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> We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel.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. F

> We simply do not care to run fast passenger trains anymore since they have largely been replaced by domestic air travel.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]
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  Train fares are just smoking crack and it’s so frustrating, because I want to take trains. I love everything about it but the price.
- jpalawaga 2y ago
  plus an hour on the train, or a hundred bucks in a taxi on the new york side, and likewise on the chicago side, plus security screening. and luggage is free too, I think? so mostly just faster.
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

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]
Mistletoe 2y ago
Train fares are just smoking crack and it’s so frustrating, because I want to take trains. I love everything about it but the price.
jpalawaga 2y ago
plus an hour on the train, or a hundred bucks in a taxi on the new york side, and likewise on the chicago side, plus security screening. and luggage is free too, I think? so mostly just faster.

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