Erie Canal, Trans-continental Railway, Panama Canal, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building and Golden Gate Bridge spring to mind as feats of engineering that few other country's (if any) could rival. There are obvious examples post WWII (Manhattan project, Apollo program, Interstate highway system), but for all of the USA's pitfalls, they do have an incredible history of civil engineering projects prior to WWII.
    - yurishimo 2y ago
      The US shifted their focus from domestic to international politics after WWII. They were brought in as arbitrators for world peace, and in a lot of ways, stepped up to the task. Military expansion and spending went through the roof and the Cold War and Vietnam didn't help build public trust in government to do big things at home. Behind the scenes though, politicians could work with other nations to organize the reality that we all live in today in the West. Later, politicians began organising free trade and technology became the next frontier. Why spend hundreds of millions on a bridge when I can send an email instead of a letter? The USA really is a "marvel" in the fact that most of her problems were caused and exacerbated by success and enough competent people in power to keep things moving. It's hard to discuss the United States without mentioning Trump who believes that undermining the past 100 years of Neoliberalism will bring America back to her "glory days" while completely ignoring the reality on the ground that led from where they were then to where America is today. So maybe there will be more public works projects in the future for America, but I fear that they will be more focused on appeasing dear leader instead of meaningfully improving the lives of the average American citizen. But until someone turns on the lights and shuts off the music, America will continue to spiral and cry about "unfairness" while her created reality crumbles due to lack of maintenance and care about the subtle realities on the ground that were once central to her rise in the first place.
pyfon 2y ago
Someone made a good argument on Reddit when discussing Australia which is also has a slowish rail network. It is a 3hr drive Sydney to Canberra and 4hr on train. Mainly because the train track was originally for freight so has more curves than needed for passenger. They said rather than aim for a super fast train just improve the tracks we have and get the time down to 3hr to compete with the car. This is a good point because then you get more revenues and usage (the trains are full right now but infrequent - maybe they can run them every 15 minutes) Then you can go make the case for an even faster train for 2050. The Japanese Shinkansen is something else. Doing my first decent trip on one this week and can't wait!
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  >Then you can go make the case for an even faster train for 2050. I'm very sorry, but such timelines are extremely disheartening and sound like a joke. The problem is, factually, other countries can build out HSRs within 5-10 year horizons, from planning to finishing a route. If it takes 2+ generations to even get a single line... I'm not sure what I can say. I understand bureaucracy and problem solving processes work differently in our countries, but incredibly sad to see how a person can't see a significant progress within their own lifetimes. I'm not sure when I became such a defeatist, but it is what it is.
  - pyfon 2y ago
    I think once the decision is made 10 yrs is fine. But Australia has a smaller population than most so you'd need to prove decent usage first.
  - jpalawaga 2y ago
    that your name is tokio yoyo is sort of funny to me because if you look at shinkansen build/planning timelines, it is absolutely on the order of 2050 for extensions. the japanese have a world-class trainsystem and it's built by putting one foot in front of the other for decades, not expecting it to be built overnight. of course, you can build it faster, but then it is more expensive. so what's the priority? it's easier to fund high speed rail projects in developed nations by long, sustained investment that is easily planned for rather than having to suddenly come up with billions of dollars and then deal with the political fallout of inevitable cost-overruns associated with rushing things.
