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Comment by RileyJames | Hacker News Reader

We have low standards.

The Victorian “high speed rail project” cost $750M to increase our regional (long distance enough) trains to a whopping 165 km/h.

Here’s the kicker, when it gets hot, they have to slow down. And when I say hot, I mean, 36C (96F). And by slow down I mean 90km/h.

Welcome to Australia, that’s half a month per year. And it’s getting hotter. [bom](http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/cvg/av?p_stn_num=086071&p...)

They can be delayed by such long periods they’re replaced by buses. When you arrive is anyone’s guess.

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You have the same problem as Russia. Only a tiny part of the country/continent is populated, the population is spread along coasts, and even that not continuously. Building advanced trains is not economical, they won't service sufficient population per km traveled.

People often say this, but I'm skeptical the raw distances are the problem at all. I think it's simply a lack of vision.

Melbourne-Sydney is not much longer than Barcelona-Madrid, Which is served by a very successful high speed train route.

Airlines will try block it at every step

Spain has govt debt of 100% of GDP too.

Flying between Melbourne and Sydney is incredibly easy and will only get easier when the western Sydney airport opens. There's nothing and nobody between the two cities worth putting stops at.

How is a government debt that was mainly caused by a residential housing bubble being popped in 2007/2008 relevant here?

Edit: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GGGDTAESA188N

Very successful? AVE routes, including the BCN-MAD one, are not financially sustainable. Spanish and European taxpayer money devoted to the comfort of businessmen and bureaucrats and the profits of contractors while metropolitan lines fall apart and receive little to no investment.

Most infrastructure like this is not "financially sustainable" in a narrow sense because most of the positive externalities aren't capturable. It's nonetheless a good idea (although we certainly need to figure out how to do these things cheaper and less corruptly).

The environmental benefits alone must be considerable as the route has replaced more than half of the air traffic iirc.

The bad trains in Russia are strategic: it’s so that European conquerors can’t use the rails when the Russians get pushed back, but the Russians are used to it so they manage to function just fine

(wwii logistics joke...)

Designing high speed rail for large thermal ranges is non-trivial as the forces can be very large.

Solutions can be very expensive (e.g. slab track), and therefore it may not be appropriate to build this out for 2 weeks of the year.

You linked climate data that included 1981-2010. When you actually search all of the historic data in the drop down, you'll find that there's no significant trend in # of days >35C since 1861. 1981-2010 did show 10.8 for that figure, but the periods 1871-1900, 1881-1910, 1891-1920, and 1901-1930 all showed around the same figure, at 10.8, 11.2, 11.1, and 10.2 respectively.

It looks more like a cyclical trend in Melbourne heat.

“It’s getting hotter” was based on “all data” vs 81-2010. Which shows an increase. (>30, 30 -> 32.1 & >35, 10 -> 10.8)

Additionally based on an abc podcast, the signal, which stated that since 1987 summer temperatures have been above average.

[the signal](https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/the-signal/changing-su...)

Let’s not get into a climate change debate. It’s not going to get significantly colder to the point where these trains are going to run on time more often.

I just quoted four other 30 year periods in the late 1800s and early 1900s that were just as hot or hotter than 81-10. You are just comparing an above average period with an average over 150 years. Ok, that says nothing, if the data set is cyclical and you cherry pick a trough or a peak to make a point, you're being dishonest.

I wouldn't bet that.

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