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Comment by pradn | Hacker News Reader

The reasons why we wont have a high-speed train network any time soon, in priority order (my opinion):

1. Eminent domain and generally-high construction costs make the initial time and money outlays exorbitantly high, resulting in projects never getting off the ground or having to compensate with much-too-expensive tickets

2. Even if you get to the middle of another city, having to rent a car to get to where you need is a pain. It's easier to drive from Dallas to Houston in a car, because you have a car at the end of the trip. Only some cities have fast public transport; the rest are so big it's hard not rent a car or Uber everywhere, both options are expensive and time-consuming.

3. Trains likely take more time than flights for the mid-to-long distance journeys planes are good for.

4. A cultural lack of interest in passenger rail. It's just not a part of the culture, and is seen as weird/enthusiast thing to do, unlike in Europe, India, or China.

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3 is underappreciated and incredibly important (it should be #1) for the simple reason than labor cost. You have to pay flight attendants/rail attendants and that starts adding up.

Moreover a rail attendant/engineer for a long haul trip cannot be back at home to family at the end of the day, for a transcontinental flight attendant or pilot it's possible, so the labor pool is meaningfully different, and supply and demand is a thing.

> Moreover a rail attendant/engineer for a long haul trip cannot be back at home to family at the end of the day,

That would be problematic for some long distance train connections in germany as well (north-south connections), but they just schedule around that: attendants change mid-journey as needed.

That is all false.

You don't need attendants on rail at all - what is there for them to do? For flight you need them to oversee preparing for a crash trains should get this failure mode should be designed out - which does imply doing the regular maintenance and using good safety systems. Just give a small discount to anyone with current first aid/CPR and you can be sure there are more than enough regular riders to take care of the remaining issues.

Even if you do decide you want attendants for some reason, train should stop not less than once an hour, which means the crews can get off the train after 4 hours and staff the one back home. (I don't believe freight rail shouldn't do the same, but they have different operations from passenger rail such that more than an hour between stops might be reasonable)

Note that if the train really is going through the middle of nowhere at one hour you just pick a random dot on the map and grant it a station just to get your stops. The cost to stopping a train is less than 5 minutes for the full trip (this adds up if you stop every few km, but when it is once an hour it isn't a big deal)

>You don't need attendants on rail at all

Not true. You need people manning the cafeteria car, cleaning the bathrooms, checking tickets, etc.

>train should stop not less than once an hour

The Southwest Chief goes from San Bernardino, CA to Albuquerque, NM in 14 hours. It makes 8 stops along the way, inclusive of the endpoints. Your point here still largely stands, but these long haul trains most certainly do not stop at least once an hour.

> You need people manning the cafeteria car

Best practice is to not have them.

> cleaning the bathrooms

Do it at the end of the line when the train is stopped.

> The Southwest Chief

Amtrak is a bad example for anything. They are running tourist trains, and should follow the practices of cruise ships not modern railroads.

> Best practice is to not have them.

So no food options on a 14 hour train? The train's losing a lot of captured audiences there and people like to... eat. In that time the average US person eats at least three meals, you simply can't pack that much, especially for a family.

> Do it at the end of the line when the train is stopped.

Ever been to a music festival and looked at the toilets at the end of the day? Now imagine you're in a semi-airtight tube with that for 14 hours.

> Amtrak is a bad example for anything. They are running tourist trains, and should follow the practices of cruise ships not modern railroads

Have you ever taken one on the East Coast? They are not tourist trains, they're commuters and travelers.

Train trips of more than 5 hours run on cruise line principals and are not about getting to a destination. Any train for those trips is a tourist attraction and should pay for itself and all crew needed. Boston to NYC isn't 14 hours, and should not stick to steam train principles.

As for food, get off at any station and eat.

Yes bathrooms beed to be cleaned. However that is one person who cleans them between 2 stations and then nobody for the next station, and someone the station after. (This is an example, the real way to handle it might be different )

> You don't need attendants on rail at all - what is there for them to do?

* Check passenger tickets

* Observe the cars & make sure people aren't breaking rules, etc

* Serve food/drink if applicable (e.g. for business class)

And so forth. This is how the KTX and Shinkansen work, and they know what they're doing.

All things that are not needed.

Checking tickets can be done by not allowing anyone on the platform. Or world best practice is random checks and large fines if you are caught without a ticket.

Breaking rules is tricky. There is some need for that, though there are options, though in the end I will grant you this.

Trains should never serve food or drink. Passengers can get off the train at a station when they need that, and get on the next train. Space used for the food and drink is space that could be used for more seats. There is a reason all railroads have been trying to do away with food and drink service. It is considered bad practice everywhere.

> All things that are not needed.

> There is some need for that.

I see.

> Trains should never serve food or drink. Passengers can get off the train at a station.

There aren't going to be stations all across Nebraska or what have you. And even if there were, stopping repeatedly would defeat the purpose of high-speed rail. All that time speeding up and slowing down starts to add up very quickly.

There won't be trains across Nebraska at all, no city pair has the population to support it. (maybe Kansas city to Omaha, but that isn't very far)

It doesn't take long to unload and reload a modern train. France and the US do bad, but there are better examples where it can be done in a minute.

Here is a proposed high-speed rail system with a route across Nebraska: https://www.vox.com/2021/3/10/22303355/gen-z-high-speed-rail...

Don't forget it would massively extend every stop. At least an hour+ at each station if you expect every passenger to detrain (with their luggage, because they're not leaving it on the train), wait in line, probably dawdle and then reboard.

1 minute per station is perfectly doable if you dont have bad equipment and stations.

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