iambateman 2y ago
I assumed that “just go faster” wasn’t an available option for Amtrak on existing rails but this article strongly suggests that it is.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Am I having a stroke or did you post this exact comment yesterday
  - seabass-labrax 2y ago
    It's the way Hacker News bumps articles to the top (second-chance pool). Everyone's old comments get a new timestamp! (Actually the timestamp stays the same; it's the 'time ago' which is counted differently. Very counterintuitive.) Stroke diagnosis is fortunately negative :)
rr808 2y ago
This is a better solution. I think a lot of high speed rail enthusiasts think that if we build the passengers will come. Its really unproven, I think American cities are so different to most of the world high speed rail would be unpopular. Very few people want to go from downtown one city to another - most city centers aren't that nice and when you get to your destination you'll need a car anyway.
- fnord77 2y ago
  20 years ago I backpacked around Europe on a Eurail pass for all of April and part of May. I even paid the supplement for the high speed trains. Most of the time, the trains were all but empty. I think eventually Boston-NYC type routes will be handled by quad-copter type drones that land right in the city center. That type of passenger rail will be obsolete
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    For one, that was 20 years ago. Ridership has increased significantly since through a combination of deliberate EU policy and efforts to remove the barriers that made long distance rail journeys so terrible decades ago. Old experiences riding long distance international trains (likely at non-peak hours), outside peak tourist season aren't necessarily representative of the modern experience.
  - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
    Passenger rail competes with highways, not airplanes.
    - youngtaff 2y ago
      Not entirely true… Eurostar killed London to Brussels and London to Paris flight numbers
      - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
        Doesn't invalidate what I said.
Lammy 2y ago
> The Momentum framework calls on Amtrak and commuter rail agencies to […] shift their focus from increasing the geographic coverage and capacity of their rail services > When making changes to rail infrastructure or services, state and local railroad agencies often must negotiate with the freight railroad companies that own most of America’s track network. These companies [are] reluctant to allow more frequent passenger service that could reduce the amount of time their freight trains have access to track. This article completely fails to mention the actual cause of our modern situation. Before focusing on increasing geographical coverage we would first need to focus on not decreasing geographic coverage. Check out the Abandoned & Out-of-Service Rail map of North America and you can see the result of massive corporate consolidation where newly-combined railroads abandon parts of each constituent company's former network to end up with the most track they can run for the least money. There is zero redundancy left: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4Zor-QawkoJmmMK&femb=1&ll=25.413577918794967%2C-45.05929601607611&z=2 https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4...
- tvb12 2y ago
  Dang, there's a track on there, within a bike ride from me, that goes all the way to the biggest city in my state and passes within a few hundred feet of the university I attended. That could have made things easier.
- jordanb 2y ago
  > end up with the most track they can run for the least money ITYM "least track?" The railraods are all obsessed with this metric called "capital ratio" which is the revenue intensity of their equipment. Most of corporate america cares about "operating ratio" (how much money do you spend operating your business versus revenue). Railroads are a somewhat uniquely capital-intensive business, since they're the only transportation industry that owns and maintains their own roads. They consequently have come to see their best metric for efficiency is how small their capital asset base is, versus their revenue. This leads to the joke that "the optimal railroad has no track and runs no trains."
