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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

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