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Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

Riding the high-speed rail in China made me so envious of that setup. If we had that in certain locations in the U.S., it would be absolutely amazing. You just show up a half hour before your train (gotta get there earlier in certain huge stations) and basically walk on. The train ride is buttery smooth with a lot of space, and you can order food from the next station to be delivered to you if you don't want any of the food available directly on the train. And with USD, first class and the even higher end business class is not just attainable but cheap. The equivalent train rides with Amtrak in the U.S. are twice as long and several times as expensive and uncomfortable.

Edit: Did some searching and found the North Atlantic Rail initiative. According to the article I read, it would take 20 years to build. What a joke. What is going on in the U.S. that we can't do this stuff?

https://secretnyc.co/empire-state-building-lights/

https://northatlanticrail.org/

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Lived in China and I'm not envious of their HSR at all. Boarding procedures are more complicated and take longer than any European Schengen airport and prices are higher than European budget airlines, let alone for Chinese purchasing power they are insanely expensive.

Together with introduction of HSR they closed many slower lines meaning travel is now less available for majority of Chinese.

Same goes for their amazing subways, they have lot of lines but usually their population per line is double of Western subways, so the result is uncomfortable overcrowded system.

Only reason to use Chinese HSR is because you don't have alternative, there are really no budget airlines and car ownership is still very low compared to west plus cheaper slower trains were cancelled, so you don't really have any other option unless you wanna take dangerous very slow bus.

> Boarding procedures are more complicated and take longer than any European Schengen airport

This is not even close to being true. Security in Chinese HSR stations is minimal. You walk through a metal detector, put your bag through a scanner, and that's it. Boarding itself takes a few minutes.

> prices are higher than European budget airlines

A 7.5-hour trip across the entire length of the country, from Guangzhou to Beijing (over 2100 km, roughly the distance from NYC to Miami, or Rome to Copenhagen), costs the equivalent of $130. It's difficult to complain about that price.

Yeah sure, or more like, wait in huge queue in front of train station to get to security check, then wait in queue to waiting room, then wait in queue on exit from waiting room to platform, then get checked at train door and finally get checked ticket while seated. Meanwhile at Schengen airport - I get checked my ticket by automated machine, then just go to security check at my boarding gate and then get checked boarding pass and get into plane. All of this without hundreds of people trying to get to same plane since usual capacity is around <200-300 compared to much more in Chinese trains.

As I said 130USD is crazy expensive when I can fly in Europe similar routers for 20-50 USD and it will take me 2 hours instead 7.5 hours. There is no difference between getting to Chinese HSR station or European airport, but it's PITA getting to actual Chinese train vs European airplane.

And let's rather not compare slow European trains where can I board the train with zero checks anywhere, heck sometimes even without checked ticket.

> Yeah sure, or more like, wait in huge queue in front of train station to get to security check, then wait in queue to waiting room, then wait in queue on exit from waiting room to platform, then get checked at train door

It has never taken me more than a few minutes to go through security in a train station in China. You're exaggerating here.

Yes, you have to get your ticket checked before going onto the platform, but that's also just a few minutes in line. There are usually several automatic ticket gates, plus one or two people manually checking.

In European airports, it can take a good hour to go through security and get to your gate, if you arrive at a busy time.

> As I said 130USD is crazy expensive when I can fly in Europe similar routers for 20-50 USD and it will take me 2 hours instead 7.5 hours.

I gave Beijing-Guangzhou as an extreme example, to show how cheap even extremely long routes are. I think most people would fly that distance. However, on a route like Beijing-Shanghai (just over 4 hours), most people would choose to take the train.

About the price, $130 to travel across a country the size of China is not crazy, regardless of how cheaply you can fly in Europe. Your trip is also not going to be merely 2 hours - that's the amount of time it takes from leaving home until takeoff, if you're cutting it close.

> There is no difference between getting to Chinese HSR station or European airport

Security in a European airport is on a completely different level from Chinese HSR stations. Yes, the German model of open platforms without ticket checks is nicer than the Chinese model of ticket checks in front of the platform, but let's not exaggerate here. On the other hand, the Chinese model of trains actually leaving and arriving on time is nice.