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
imaginationra 2y ago
Time travel is real- take a passenger train in the US in 2025 and you travel back in time to 1985- and no one has cleaned it properly since 1995.
6510 2y ago
There are so many parameters that it is impossible to figure out. They should probably load all params into a virtual model and have an AI try out everything. Besides the obvious investments making tickets more expensive a different example would be if you accelerate faster you need more rails maintenance. You can also leave carts behind and pick them up at stops so that people who need it have all the time to get in and out. If you do that (like with many options) it gets marvelously complicated really fast. Even if you try fit an intercity (that doesn't stop everywhere) it will have to be at the right place at the right time to pass the other train(s) You can also not make it fast and make the trip more enjoyable. You can just stop for 30 min or an hour at each station and have stores and museums at the station bring in more revenue than tickets. If I had to guess the most successful trick for the US would be to have people bring their car on the train.
jchmbrln 2y ago
> An even more significant improvement would be electrified trains, which can accelerate roughly twice as fast as those with diesel power... Can someone comment on why this is? My understanding is that the existing diesel trains use diesel generators to power electric motors. My questions are: 1) Does "electrified" mean pulling power from a third rail? 2) Whatever it means, what makes "electrified" twice as fast as diesel-electric?
- seabass-labrax 2y ago
  > Does "electrified" mean pulling power from a third rail? Yes, or more precisely either third rail or using overhead lines (catenaries). Overhead lines have many benefits over third rail so they make up the majority of new electrification projects, but third rail still has a lot of use in suburban railways and metro systems. > Whatever it means, what makes "electrified" twice as fast as diesel-electric? You're completely right about the engineering, it's just that the diesel generators don't have quite as good peak power output compared to a fully electric system. I think that the article is overplaying this particular benefit of electrification though. The trains that I frequently take are bi-mode, and although you can certainly feel the extra 'kick' of acceleration when you enter the electrified parts of the line, it makes little difference to the total journey time compared to the old diesel-electric trains that used to run on the route.
Bjartr 2y ago
They mention it only offhand in one sentence, but my understanding of most of the slowness of the US rail network is that it's mostly passenger trains having to let long freight trains pass that eats tons of time. Nominally, passenger trains have priority and freight trains have to pull into a siding to let them pass, but freight companies made the freight trains longer than the available sidings and so it's the passenger train that gives way in practice most of the time. Doesn't really matter how fast the train is, or how efficiently it's boarded if it spends excessive amounts of time sitting still waiting for freight to pass.
Ericson2314 2y ago
A lot of people seem to be missing that the point of the report is more what we would call "commuter rail", and trying to improve it in the direction of, say, Swiss railways. This is, as a matter of engineering, just very orthogonal to trying to TVG up longer distance Amtrak routes. Everyone wants to talk about the latter, but really should do both!
johnea 2y ago
Those suggestions would really help, and also, why don't we just _build_ high speed rail? This is a shining example of the downsides of the financialization of the US economy: the inability to build almost anything at scale. Really great at owning, not so great at making. If it were possible, I'm sure Andy Grove would be rolling over in his grave and uttering a ghostly "I told you so..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_%22job-centric%22_American_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_...

