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Comment by perryizgr8 | Hacker News Reader

Is there any moderate to large scale passenger rail system in the world that is economically viable? It always seems to be brought into existence by force of massive subsidies. The mode of transport seems to be fundamentally broken.

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Why does it need to be economically viable? Is the US interstate system economically viable? We don't charge for the use of the interstate system at all. In an ideal world we'd run all train/bus infrastructure free of use as well. Transportation is a common good.

It would be interesting to know what fares would be if construction and maintenance of the track and signalling system were 100% subsidised, so passengers only paid for electricity, train construction and maintenance, and staff.

That would be a fair comparison to a long distance bus.

It would be more interesting to know what the impact would be to society if the trains were fully subsidized like the interstate system, and they were free for use.

> Is the US interstate system economically viable?

Yes, absolutely, in fact the US government did their own study on this question

https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/spring-1996/economic-i...

You're referencing the economic output of the interstate, but there's roughly the same studies with the same conclusions made about the train system.

The folks I was responding to were discussing the direct economics of maintaining and operating the trains, and not their economic benefits. No one pays money to use the interstate, why should they need to pay money to use the train?

Europe? India? Japan?

> The mode of transport seems to be fundamentally broken.

You're American aren't you?

Just saying a bunch of places that have mass transport does not address his question if there are systems where massive subsidies aren’t involved in their creation. I do not know what the situation is in india, but in at least in europe many of the transport systems require massive subsidies. While japan in the meantime has privatized their system and runs very, the original creation was also state directed.

Why are economically viable and subsidised mutually exclusive? How massive are the subsidies when compared to the population served?

Not really OPs question.

But economically viable and subsided are mutually exclusive because when at that moment the question is not being asked wether the person consuming the good would pay the full price of the service. Economically viable does not mean an expert or technocrat gets to decide for you wether or not something it worth it. Deciding wether or not something is worth is fundamentally an individual’s decision. Of course the expert may say, “look, the cost of getting x amount of people from a to b is y times cheaper using this solution”. But that never takes into account if the people would have preferred a different mode of transport all together. For example, some may prefer the greater carrying flexibility of a car or the ride comfort of one. Of course that is not to say that automotive transport isn’t subsided and that the owners pay the full cost of ownership. The TLDR of it is that economically viable requires people to put money where their mouth is. Someone else CANNOT by definition make that decision unless you believe that some people have “correct” values and others don’t.

I'm Indian, and I'm saying this because I know how much of a burden our railways is on the taxpayer. It's a huge sink into which $20B worth of taxes disappear every year, with only dirty, poorly run trains to show for. It's so bad that I'll avoid traveling in trains if there is absolutely any other way. I'll drive 12 hours straight but not get into the hassle of a train.

Are we travelling in two different countries? I travel mostly in the south, mostly in sleeper class. I find that it is reasonably good (and cheap enough for my shoestring budget). Some 10 years ago, yes they were terrible, but now, it is quite good, and affordable.

The target audience for the railways is less upper middle class, and more middle and lower classes.

This is also true of highways and airplanes.

> It always seems to be brought into existence by force of massive subsidies. The mode of transport seems to be fundamentally broken.

Just like most airports then ?

Also some countries see it as a service, not a source of revenue

To use a chemistry analogy, rail has a high burning point but once catalysed it delivers heat.

Rail has very low externalities, which is why we might want to subsidise it.

No infrastructure is self supporting. It is all subsidized which actually is “economically viable” since infrastructure is a productivity multiplier.

IIRC the high speed rail system in France is profitable. The train network as whole is not, however.

Acela is extremely profitable.

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