4 ms·

We're not nearly cheap enough: The plane ticket price doesn't capture the cost of flying, the majority of which comes from the greenhouse gas emissions. Further

by zurn 13y ago

We're not nearly cheap enough: The plane ticket price doesn't capture the cost of flying, the majority of which comes from the greenhouse gas emissions. Further working in the wrong direction is the tax freeness of jet fuel and the 2-3x amplified effect of co2 when injected directly to the upper atmosphere.

zanny 13y ago
I have to think the only reason trains pretty much died as an industry in the last hundred years is due to government fiddling or poor infrastructure maintenance. In a trifecta of balancing cost to time to carrying weight, trains should almost always win, with cars never winning in any of them and planes winning only at time investment. Yet we all drive cars (which win in being personal transport where free wheels in 2d on tarmac is much more portable than steel wheels on tracks in 1d) even though they should cost significantly more, take longer (if we had even a reasonable bullet train at 150 - 160 mph, not even close to the 260mph Japanese / Korean lines) and carry less (especially compared against fuel consumption or just the raw bearing weight of car frames and rubber tires against rail cars). An amtrack ticket from NY to Austin is $800 round way, and 50 hours each way. I can rent a car for $100 a day, and do that drive in 40 hours. So I save time, it costs the same when you factor in gas, and the only benefit is I can read a book on the train. Which is a nice plus, but not double the price worth.
- yew 13y ago
  Trains didn't die as an industry. Actually the US has an exceedingly good (privately-owned) freight rail system, compared to the rest of the world (assuming you're talking about the US from the Amtrak reference). What did happen is that Amtrak was displaced by said freight rail system. It doesn't really own any rail - everything is under contract, with freight getting first priority contractually. Though it also has other issues.
  - jmilkbal 13y ago
    From my understanding and someone editing Wikipedia, Amtrak has priority by law [1], thought the Amtrak page mentions a time window which the trains must hit to receive priority [2] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackage_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackage_rights 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Trains_and_tracks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Trains_and_tracks
    - yew 13y ago
      Not at my primary computer at the moment, so can't check this. That's not the case as far as I'm aware - but I'm not an Amtrak expert. A citation (the Wikipedia article doesn't provide one) would be nice. [EDIT] Looking around, it seems that Amtrak does have preference under certain circumstances. Until around 2008-2009 the rules for enforcing that were very lax and the common case was that freight was given priority. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04hallock.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04hallock.html and http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500395_162-2522531.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500395_162-2522531.html for example. Some legal changes (including the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008) improved conditions, mostly by setting standard rules for allocating usage - but the language of the regulations is still very flexible. There are also some issues around the difficulty of one train passing another on single-tracked rail with limited sidings.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    Moving freight by train is also a lot more efficient than moving people by train. Freight doesn't need room to walk around, doesn't need to eat, doesn't need to sleep, doesn't need bathrooms.
    - yew 13y ago
      I agree. I'm quite happy with the current freight rail system, though I'd enjoy more passenger rail for mostly aesthetic reasons. I don't think that's a good reason to be too disruptive towards the freight industry.
    - venus 13y ago
      The tohoku shinkansen in Japan can have trainsets with up to 1600 people in one 16-car train, and can slam them down the line at 250+kph, one every 3 or 4 minutes. A couple of E5s could do 1400 people at 320. If that isn't efficient then I'd love to know what is!
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        Japan is a very compact country. Lovely for anyone in the DC-Boston corridor, doesn't scale to most of the states however. Consider how there isn't much of anything between San Francisco and LA. Love the Shinkansen though. My preferred method of travel within Japan.
        venus 13y ago
        The "compact" excuse is a cop-out, IMO. LA and SF are two massive cities well within high speed train range. Of course there's nothing in between them - there's no transport! You're thinking backwards. Put a station 150km outside of SF with a 30 minute commute and do you think there'll still be nothing there in 5 years? My point is that these lines would be considered viable in Japan - more than viable; completely obvious. The fact we can't seem to build them - can't even take the idea seriously - is more about the nature of our society than anything to do with geography.
        13y ago
  - newbie12 13y ago
    Amtrak is actually a creature of the federal government that does own the northeast corridor rail lines. There's no reason Amtrak can't run bullet trains on the NE corridor except that they lack the capital needed for the track upgrades, and likely are incapable of executing on the project.
- natrius 13y ago
  The market for train travel from New York to Austin is pretty much non-existent because it just doesn't make any sense unless you can't fly for some reason. Even with high speed trains, it'd be a ridiculous choice. With demand so inelastic, you get exorbitant prices and no reason to invest in improvements. Neither are Amtrak's or Congress's fault.