65 points by petethomas 2y ago

https://archive.md/mFF1a https://archive.md/mFF1a

There is no secret lost knowledge that enabled a steam-powered train to go from New York to Chicago in 16 hours in the 1930s. We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel. The current NYC to Chicago train takes 20 hours and is routinely several hours delayed... all we have to do is invest in infrastructure and rebuild our rail system, but that won't happen unless it's "sexy" and can compete with air travel, and the best way to do that is with HSR. So while our passenger rail system _could_ be a lot faster (without true HSR) if it was run well, I don't think that's going to happen until we get the marketability/"sexiness" of HSR.

JoshTriplett 2y ago
> We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. First-class passenger trains are much more comfortable, roomier, and less expensive, but as long as they're so wildly slower, they have a hard time competing with air travel.
- alwa 2y ago
  I'm not sure they're much less expensive. To pick an arbitrary weeklong Tuesday-to-Tuesday trip in May, between New York and Chicago, the cheapest direct Amtrak fare—in coach, not in first class as you mentioned—is $336 (and 19 hours each way), whereas the same trip on Spirit Air is $96 (and 2 hours 30 minutes each way). The cheapest first class train fare is $1,621 for the round trip, vs $385 for first class airfare.
  - TrainedMonkey 2y ago
    Per hour they will be much cheaper. Part of self-fulfilling prophecy is that per hour price is mostly inelastic, so as trains get slower and take more time the price rises. And higher price means less people take trains...
    - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
      Per hour walking is even cheaper.
    - rimunroe 2y ago
      > Per hour they will be much cheaper. How many people do you think care about the per-hour cost of travel. I feel confident saying that the vast majority of the traveling public wants to spend as little time and money as possible to get to their destinations.
      - Jgrubb 2y ago
        If I’m not mistaken, that’s the joke.
        rimunroe 2y ago
        D’oh! It completely flew over my head. Thanks. I’ve heard people who are really into trains bill rail travel as being worth it purely for the experience, so it sounded plausible that they were arguing it seriously
        fc417fc802 2y ago
        I think it's less a joke than an observation. There's some per hour cost that's approximately fixed, so for a given mode of travel the slower it gets the more expensive it becomes. The lack of investment in rail is a vicious cycle.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > First-class passenger trains are much more comfortable, roomier, and less expensive, but as long as they're so wildly slower, they have a hard time competing with air travel. Maybe, but around a third of all tourism spend in the US is business travel related [0]. You cannot justify spending an overnight train ride from NYC to Chicago when you can reach there within 2 hours by flight. The US is MASSIVE - much larger than most countries, and population centers are extremely spread out once you leave the Northeast. Outside the NE, the math (time wise or financially) doesn't play out well for rail based public transit. You see the same dynamics in China as well - the overwhelming majority of medium-long distance public transit is along the extremely dense coast. Expecting a French style TGV is unrealistic as long as San Francisco to Los Angeles is the same distance as Paris to Berlin - except with almost no major population centers in between, and plenty of massive mountain ranges. Same for the rest of the US outside of the NE. Similar extent with NY to Chicago as well (roughly the same distance as Berlin to St Petersburg) [0] - https://www.statista.com/topics/1832/business-travel/#topicOverview https://www.statista.com/topics/1832/business-travel/#topicO...
  - seabass-labrax 2y ago
    I don't see why it's a problem for a potential rail service for San Francisco and Los Angeles that there are no heavily populated areas between the two cities. There's no reason why you couldn't fill up a train with passengers at the start and travel non-stop to the destination, just as the vast majority of airlines operate. Trains still have all their usual benefits including better passenger comfort and higher energy efficiency, and there is the option to build intermediate stations if the demand increases in the future. I would also question the claim that overnight trains cannot be justified for business travel. If the cost is comparable to a hotel room - which is a big 'if', granted - this allows employees to be better rested and therefore work more effectively during the day.
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      Infrastructure can also drive development in places that it reaches. If you work in SF but fancy living in Hollister, and the train only takes 30 minutes to get there, why not?
- jakelazaroff 2y ago
  China’s new high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai — about the same distance as between New York and Chicago — takes a little less than four and a half hours. That’s about two hours longer than a flight between the two cities. If you include the time spent arriving early, going through security, etc, it probably comes out about even.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    And the region between Beijing to Shanghai is fairly flat and densely populated (Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei), which makes it easier to justify and build out the associated infra, as plenty of other slower lines can also be run concurrently - specifically by connecting Tianjin (one of the most important cities in China) Meanwhile, the only major population centers between NY and Chicago are Pittsburg and Columbus - both of whom combined have a fraction of the population that Jiagnsu or Shandong have. Furthermore, land acquisition is different in a country like the US versus China. Mass expropriation or eminent domain of land is politically untenable in the US, but something that is easier to implement in China as a significant amount of land remains under local municipal ownership instead of private ownership.
