Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Zak | Hacker News Reader

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I feel compelled to point out that high-speed passenger rail isn't likely to be anywhere near as successful in the US as in Europe even if heavily subsidized.

One problem is population density. The US is geographically twice the size of the EU, but has three fifths the population. Germany is the size of Montana, but has 90 million people. Typical travel distances are short, and the number of travelers on any given day is high. Fixed costs would be proportionally higher for a US service as a result.

Local transport upon arrival is a big issue. Most European cities have public transportation systems that are effective enough for large portions of the population to not own cars. This is only true in a very small number of US cities (probably fewer than 5). For many people, any cost savings from taking a train instead of driving would be offset by the cost and inconvenience of securing transportation at the destination.

A final issue is that very long distance train travel still takes a long time compared to air travel. Using a generous estimate of a 100mph average (remember, the trains have to make stops), a high-speed train would take 20 hours to get from LA to Chicago. I think few people would opt for that over a 3 hour flight even given a significant difference in price.

The parts of the country where the high speed rail lines are planned are that dense. Take the I-5 corridor (Vancouver B. C. to Eugene, Oregon), in both Washington and Oregon something like 80% of the state's population lives within 30 miles of I-5. It's absolutely reasonable to run a real high speed rail link there, Amtrak on those lines gets used pretty heavily, if there were a link that ran on time and took 3 hours to go from Seattle to Eugene it would be used heavily.

Rather than pointing out where it won't work, how about finding places where it will work. The northeast, for example, is densely populated and the major cities are close. The real problem is building straight tracks so trains can go 200mph.

NYC to Philly - 95 miles

NYC to Washington DC - 225 miles

NYC to Boston - 220 miles

Washington to Bostin - 420 miles

Exactly. We have airplanes for cross country travel. The train technology that exists in other countries could make even Boston to Toronto doable.

People need to slow their fucking lives down. cross country travel by rail is much more enjoyable than flying, even if it takes 2-3 days. Give me wifi and a sleeper, and leave flying for those who haven't figured this out yet.

cross country travel by rail is much more enjoyable than flying, even if it takes 2-3 days.

Not in my experience. I took Amtrak from Atlanta to DC in 2008, and it was basically a 13 hour flight -- same kinds of seats, only marginally more space, and the food service amounted to paying exorbitant prices for awful sandwiches that could have been vended from an office machine. I would prefer to spend 10 hours in an airport and 3 hours in flight, given the chance; airports are at least quite comfortable, in general.

Rail seems like it would be a win for someone who was mobility impaired (wheelchair, old, morbidly obese, etc.). The only other viable option would be a specially outfitted car or bus.

The times I've taken Amtrak (mainly for amusement value; Seattle-SFO and SFO-DEN), it was mainly old people (many of diminished mobility), some religious groups (mormons? menonites?), and foreign tourists. And mostly empty seats.

While I agree with the sentiment, slowing down that much isn't practical for most working adults in this country, many of whom are lucky to get a week of vacation per year. Four to six days of travel per vacation instead of two won't work for Americans unless labor laws change to protect our right to sufficient time off.

I don't see how sleeper cars are even close to being a feasible option for those who don't have money to burn. From my experience in the past the cost of a decent sleeper car was equal to a plane ticket plus an expensive hotel for every night in the sleeper. For example, checking Amtrak right now I price a trip from Boston to Seattle at $1300+ with the cheapest sleeper for every night.

There's no reason for a sleeper ticket to be expensive. In Europe, Asia and Africa, night trains are certainly affordable. Cheaper than buses in many cases.

Amtrak is expensive because it's expensive. It bills its sleeper service as a luxury thing, and charges luxury prices. There's nothing to say that it has to, or that anybody who decides to compete with them has to.

There are fairly low cost overnight accommodation on trains in Europe, but it tends to be couchettes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Couchette_car

proper sleeping cars where you have your own private small room are a lot more expensive.

Not everyone can sleep on a moving train in a small bed.

Yes, the DC-Boston corridor is the one place where high-speed rail does make sense, and also the one place where there aren't any current plans for high-speed rail lines.

I'm guessing it's a land availability problem: the existing tracks aren't straight enough, and building new tracks through these densely populated areas would destroy tens of thousands of homes. What we really need to do is travel back in time to 1920 and set aside some nice dead-straight sections of land for future rail works. Or perhaps we need to wait another hundred years and hope that building a 300-mile tunnel becomes affordable.

You're right that LA to Chicago is likely to never be a popular route for train travel.

There's two big problems with air travel in the U.S. that trains could exploit.

First, most cities don't have direct connections to their neighbors. Connecting in hub airports takes considerable time and adds the possibility of additional delays. (i.e. I've got to worry about a snowstorm in Chicago if I want to travel from Des Moines to Indianapolis.)

Second, check-in, ticketing, boarding, and baggage claim are a huge pain and add an hour or two to every flight.

Trains could directly connect any number of large, close-together cities that are not currently airline hubs and provide very competitive travel times.

Kansas City to St. Louis is only ~250 miles. That's 2-3 hours on a fast train. Including check-in and baggage claim, it takes 5 - 7 hours to fly between the two cities (connecting in Chicago.) St. Louis to Cleveland is about 550 miles. That's 5 - 7 hours on a fast train. On a plane that same trip would take 4 - 6 hours including check-in and baggage claim (connecting in Chicago again.)

Local transport isn't any more of an issue than it is with air travel. If there's not sufficient public transportation, taxis and car rental companies will pop up to fill the void.

Even if it were an issue, people in this country are getting increasingly fed up with air travel, and they may be willing to make some trade-offs to travel in a more humane manner.

If you consider high speed rail as a replacement for air travel, local transport is actually a smaller issue than with air travel. Airports are usually far away from city centers, whereas train stations are located in city centers, where there is a higher probability of an established local transport system.

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