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Well, fast trains or no new trains. It is still technically possible to get on BART in San Francisco and get off from a train in Los Angeles. You wouldn't choos
by jfb 13y ago
Well, fast trains or no new trains. It is still technically possible to get on BART in San Francisco and get off from a train in Los Angeles. You wouldn't choose to do this -- nobody would choose to do this [1] -- but it is possible.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14Train-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14Train-t.html?pa...
- mcintyre1994 13y agoI see, fair enough, cheers for pointing that out. I'm in the UK and we're pretty well connected by rail, I wasn't expecting the alternative to be that ridiculous, just normal slower trains.
- jfb 13y agoRail in California is sadly a total joke.
- joshAg 13y agoIn the US, rail is optimized for freight, not people.
- jfb 13y agoInasmuch as it's optimized at all.
- syncsynchalt 13y agoWe really do have arguably the best freight rail system in the world. http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/ http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago"America's freight railways are... universally recognised in the industry as the best in the world": http://www.economist.com/node/16636101 http://www.economist.com/node/16636101
- robryan 13y agoAustralia is the same, here passenger rail between major cities is mostly something old person take as a scenic route. Often it is actually more expensive than flying.
- jarek 13y agoA logical outcome of the combination of private companies owning the railways and the government's willingness to build a lot of road capacity for passenger use.
- krrrh 13y agoI don't know why the parent got downcoted. US rail freight is the envy of the world. You didn't get the European passenger rail experience without some trade offs. Here's a briefing on the subject from the Economist. http://www.economist.com/node/16636101 http://www.economist.com/node/16636101
- hef19898 13y agoConsidering that most rivers go from the north to the south and the big distances (compared to, say, Japan or Europe), that's logic. Also explains the role of air travel.
- gojomo 13y agoDensity is destiny. Population densities: 407/km² England 256/km² UK 93/km² California 32/km² USA
- lessnonymous 13y ago2.8/km² Australia And here you can travel from most parts of Melbourne to most parts of Sydney with just two train changes. One at a Melbourne hub to the interstate trains and one at Sydney to the local system. Even so, we feel our train systems suck too.
- robryan 13y agoYes, our high speed rail process is currently on a ridiculous timescale, something like 50 years out. If something isn't slated for major construction works within a single term of government you can pretty much assume it will never happen in its current form.
- TheCraiggers 13y agoThat figure is meaningless considering Australia is a large piece of largely uninhabited land, with two or three metropolitan areas on the coasts. Unless you can take a train into the center of Australia, in which case I apologize.
- jellicle 13y agoBut this comparison is wrong and meaningless. Certainly no one would build a high-speed, dense train network across, say, Nevada. But building one across the coastal part of California? Or across the NE United States? Why yes, that does make sense, and why yes, it is warranted by the densities in those areas. The fact that the U.S. also owns Alaska doesn't really matter. No one is arguing Alaska needs a high-speed rail network. Build fast trains connecting all the red areas: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/California_population_map.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Californi... Repeat for suitable other areas across the U.S.
- zimpenfish 13y agoWhilst our train service in the UK is a mess (and it really is), I suppose at least we have a mess that we can moan about rather than "buy a car, hippy".
- jaredsohn 13y agoI've actually done this, but in the reverse direction and because I missed my flight (asked hotel in Burbank to take me to the airport and they brought me to the Burbank airport instead of LAX.) Since it was a redeye, I just slept most of the long trip.