    - jakelazaroff 2y ago
      If you pass Columbus, you’d also go through Indianapolis. Or you could go north and pass through Cleveland and Detroit. Anyway, if you only support building infrastructure in regions of the U.S. that are as densely populated as eastern China, you’d basically never build anything.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > If you pass Columbus, you’d also go through Indianapolis. Or you could go north and pass through Cleveland and Detroit. Which 1. Already exists 2. Leads to the same problem as before - the population size just does not justify those investments, nor is there any business demand when a flight will always remain faster. > Anyway, if you only support building infrastructure in regions of the U.S. that are as densely populated as eastern China, you’d basically never build anything I support building infrastructure that solves an actual problem - and public transit connectivity between NY and Chicago isn't one of those. It will remain slower than flight transit (so most business and plenty of personal travel will remain flight based) and car ownership remains high in the US, so for personal travel, the independence of driving would still outcompete rail. Those billions of dollars on such a hypothetical are better spent on plenty of other alternative programs - for example the local transit expansion grants which the Biden admin bundled as part of the IIJA, which helped expand bus and local rail transit instead. Even China has stopped financing these kinds of mega-projects becuase of tightening financial due dilligence, and tries to tie investments with an actual business case [0]. Heck, now prices are roughly the same between a domestic flight and HSR on the major lines in China. [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/china-bullet-trains-ticket-prices.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/china-bullet-tra... ---------- The only network that could even justify a high speed rail is the DC-Philadelphia-NYC-Boston corridor (so an extended Acela Line), but are you also fine with the federal government expropriating land to speed up development OR spending decades democratically building consensus. And even then DCA to JFK or Logan will remain time competitive for business travel
roenxi 2y ago
Without disagreeing, it is a weird one to see described as a marketing problem. The political process is extremely low bandwidth; it is tough to express an opinion on more than one issue with one vote and usually the priority is not transport. Presumably the major reason that HSR isn't being deployed is that it is uneconomic or there is no legal way to do it.
panny 2y ago
>We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel. Trains replace road trips, not air travel. You can travel from New York to Miami for $175 on Amtrak. That's a lot cheaper and much more comfortable than driving 1300 miles. Saying you can do this faster or possibly cheaper on a budget airline is missing the point, because traveling on a budget airline is not enjoyable. There's no scenery. You're packed in like sardines. Best case scenario, every hour you spend in the plane is miserable. Every hour you spend waiting in airport security lines is miserable. Every hour spent waiting on the runway for delays is miserable. Waiting for your baggage only to find it is lost again is miserable. You can't get up to stretch your legs, sit down, the seat belt light is on. On the Amtrak there are dining cars, cafe cars, observation cars. There's five toilets on each car, you never have to wait. There's free wifi. There are no middle seats to be miserable in. You can bring your own beer and drink it on the train. You can't do any of that in car or on an airline. Riding the train is more fun than flying, and a lot less hazardous than driving. If it takes a little longer than flying, that just means more time for fun.
- pseudo0 2y ago
  Except that NY to Miami route you cited takes 28 to 33 hours... You could do that trip in a single long day driving, plus save money if you're a group of 3+ people. And then you'd have a car at your destination, which is pretty mandatory in most parts of the US. It might be decent for a solo traveler, but for the stereotypical family road trip to Florida, the car still wins out.
  - panny 2y ago
    You're not going to drive 18 hours straight. It would be wildly dangerous for you to try as you will fall asleep at the wheel. Even if you tried it, you're going to have to make stops for gas, bathroom, and to eat, which will push the trip beyond one day. Which means you're going to have to get at least one hotel room along the way (more expense and time). And, you're assuming perfect traffic conditions, which doesn't exist, we all know. You can go to the bathroom on the train. You can sleep on the train. You can eat on the train. Which means the 28 hours is the total time and the $175 is total price. Avg gas price is 3.37/gal. (https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price) Avg new car milage is 25 mpg, 52*3.37 is ... $175. Same as the train fare, but that's just the gas. Taking the car is just dangerous and miserable IMO. Train wins.
6510 2y ago
https://darienite.com/great-10-hour-new-york-chicago-railroad-never-cameron-transportation-20577 https://darienite.com/great-10-hour-new-york-chicago-railroa... They do Beijing to Shanghai in 5 hours so you have to make New York to Chicago in 4 or it doesn't count. The numbers are funny. Flying from New York to Chicago takes less than 2 hours but all things considered you lose 8 hours https://www.trippy.com/fly/New-York-City-to-Chicago https://www.trippy.com/fly/New-York-City-to-Chicago You might as well drive it in 12.