>It has never taken me more than a few minutes to go through security in a train station in China. You're exaggerating here.

I lived in China for years and I can guarantee you it took me NEVER just few minutes to pass through all checks. But if you visited tier 88 shithole I can see how it's not comparable with Beijing experience.

> In European airports, it can take a good hour to go through security and get to your gate, if you arrive at a busy time.

Hahahah, I just traveled in peak summer season clusterfuck this year and it took me for sure less than 10 minutes to pass through automated ticket gate and immigration check for non schengen flight to get to my security gate at boarding, all while at extremely crowded airport. I can't only imagine what experience it would be off season on Schengen flight.

> However, on a route like Beijing-Shanghai (just over 4 hours), most people would choose to take the train.

Yeah no, I also travelled this route for work few times, each time rather took flight for comparable price than slow train plus the HSR train station is further from city than old airport (which has maglev). So much faster and more comfortable experience for pretty much same price.

> Yes, the German model of open platforms without ticket checks is nicer than the Chinese model of ticket checks in front of the platform, but let's not exaggerate here.

Just out of curiosity how many years have you lived in China? Because I am not exagerating here. No delays. ROFL It must been my imagination to be stuck in middle of nowhere in train for hours, but I guess whether you travel 20 or 25 hours does not make much of an difference in the end, right... Unless you are going towards the most famous tier 1 cities delay was standard with slow trains, for sure worse than European trains at same time. It was well known fact in China trains towards Beijing had always priority because can't arrive in Beijing with delay to lose face, meanwhile facing opposite direction like Xian or Chengdu NGAF.

These are two different walkthroughs of Guangzhou South Station: [0][1]. Guangzhou is a 1st tier city, of course, not a "tier 88 sh&!/%)@." The line for security is about 10 people, and it's not nearly as strict as at an airport. You put your bag on the conveyor belt, you walk through the metal detector, someone waves a wand over you, and you pick up your bag on the other side. You could get unlucky and arrive at an extremely busy time, but it's nowhere near as bad as an airport.

> Hahahah, I just traveled in peak summer season clusterfuck this year and it took me for sure less than 10 minutes to pass through automated ticket gate and immigration check for non schengen flight to get to my security gate at boarding, all while at extremely crowded airport.

It often takes 10 minutes just to walk from security to the gate. Security can easily add on an additional hour on a bad day. 10 minutes from the curb to your gate is unheard of, unless you're running the whole way and cutting to the front of lines.

> the HSR train station is further from city than old airport (which has maglev)

It's 40 minutes from Hongqiao railway station to Nanjing Road (East), in downtown Shanghai. It takes the same amount of time from Pudong Airport to Nanjing Road (East), even if you take the maglev (because the maglev only takes you half of the way).

Suffice it to say that I've traveled enough in China and in Europe to have an idea of the typical train delays. The situation in Germany is markedly worse. Official on-time performance for long-distance trains in Germany is about 60%,[2] and I think that there's a bit of creative accounting going on to even reach that number.

0. https://youtu.be/RIhseWP2LQQ?t=594

1. https://youtu.be/mo5CSafdwNA?t=172

2. Click on "DB Fernferkehr" here: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...

> If we had that in certain locations in the U.S., it would be absolutely amazing. You just show up a half hour before your train (gotta get there earlier in certain huge stations) and basically walk on.

Security theatre in the US means you don’t just walk on the train. You sit in a waiting room with no ambition for capacity and get escorted to the platform by friendly security guards. Quite an experience if you’re not from the US and used to the way trains normally run in the rest of the world.

Amtrak is you just walk on, unless they've changed it since last year. One time the conductor even let me bring a bicycle on against the rules.

Where did you experience that? At least last month Amtrak from NYC didn't require anything like that, nor does the new station have any sort of waiting area to even facilitate that. I've seen something similar in Madrid, where you have to have your bags xrayed and enter into a sterile area but never in the US.

West Coast - Seattle to Portland.

> What is going on in the U.S. that we can't do this stuff?

