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Comment by bluGill | Hacker News Reader

What is wrong with airplanes?

High speed rail makes sense on the coasts. Making a train from New York City to Boston is a good idea (guess what, we have one, and it is the only Amtrak route that is profitable). However a high speed train from New York to LA would be a trip far too long for people to willingly take.

The point is don't try to make a solution fit all needs. Rail in the US is the best in the world in large part because it doesn't deal with humans. This allows efficiency that you can't get when dealing with people. (people don't like sitting in a siding for an hour waiting for an oncoming trail so you have to build more track...)

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Frankly, airplanes suck. You spend endless time in security lines, get packed in like sardines during the flight, and have stringent restrictions on what kind of luggage you can take, how large it is, and how heavy.

Why do people assume HSR will not have TSA lines? All it will take is one credible threat. Indeed, given the inevitability of a threat emerging, it seems obvious that a TSA line will be part of the model from day one.

People will probably end up "packed like sardines" on HSR as well, as HSR will inevitably have to be made to be economical.

The economics are different for trains, though. The economic benefits of shrinking seat sizes are far smaller. And no, the TSA line is not inevitable.

Other countries that deal with terrorism operate train systems without people groping your privates. Yet another problem with airplanes is a tiny bomb can cause explosive decompression. That's not a worry with trains - you're not going to kill 300 people with a bomb you can hide in your underwear.

Explosive decompression is a myth. Been debunked many times, including a commercial flight that landed after a large part of the top came off (I think some people blew out - but this is a failure that isn't unique to planes so I won't count it).

We have the TSA because people are afraid, and we don't travel by plane enough to care.

> Why do people assume HSR will not have TSA lines?

Because in places where HSR does currently exist, there are no significant security lines.

Trains have fundamental safety advantages compared to planes, so the payoff of an attack is less.

Airplanes are an extremely energy inefficient means of transportation. Lots of carbon emissions. It doesn't strike me as the transportation of the future.

Actually they do surprisingly well. They are better than all but the most efficient cars (other than maybe Tesla you cannot buy them in the US) for getting a single person across the country. Any since people are time sensitive most peopl are willing to pay the price.

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