jeffbee 2y ago

America's only current, prominent bullet train is CAHSR and the goal of that project is not to speed up passenger rail. The project has nothing whatsoever to do with making existing rail riders happier or incrementally increasing ridership. The avowed purpose of CAHSR is to enable California to grow and prosper without having to build more airports and more freeways. So it's not really worth considering it as a choice between an expensive HSR on the one hand and slightly better Amtrak San Joaquin on the other. Only one of these projects would actually be suited to purpose.

xeromal 2y ago
A private company called brightview (I think) built a small section of highish speed rail in Florida and is now building a line from the outskirts of LA to Vegas. I'm excited for it to open up
- jeffbee 2y ago
  You have stretched "now building" beyond the bounds of reason. But yes, Brightline has an altogether superior press secretary.
  - xeromal 2y ago
    If you tell me when and where, I'll put money down on brightline's completion vs california high speed rail having any functioning sections in the next 10 years I have absolutely zero faith in california high speed rail doing anything within my lifetime while China can build hundreds of miles in a few years.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      It should have followed the 5 and by passed the towns in the Central Valley. The republicans there felt that was a terrible idea and should instead go through where there was much more built out. But stuff would have been built out from the stops, they didn’t need to swing in like that. And so many more landowners as you approach cities and the need to slow down. Such a cluster.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

Or, y'know, just build a bullet train. USA. Biggest economy on earth. Most powerful nation. Third largest nation by population. Could maybe build one bullet train, like the 20 other nations that already have them in service, and the 13 other nations that have them in development. Or just settle for mediocrity. Whatever.

0_____0 2y ago
IMO: The US suffers from the notion of exceptionalism spawned from its position of massive advantage after WWII, as well as a deep seated aversion to mass transit that was borne out of the backlash against desegregation. I'm probably missing many smaller factors, but I'd be interested to know if someone thinks that I've incorrectly identified those two as major factors.
- WillPostForFood 2y ago
  No, American exceptionalism is not a post-WWII idea. It was core to the expansion of the country in the 19th century.
- dabiged 2y ago
  Not from North America. But I disagree that the exceptionalism started post WWII. How do you explain the country's ability to perform civil engineering feats prior to WWII. The Erie Canal, Trans-continental Railway, Panama Canal, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building and Golden Gate Bridge spring to mind as feats of engineering that few other country's (if any) could rival. There are obvious examples post WWII (Manhattan project, Apollo program, Interstate highway system), but for all of the USA's pitfalls, they do have an incredible history of civil engineering projects prior to WWII.
  - yurishimo 2y ago
    The US shifted their focus from domestic to international politics after WWII. They were brought in as arbitrators for world peace, and in a lot of ways, stepped up to the task. Military expansion and spending went through the roof and the Cold War and Vietnam didn't help build public trust in government to do big things at home. Behind the scenes though, politicians could work with other nations to organize the reality that we all live in today in the West. Later, politicians began organising free trade and technology became the next frontier. Why spend hundreds of millions on a bridge when I can send an email instead of a letter? The USA really is a "marvel" in the fact that most of her problems were caused and exacerbated by success and enough competent people in power to keep things moving. It's hard to discuss the United States without mentioning Trump who believes that undermining the past 100 years of Neoliberalism will bring America back to her "glory days" while completely ignoring the reality on the ground that led from where they were then to where America is today. So maybe there will be more public works projects in the future for America, but I fear that they will be more focused on appeasing dear leader instead of meaningfully improving the lives of the average American citizen. But until someone turns on the lights and shuts off the music, America will continue to spiral and cry about "unfairness" while her created reality crumbles due to lack of maintenance and care about the subtle realities on the ground that were once central to her rise in the first place.

pyfon 2y ago

Someone made a good argument on Reddit when discussing Australia which is also has a slowish rail network. It is a 3hr drive Sydney to Canberra and 4hr on train. Mainly because the train track was originally for freight so has more curves than needed for passenger. They said rather than aim for a super fast train just improve the tracks we have and get the time down to 3hr to compete with the car. This is a good point because then you get more revenues and usage (the trains are full right now but infrequent - maybe they can run them every 15 minutes) Then you can go make the case for an even faster train for 2050. The Japanese Shinkansen is something else. Doing my first decent trip on one this week and can't wait!