by zurn 13y ago

zanny 13y ago

I have to think the only reason trains pretty much died as an industry in the last hundred years is due to government fiddling or poor infrastructure maintenance. In a trifecta of balancing cost to time to carrying weight, trains should almost always win, with cars never winning in any of them and planes winning only at time investment. Yet we all drive cars (which win in being personal transport where free wheels in 2d on tarmac is much more portable than steel wheels on tracks in 1d) even though they should cost significantly more, take longer (if we had even a reasonable bullet train at 150 - 160 mph, not even close to the 260mph Japanese / Korean lines) and carry less (especially compared against fuel consumption or just the raw bearing weight of car frames and rubber tires against rail cars). An amtrack ticket from NY to Austin is $800 round way, and 50 hours each way. I can rent a car for $100 a day, and do that drive in 40 hours. So I save time, it costs the same when you factor in gas, and the only benefit is I can read a book on the train. Which is a nice plus, but not double the price worth.

yew 13y ago
Trains didn't die as an industry. Actually the US has an exceedingly good (privately-owned) freight rail system, compared to the rest of the world (assuming you're talking about the US from the Amtrak reference). What did happen is that Amtrak was displaced by said freight rail system. It doesn't really own any rail - everything is under contract, with freight getting first priority contractually. Though it also has other issues.
- jmilkbal 13y ago
  From my understanding and someone editing Wikipedia, Amtrak has priority by law [1], thought the Amtrak page mentions a time window which the trains must hit to receive priority [2] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackage_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackage_rights 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Trains_and_tracks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Trains_and_tracks
  - yew 13y ago
    Not at my primary computer at the moment, so can't check this. That's not the case as far as I'm aware - but I'm not an Amtrak expert. A citation (the Wikipedia article doesn't provide one) would be nice. [EDIT] Looking around, it seems that Amtrak does have preference under certain circumstances. Until around 2008-2009 the rules for enforcing that were very lax and the common case was that freight was given priority. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04hallock.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04hallock.html and http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500395_162-2522531.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500395_162-2522531.html for example. Some legal changes (including the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008) improved conditions, mostly by setting standard rules for allocating usage - but the language of the regulations is still very flexible. There are also some issues around the difficulty of one train passing another on single-tracked rail with limited sidings.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Moving freight by train is also a lot more efficient than moving people by train. Freight doesn't need room to walk around, doesn't need to eat, doesn't need to sleep, doesn't need bathrooms.
  - yew 13y ago
    I agree. I'm quite happy with the current freight rail system, though I'd enjoy more passenger rail for mostly aesthetic reasons. I don't think that's a good reason to be too disruptive towards the freight industry.
  - venus 13y ago
    The tohoku shinkansen in Japan can have trainsets with up to 1600 people in one 16-car train, and can slam them down the line at 250+kph, one every 3 or 4 minutes. A couple of E5s could do 1400 people at 320. If that isn't efficient then I'd love to know what is!
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Japan is a very compact country. Lovely for anyone in the DC-Boston corridor, doesn't scale to most of the states however. Consider how there isn't much of anything between San Francisco and LA. Love the Shinkansen though. My preferred method of travel within Japan.
      - venus 13y ago
        The "compact" excuse is a cop-out, IMO. LA and SF are two massive cities well within high speed train range. Of course there's nothing in between them - there's no transport! You're thinking backwards. Put a station 150km outside of SF with a 30 minute commute and do you think there'll still be nothing there in 5 years? My point is that these lines would be considered viable in Japan - more than viable; completely obvious. The fact we can't seem to build them - can't even take the idea seriously - is more about the nature of our society than anything to do with geography.
        13y ago
- newbie12 13y ago
  Amtrak is actually a creature of the federal government that does own the northeast corridor rail lines. There's no reason Amtrak can't run bullet trains on the NE corridor except that they lack the capital needed for the track upgrades, and likely are incapable of executing on the project.
natrius 13y ago
The market for train travel from New York to Austin is pretty much non-existent because it just doesn't make any sense unless you can't fly for some reason. Even with high speed trains, it'd be a ridiculous choice. With demand so inelastic, you get exorbitant prices and no reason to invest in improvements. Neither are Amtrak's or Congress's fault.