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Comment by tupshin | Hacker News Reader

The Northeast corridor is a strong counter argument.

I’ve taken the Acela from NYC to DC and back many times, and it is quite nice. But a big advantage it gets is how much of a pain it is to reach area airports in both cities. If intra-regional mass transit was improved that would paradoxically hurt the competitiveness of inter-regional rail.

Reagan in DC is convenient to the metro (Dulles of course is not) but all of NYC's airports are a pain.

What about Newark? I went through Newark Penn Station a few times and it seems decent. Is it a PITA to go between Newark Penn Station and the airport, or is the airport itself a bigger hassle than most?

Last time I went through LAX there were no good options for getting from there to downtown LA.

Newark is probably the least bad, but you still have to take a slow second train (AirTrain) after getting to Newark Penn. Also, while the NJ Transit trains are better set up for travelers than the LIRR to JFK they aren’t nearly as nice as the dedicated setup they have in London.

Although Heathrow Express is quite pricey compared to the tube and, depending upon where you're going, may not even be more convenient. More often than not, I'm near Trafalgar Square so I just take the Piccadilly Line in. But, yes, Heathrow has good transit options in general (although it's an expensive cab ride).

Even if getting to the airport is convenient, you still need to arrive 1 hour before your flight, and deal with security, boarding procedures, taxi, air traffic control, etc on both sides.

In Japan, I can literally show up for a Shinkansen five minutes before departure and hop right on.

Airports for short range traffic are fscking awful.

It’s a decent point, however:

* I can’t just show up for the Acela five minutes before departure. It’s not nearly as bad as flying, but there is ceremony involved.

* Security and boarding are a lot better when you are a frequent business traveler. That’s who is going to make the bulk of the DC-NYC trips regardless of modality. We shouldn’t compare the tourist experience between the two.

The door-to-door times will still be worse on DC<->NYC trips. I grew up in Baltimore-Washington area, and lived in NYC for a time, and used to take Acela every weekend down. I could get door-to-door in about 3.5 hrs. No way I could get in-out of NYC airport or Dulles/National in that time, even if I was a frequent biz traveler.

NYC to Montreal (~370mi) takes ~8 hours by bus and 11 hours by train, though granted, times at Customs is more variable for the bus than for the train. I'm often surprised at how much the train shakes side to side on the occasions it's going "fast".

Contrast that to the TGV in France, which zooms around at 200mph and covered one of my trips between Paris and Avignon (~430mi) in ~2.75hrs about a decade ago. US train infrastructure feels extremely behind in comparison. Perhaps it's because of a greater emphasis on highway travel.

NYC to Montreal is not part of the NEC; the NEC is solely the portion from DC to Boston.

That said, the NYC-Montreal and Boston-Toronto lines are lines that absolutely should be dedicated high-speed passenger rail in addition to the NEC, but they are not even dedicated passenger rail lines at the moment let alone proper 220mph HSR lines.

To top it all off, Toronto-NY is one of the busiest air routes in the world, by number of scheduled flights.

To be fair, that leg of the TGV happens to be some of the best track in the whole system. It's practically a straight, non-stop shot from Paris to Avignon on double decker cars with panoramic windows.

> how much the train shakes

Roadbeds are maintained to freight train standards, e.g., the difference in height of the two rails.

Amtrak depends on the "host railroads" who are not very hospitable to passenger traffic.

It's strange to see the contrast between how relatively large a share of transportation Amtrak has in the Northeast Corridor compared to elsewhere in the country. I've heard this ascribed to population density, but it doesn't seem like trains are as popular in places like Texas or Southern California.

Development and land use patterns are way different in the Sunbelt. There are lines that go through most downtowns but most of the people live far from the stations. The passenger trains also share lines with freight and freight is prioritized, a trip from Austin to Dallas by Amtrak takes 6 hours but can be driven in 3 or so.

Lots of people in the Northeast don't live in downtowns either. One big difference if that, if you're taking a trip to one of the big cities, you often don't need or even want a car when you get there. On the other hand, if you can drive somewhere in 4-5 hours, taking a train and then having to rent a car when you arrive seems a lot less attractive.

Huge advantage of amtrak is that the stations are in prime locations. In the northeast that's a huge advantage as going from train to destination might be a 15 minute walk. Meanwhile airport to destination could be an hour drive. Sunbelt cities have no density, so the trains location isn't as valuable.

Much of the Northeast Regionals route is effectively a functioning megapolis. You are not going to find anywhere close to similar conditions anywhere else in the United States.

It functions that way because it has a functioning rail line? Or at least semi-functional. YOu are right you won't find those conditions anywhere else in the US but that is our own fault

I'm not sure how true that is even though Amtrak is one mover of people. One of the reasons I for one tend to take Amtrak is that Boston area into Manhattan is mostly a pretty awful drive and it isn't because there are so few vehicles on the road. Also, pre-Acela business travelers mostly flew (and many still do) on the northern section of the corridor. And, even today, most business travelers aren't going to take the train from Boston to DC.

So it seems pretty probable to me that Acela came about because there was already a huge and increasing demand for such a service.

It could exist without the rest of the network, and probably be cheaper. Why is NJ Transit so much cheaper to go from Philly (via Trenton) to NYC? I think the Northeast Corridor might be subsidizing other parts of Amtrak.

Yes, the Northeast Corridor is the only profitable part of Amtrak, that is why Amtrak tried to cut as much service as possible outside the Northeast Corridor prior to Joe Biden taking office.

Yep. Basically the Northeast Corridor is a pretty profitable route. In part, this is because the Acela is basically priced as high as it can be while remaining competitive with air. Business travelers generally pay it because it's a bit more comfortable, a bit faster, and there are fewer plebes than the non-Acela option. Oh, and it's not their money. (And it is competitive with air depending upon your preferences.)

To be honest, when it's my own money I usually just take the regular regional train. It's about half the price and because it can piggyback off the electrification done for Acela, it takes less than an hour more.

Agree. It's 30 more minutes to read or something and 30 less minutes at my destination.

On other routes being slow is a massive liability though. If people could get from San Francisco to Portland in 10 hours, or even 12 hours, instead of 18 hours, it would be much more practical. At 18 hours it messes up your sleep schedule rather than just giving you more time to read.

It might just not be worth it to spend more on rail travel from Portland to SF though. It's just a reality of geography rather than somebody's mistake that travel from SF to Portland is harder than travel from DC to NYC.

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