tokioyoyo 2y ago
>Then you can go make the case for an even faster train for 2050. I'm very sorry, but such timelines are extremely disheartening and sound like a joke. The problem is, factually, other countries can build out HSRs within 5-10 year horizons, from planning to finishing a route. If it takes 2+ generations to even get a single line... I'm not sure what I can say. I understand bureaucracy and problem solving processes work differently in our countries, but incredibly sad to see how a person can't see a significant progress within their own lifetimes. I'm not sure when I became such a defeatist, but it is what it is.
- pyfon 2y ago
  I think once the decision is made 10 yrs is fine. But Australia has a smaller population than most so you'd need to prove decent usage first.
- jpalawaga 2y ago
  that your name is tokio yoyo is sort of funny to me because if you look at shinkansen build/planning timelines, it is absolutely on the order of 2050 for extensions. the japanese have a world-class trainsystem and it's built by putting one foot in front of the other for decades, not expecting it to be built overnight. of course, you can build it faster, but then it is more expensive. so what's the priority? it's easier to fund high speed rail projects in developed nations by long, sustained investment that is easily planned for rather than having to suddenly come up with billions of dollars and then deal with the political fallout of inevitable cost-overruns associated with rushing things.

iambateman 2y ago

I assumed that “just go faster” wasn’t an available option for Amtrak on existing rails but this article strongly suggests that it is.

jeffbee 2y ago
Am I having a stroke or did you post this exact comment yesterday
- seabass-labrax 2y ago
  It's the way Hacker News bumps articles to the top (second-chance pool). Everyone's old comments get a new timestamp! (Actually the timestamp stays the same; it's the 'time ago' which is counted differently. Very counterintuitive.) Stroke diagnosis is fortunately negative :)

rr808 2y ago

This is a better solution. I think a lot of high speed rail enthusiasts think that if we build the passengers will come. Its really unproven, I think American cities are so different to most of the world high speed rail would be unpopular. Very few people want to go from downtown one city to another - most city centers aren't that nice and when you get to your destination you'll need a car anyway.

fnord77 2y ago
20 years ago I backpacked around Europe on a Eurail pass for all of April and part of May. I even paid the supplement for the high speed trains. Most of the time, the trains were all but empty. I think eventually Boston-NYC type routes will be handled by quad-copter type drones that land right in the city center. That type of passenger rail will be obsolete
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  For one, that was 20 years ago. Ridership has increased significantly since through a combination of deliberate EU policy and efforts to remove the barriers that made long distance rail journeys so terrible decades ago. Old experiences riding long distance international trains (likely at non-peak hours), outside peak tourist season aren't necessarily representative of the modern experience.
- otabdeveloper4 2y ago
  Passenger rail competes with highways, not airplanes.
  - youngtaff 2y ago
    Not entirely true… Eurostar killed London to Brussels and London to Paris flight numbers
    - otabdeveloper4 2y ago
      Doesn't invalidate what I said.

Lammy 2y ago

> The Momentum framework calls on Amtrak and commuter rail agencies to […] shift their focus from increasing the geographic coverage and capacity of their rail services > When making changes to rail infrastructure or services, state and local railroad agencies often must negotiate with the freight railroad companies that own most of America’s track network. These companies [are] reluctant to allow more frequent passenger service that could reduce the amount of time their freight trains have access to track. This article completely fails to mention the actual cause of our modern situation. Before focusing on increasing geographical coverage we would first need to focus on not decreasing geographic coverage. Check out the Abandoned & Out-of-Service Rail map of North America and you can see the result of massive corporate consolidation where newly-combined railroads abandon parts of each constituent company's former network to end up with the most track they can run for the least money. There is zero redundancy left: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4Zor-QawkoJmmMK&femb=1&ll=25.413577918794967%2C-45.05929601607611&z=2 https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4...