Strong property rights, NIMBY local democracy with the good and bad that implies, free speech whereby this is all discussed by everyone with an opinion about it whether or not it's uninformed, that kind of thing.

Personally, I'd rather have the US style even though it's inefficient when it comes to HSR.

20 years is a long time and basically means it will never happen by that fact alone.

The Green Line extension for Boston's MBTA has taken 16 years and still isn't done and has cost several billion dollars. It was discussed even longer than that. New York's subway systems experience the same delays and costs. It's embarrassing.

Free speech, land/property rights, etc. are important, but they are just excuses, as they don't seem to be the things actually slowing down these projects.

> Free speech, land/property rights, etc. are important, but they are just excuses, as they don't seem to be the things actually slowing down these projects.

Why do you say that? What is slowing them down?

Utterly broken politics at all levels, plus a ton of corruption.

Could you dive in a bit? What is "broken"? How does the corruption manifest?

I don't have a link handy but there's been a bunch of articles discussing how corrupt, for instance, the construction industry in NYC is and why this results in construction costs (like for subways) that are many times higher than anyplace else in the world.

I don't think I really need to go into detail about how broken US politics are. January 6, 2021 is proof of this.

Its mostly car culture in the US that is to blame. The freeway network in the US would have had the same problems but it was pushed through due to political will.

Agreed.

But why do this over just flying. You can show up 30-45 mins before any domestic flight and leave as soon as you land on the other end.

*Usually

In practice we've seen hours long security/departure queues, having to wait for the luggage after landing, joining the wait for the expensive taxi/bus transfer from the airport, and many other issues which don't exist for train travel.

Then there's "yes you can show up 30min before, if you booked the plane ticket a week ago".

Having done both a lot, I'll take the train any time.

Trains can be more frequent and carry a lot more passengers

> You can show up 30-45 mins before any domestic flight

Where? I was flying in Europe and was asked to be on airport 150 minutes before departure.

They ask you to be there early just to be sure, but you don't have to, it's at your own risks. I've done 30 mins at smaller European airports no problems. Online check-in, only carry-on luggage, 10 minutes for security and you board among the lasts with minutes to spare. Of course you don't have a lot of margins if anything goes wrong, but at airports you know it's definitely doable.

> but you don't have to, it's at your own risks

That isn't a scalable or viable solution. The recommendations exist for capacity and planning reasons.

By the same logical extension you can simply show up at a train station 5 minutes before the train, the results of taking a chance are on you.

Miss one flight and you won’t bet on this again; because unlike trains you’ll be waiting 6-12 hours (or longer) for a re-booked flight.

The risk is high, and if it goes wrong you have huge problems.

I would say very rarely would showing up 30-45 minutes before a domestic flight work. Maybe in some airports with pre-check and if you start the clock once you walk into the terminal, but that's just not a realistic time frame.

Further, the level comfort of the high-speed rail I rode on in China is not even remotely approached by any plane I have ever been on, and it was several times cheaper. There's also no difference between bringing a big suitcase or a small one versus checking or carrying on bags for a plane.

In many cities, the airport is in a terrible location. Boston, Denver, NYC, and many others have poor locations. Train stations, such as those in Boston and NYC, dump you right into the thick of the city. A high-speed rail train would be as fast as a plane's gate to gate time but basically platform to platform. A train is going to be much more efficient on emissions as well.

It's a little confusing why anyone would prefer a plane ride over high-speed rail for regional travel.

30 minutes is a very long wait for a train and very short one for a flight.

Plus most train terminals are in the center of the city and quicker to get to.

Waiting 30 minutes after dropping off bags, checking in and going through security and walking miles to your gate is the absolute best case scenario in a metropolitan city-sized airport. It is really not comparable to getting to the train station 15-20 minutes before departure, making sure the platform is still the same, and getting a sandwich.

In Spain train stations are centrally located while it adds additional time (in a train usually) to get to the airport in the suburbs. One can arrive at the train a few minutes before departure rather as security is nothing more than a quick scan.

Might have heard the news, by chance, in the last 20 years even? There’s a climate crisis out there that warrants changes?

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