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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

One thing my late father wanted to do was start his own rail line, one without the track. When Oldsmobile closed there were suddenly a lot of executives in Lansing having to make the commute every day to downtown Detroit. My Dad located some combination train engine passenger integrated car units that had been in storage since the late sixties. He simply wanted to rent the track.

Even at a pokey 50-55 mph he could get to downtown Detroit 30-45 minutes faster than driving because of traffic congestion. He demonstrated that the demand was there. But sadly the railroads wouldn't even take a meeting.

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I've always wished for a network of rail flatbed cars that make high-speed runs from state to state.

You could drive onto one of the flatbeds (from a ramp) in your car, then ride the train from center-of-a-state to center-of-the-next-state. After a brief layover (for cars to get off and new ones to get on) the train would depart for the next state.

It just seems like a decent way to enable medium-speed, long-distance travel. And wherver you went, you'd have your car when you arrived.

Are you familiar with the auto train? https://m.amtrak.com/h5/r/www.amtrak.com/auto-train

I hadn't seen that. Thanks!

To add to the other comment, the Eurotunnel Shuttle does this but for the Channel Tunnel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurotunnel_Shuttle

Flatbeds would be a bit risky, you can see in both this case and Amtrak's case they are enclosed cars. Apparently the Shuttle is one of the most comfortable rides in the world - as there are three layers of suspension (train carriage, carriage-vehicle mounting, and vehicle suspension) between you and the rails beneath.

Was pretty smooth when I took it last, but driving onto a train platform was unexpectedly unnerving.

There are some small trains in Switzerland that are like this, they are for those places where there are no roads or they are closed for the winter. The train takes on a bunch of cars, leaves and drops them off a half hour later. Super convenient and sometimes even free, and easily the best part of traveling to that particular destination.

https://www.myswissalps.com/car/cartrains

Best part of car trains in Switzerland is freeing the mountain passes from cars. Still a lot of cars and motorbikes enjoying hairpin turns and landscapes (Good for them!) but still way less traffic than otherwise.

In Europe, some of the nightjet lines take cars as well.

I think this is a great solution. If the travelling takes too long, just do it overnight. So travel times from 9pm to 9am are actually quite convenient.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightjet

I rode on a similar service in Switzerland, where it's the only way to get a car across a mountain pass in a couple places. As one would expect from the Swiss it's a model of efficient operation, but even in that context it only seems like it really makes sense when there's a reason, like a giant mountain in the way.

I love the way your dad's mind worked. Sounds like a great guy to be raised by.

He was really a mobility guy, ahead of his time that way. He loved to collect antique autos from the teens and twenties. He got started early too in the forties when they were available quite reasonably.

But he was passionate too about the Detroit streetcar and made certain I rode them as a wee lad the last week before they were removed.

Sadly in Michigan the politicians keep announcing transit plans - Howell to Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor to Detroit but nothing ever happens. Somehow I think it will take an entrepreneur if it ever happens.

Do trains cause traffic congestion? Like if there were 10 more trains passing through downtown Detroit per day, would it add minutes to the commute of cars due to train track crossings having to stop traffic more?

I'm unsure about the Detriot specific case (it might have an unusual number of road crossings on very high traffic streets) but I'd suspect it would reduce congestion by taking cars off the road. Most commuter trains have this effect.

They're not necessarily taking cars off the SAME roads though (think arterial highways vs surface streets).

There's also Braess' Paradox to be aware of, which means that reducing congestion can actually INCREASE congestion. https://brilliant.org/wiki/braess-paradox/

I think you misunderstand Brasess' Paradox. It is when adding to a system decreases the efficiency of the system by adjusting the Nash equilibrium to be further from the optimal system wide solution. "Reducing congestion increases congestion" is a not a logical statement.

My comment left the possibility of Brasess' Paradox open in the specific Detroit case, but practically speaking commuter trains are used by most major cities worldwide as part of a comprehensive transportation system. For many cities rail is among the most efficient subsystems of their transportation system.

This is a significant reason why subways exist even though tunneling is significantly more expensive than just clearing and laying rail tracks.

Same-level railways crossings are increasingly rare in Netherland. It's safer and less disruptive to have trains elevated a level above the car traffic. Tunnels are only useful when they have to go through extreme dense areas where there's no room for rails above ground, like in city centers.

Trains cause traffic congestion on the train tracks. Trains already stop each other, to take turns on tracks when there are single tracks going through an area with more than one train. Trains have entire dispatch offices to manage where each train is, how long their operators have been working, and have to fit very tight regulations, sometimes even stopping trains to switch people out when their regulated working time is maxxed out.

For the most part, this all works smoothly. But the idea that you can just throw more trains on the tracks without impacting even their own traffic isn't seeing the big picture.

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