tvb12 2y ago
Dang, there's a track on there, within a bike ride from me, that goes all the way to the biggest city in my state and passes within a few hundred feet of the university I attended. That could have made things easier.
jordanb 2y ago
> end up with the most track they can run for the least money ITYM "least track?" The railraods are all obsessed with this metric called "capital ratio" which is the revenue intensity of their equipment. Most of corporate america cares about "operating ratio" (how much money do you spend operating your business versus revenue). Railroads are a somewhat uniquely capital-intensive business, since they're the only transportation industry that owns and maintains their own roads. They consequently have come to see their best metric for efficiency is how small their capital asset base is, versus their revenue. This leads to the joke that "the optimal railroad has no track and runs no trains."
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

imaginationra 2y ago

Time travel is real- take a passenger train in the US in 2025 and you travel back in time to 1985- and no one has cleaned it properly since 1995.

6510 2y ago

There are so many parameters that it is impossible to figure out. They should probably load all params into a virtual model and have an AI try out everything. Besides the obvious investments making tickets more expensive a different example would be if you accelerate faster you need more rails maintenance. You can also leave carts behind and pick them up at stops so that people who need it have all the time to get in and out. If you do that (like with many options) it gets marvelously complicated really fast. Even if you try fit an intercity (that doesn't stop everywhere) it will have to be at the right place at the right time to pass the other train(s) You can also not make it fast and make the trip more enjoyable. You can just stop for 30 min or an hour at each station and have stores and museums at the station bring in more revenue than tickets. If I had to guess the most successful trick for the US would be to have people bring their car on the train.

jchmbrln 2y ago

> An even more significant improvement would be electrified trains, which can accelerate roughly twice as fast as those with diesel power... Can someone comment on why this is? My understanding is that the existing diesel trains use diesel generators to power electric motors. My questions are: 1) Does "electrified" mean pulling power from a third rail? 2) Whatever it means, what makes "electrified" twice as fast as diesel-electric?

seabass-labrax 2y ago
> Does "electrified" mean pulling power from a third rail? Yes, or more precisely either third rail or using overhead lines (catenaries). Overhead lines have many benefits over third rail so they make up the majority of new electrification projects, but third rail still has a lot of use in suburban railways and metro systems. > Whatever it means, what makes "electrified" twice as fast as diesel-electric? You're completely right about the engineering, it's just that the diesel generators don't have quite as good peak power output compared to a fully electric system. I think that the article is overplaying this particular benefit of electrification though. The trains that I frequently take are bi-mode, and although you can certainly feel the extra 'kick' of acceleration when you enter the electrified parts of the line, it makes little difference to the total journey time compared to the old diesel-electric trains that used to run on the route.

Bjartr 2y ago

They mention it only offhand in one sentence, but my understanding of most of the slowness of the US rail network is that it's mostly passenger trains having to let long freight trains pass that eats tons of time. Nominally, passenger trains have priority and freight trains have to pull into a siding to let them pass, but freight companies made the freight trains longer than the available sidings and so it's the passenger train that gives way in practice most of the time. Doesn't really matter how fast the train is, or how efficiently it's boarded if it spends excessive amounts of time sitting still waiting for freight to pass.

Ericson2314 2y ago

A lot of people seem to be missing that the point of the report is more what we would call "commuter rail", and trying to improve it in the direction of, say, Swiss railways. This is, as a matter of engineering, just very orthogonal to trying to TVG up longer distance Amtrak routes. Everyone wants to talk about the latter, but really should do both!

johnea 2y ago

Those suggestions would really help, and also, why don't we just _build_ high speed rail? This is a shining example of the downsides of the financialization of the US economy: the inability to build almost anything at scale. Really great at owning, not so great at making. If it were possible, I'm sure Andy Grove would be rolling over in his grave and uttering a ghostly "I told you so..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_%22job-centric%22_American_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove#Preference_for_a_...