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Comment by jimmybobbyjones | Hacker News Reader

> The cost of the line can't be justified unless it provides a viable alternative to flying between SF and LA,

I have no trouble imagining that the train can compete with flying between SF and LA. Even if the train has to stop in several backwater towns along the way.

The shuttle flights between SFO/SJC and LAX are completely unreliable. When I was doing the SF-LA haul regularly, I'd be delayed (delayed!) by 6+ hours at least once per month. That's longer than it takes to drive. Do you really think the high speed train will take that long to travel between LA and the Bay Area?

So what if the minimum time of the train is a little longer than a flight? The expected time enroute is still much less.

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"I have no trouble imagining that the train can compete with flying between SF and LA. Even if the train has to stop in several backwater towns along the way."

Especially if the train stops in "several backwater towns" (Fresno and Bakersfield ain't particularly glamorous, but I'd hardly call them "backwaters"; I digress...), this will automatically be more useful than just an ordinary flight between SFO and LAX for that reason alone.

In addition, the time required to travel from each airport to where you actually want to be can be much less, since train stations can be built much closer to major metropolitan areas. Plus, weather is far less of a problem; when the planes at SFO are grounded due to fog, the trains will still run on time.

For me, the line is effectively useless without Phase 2 (since that connects to Sacramento). With Phase 2 added, you'd have a high-speed connection to all four of California's major cities, significantly improving the already-pretty-great utility of the line.

That ignores the fact that there are already 6 airports in Southern California and 3 (5 if you include Central Valley airports) in Northern California. Do you really think getting to Disneyland or Pasadena will be faster if you take a train to downtown LA than if you flew to SNA or BUR or ONT?

And that ignores the fact that not all of those airports are going to have the same airline coverage as the major ones (namely: SFO and LAX) - and even if they do, certainly not with a significant selection of flights, and certainly not at readily-affordable rates. To the average traveler, they might as well not exist; even Amtrak or Greyhound are more viable.

Also, again: weather is still a major factor for any airport.

Absolutely false - for NorCal-SoCal trips, all of the aforementioned airports have plentiful flights at similar cost to SFO and LAX. And weather primarily affects SFO - OAK and SJC rarely have the same problems as SFO.

"The shuttle flights between SFO/SJC and LAX are completely unreliable. When I was doing the SF-LA haul regularly, I'd be delayed (delayed!) by 6+ hours at least once per month."

I'm curious how that happened to you - I used to fly SFO-LAX from time to time, and was surprised that they didn't even really worry about me missing my flight - they just told me to catch the next one in line. United runs 27 flights daily from SFO to LAX, and presumably have some extra planes they can inject into the system if needed... (SFO is a United Hub)

If it rains at SFO or there is fog they have to close 2 of the 4 runways and now you got massive delays. I've had a flight delayed from 8pm to 1:30am last year. Having lots of flights going the same way doesn't help, if the flights cannot take off.

And what do you do if there's a suicide (unfortunately) on the HSR? The Caltrain that runs down the Peninsula from SF to SJ has a pretty high suicide rate; high enough, that there are people posted to look for potential suiciders.

Part of the cost is improving the peninsula rail corridor for full grade separation, along with the suicide prevention improvements Caltrain is already performing on the corridor. When it's built, there should be a lot fewer places for suicide and a lot tighter control.

>United runs 27 flights daily from SFO to LAX

That's just United. Southwest (and I'm pretty sure Jetblue and Virgin) has numerous flights to all airports in the greater LA area: https://www.southwest.com/thmpg/flights-from-SFO-to-LAX.html

> I'm curious how that happened to you

Mostly a combination of needing to travel at particular times to particular airports.

The last two flights from SJC to LAX each evening seemed to be the most often delayed. You can't exactly hop on the next flight if it doesn't leave until the following morning.

Morning flights to SFO are often delayed due to weather, and fighting peninsula traffic to get to work sucks. BUR-SJC on Southwest would have been optimal from a flying perspective, but LAX was a shorter drive.

That assumption is: plane with current on-time arrival percentage vs train with mythical 100% on-time arrival.

There are a whole host of additional problems that affect rail travel that you never have to think about with air-travel.

Currently, Amtrak OTA is 80% - so that means 1/5 of your trips will experience a delay of some sort.

Amtrak doesn't own the right of way for most of their routes.

Where right-of-way is shared with freight, freight has priority.

That seems rather backwards. Passengers are the more time-sensitive cargo than freight.

Presumption would be it's much harder to stop/start a freight train vs. a passenger train.

Not to the freight line companies owning the networks (Apparently there is a law saying that Amtrack has priority, but enforcing it has as of now just lead to years of lawsuits, without useful results)

Agreed. Except that it's the freight railways that generally own the trackage in most (all?) places where it's shared with Amtrak. And the freight railways generate significantly more revenue from that trackage (about $75B annually vs $3B).

There's also the small detail that it's the freight companies that actually own the tracks in most cases so they make the rules.

Sure, but the freight companies own the track, so they prioritize their own trains.

Not if you look at the money tied up in the cargo, vs the fares refunded.

This is the problem with the stupid American capitalist system. You have these sorts of problems.

If it were all controlled by the Government, like it is in other countries, nobody would need to have 'priority'. You just schedule the trains properly.

Sounds great Benito.

This is presumably a reference to the famous Mussolini claim about having made the trains run on time[0].

[0] http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.asp

How silly you are, to expect government to be responsible for coordinating things. The only reasonable purpose for government is to hand out candy to friends, relatives, and people who can keep you in government.

This is patently false - Amtrak has the right of way by law.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308

"intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation"

What qualifies as commuter rail? I think most of Amtrak's cross-country tracks would probably not be considered intercity or commuter lines.

Amtrak is the contracted operator for a number of commuter rail services, such as MARC. Not sure if that counts as "by or for Amtrak".

The real issue is that often operationally, a passenger train has to stop for a freight train. If you have a 1000' siding that you have to have a 6 car passenger train pass a 30 car freight train at, the passenger train is going to have to stop for the freight train. That doesn't even take into consideration other factors like how freight dispatchers don't like to stop hazmat/"hot" trains for safety reasons.

According to this, the law is not enforced: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Amtrak-has-priority-ov...

You clearly have never taken Amtrak over distances. I have taken Amtrak numerous times Emeryville - Denver.

The reality is:

1. if the siding is only 1km long - the Amtrak train is taking the siding as the freight train will not fit on it.

2. if the dispatcher decides the freight train goes ahead of Amtrak -- there is no lawyer around to argue the point.

3. if there is a long section of single tracking, with freight backed up the opposite direction, the dispatcher allows the all the same direction freights to move. ( 2+ hour delays when that happens )

4. If there is enough of a delay and a freight train crew in front goes outlaw - then that train stops until a replacement crew is brought in... which usually results in the Amtrak crew going outlaw as well.

It has gotten a lot, lot better and the scenery is beautiful - but please don't kid yourself about the realities on the ground. Amtrak has to stay in the good graces of the railroad companies especially with a hostile congress.

I assumed that the Northeast Corridor (which I believe is the only place where Amtrak actually makes any money) would be much different from other routes but that actually isn't the case. Acela is better than the long distance routes but not by a huge amount.

Of course OTA % doesn't account for the size of the miss and I've heard plenty of stories of long distance trains sitting for hours while multi-mile long freights go by.

Some trains in the northeast corridor also get bounced by local commuter trains that have priority on the tracks.

Several times I've been on the Downeaster headed to Boston and gotten shunted onto sidings, to the point that we got an hour behind schedule.

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