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Comment by perryizgr8 | Hacker News Reader

> Our railways are currently not financially sustainable

I have raised this issue before, let me rehash it. Railways is probably the worst mode of travel in the history of mankind. I have not found any examples of large scale, passenger railway that is a sustainable business.

But people continue to hype it up and it's always "Let's spend more billions of other people's stolen money into this, it will definitely work out then!". It is never "Let me invest billions of my own money into this railways system."

If something has never worked, it is unlikely to start working now, unless you change the economics fundamentally. I haven't seen that in any system. The wastage is immense, and the money is better spent on things that actually provide more value for less cost.

To conclude, they should remove the entire railways instead of removing wifi from the trains.

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Railways are an excellent mode of travel. They are significantly more efficient than cars in all ways that matter: cost, space, energy.

Nobody looks at the billions spent on roads and thinks "ooh these are unprofitable let's get rid of them", so why do people/governments constantly do that for rail?

The reasoning people use to justify the spending on roads is that the economic value people and goods transported on said roads outweighs the costs of building and maintaining them. Trains are more efficent than cars on this simply bu economics of scale: one long tube with metal wheels carrying 2000 people into the city moves a lot more than a freeway of the same area.

> They are significantly more efficient than cars in all ways that matter: cost, space, energy.

Then why are railways always unprofitable while car companies are worth billions in the free market?

> Nobody looks at the billions spent on roads and thinks "ooh these are unprofitable let's get rid of them", so why do people/governments constantly do that for rail?

Because roads are profitable and make sense. Rail does not.

Also, railways are at least 100x more expensive than roads. And the entire infrastructure has to be subsidised. With roadways, you just build the surface, vehicles are wholly privately owned. That means trillions less spent from the taxpayer's pocket.

The topic is British railways, where the trains are constructed, owned and operated by private companies. Railway vehicle manufacturing companies are presumably profitable, as they're all private. (At least the ones relevant to the UK.)

The track, electricity supply, signalling system etc in Britain is owned and maintained (and extended) by a public company, although it contracts out a lot of the maintenance work.

I am curious what you think a fair price for driving a car on the motorway from, say, London to Leicester (exactly 100 miles) should cost. Currently it's free, although fuel is taxed, perhaps around £5 for that journey.

Roads are massively subsidized. I suspect more than railways. If roads were tolled at the rate to maintain each segment then sure I would buy your argument. There is no way the maintenance of all of the roads is born according to actual use. It is done by also taxing those who do not use them.

First, there are other things to optimise for other than financial profitability - like travel time, emissions, comfort, land use efficiency, capacity, etc. (on all of those trains beat any alternatives in the "more than walking or short bike/car trip" to "less than where a plane makes sense (it varies a bit on geography, but I'd say ~4-5 hours by train)" category).

Second, there are profitable passenger railways - a very famous example is Japan's high speed rail system.

> Second, there are profitable passenger railways - a very famous example is Japan's high speed rail system.

No, the only reason Shinkansen exists is because of government subsidies, both direct and via interest-free "loans" without any repayment terms.

> First, there are other things to optimise for other than financial profitability

You don't have to optimise for financial profitability. If the product or service you provide is valuable to people, it will automatically bring in profits. If not, then you either go out of business, or subsist on continuous subsidies, e.g. every single passenger rail system on the planet.

> You don't have to optimise for financial profitability. If the product or service you provide is valuable to people, it will automatically bring in profits.

Nope. Railways are very capital intensive, thus by definition require a long time to reimburse those initial costs. So if companies never invest in any further infrastructure, at some point they'll become profitable and remain so (see: all american cargo rail companies that haven't done anything but the bare minimum infrastructure wise for decades). But demand isn't static, therefore to actually serve the needs of the population the infrastructure needs to evolve - more routes, faster ones, newer and better trains, etc. which requires constant capital. Also, providing a valuable service doesn't mean that it can be directly financially profitable, and this is a perfect example - the indirect benefits for the economy, environment and people (because more people can access more places for work, and emissions can be drastically reduced, etc.) can and usually drastically outweigh the direct financial cost of running the route.

> No, the only reason Shinkansen exists is because of government subsidies, both direct and via interest-free "loans" without any repayment terms

Like literally any public infrastructure ever? That's literally one of the major points of a government, to build infrastructure everyone needs and will use. Roads, bridges, airports, railroads are capital intensive and rarely if ever profitable on their own in the first decades of their use. Unless you're advocating for personal teleportation devices for everyone, I'm not even sure what your argument is supposed to be; but then again, you said "stolen momey" when refering to taxes, which makes you unqualified to weigh in on any topic around infrastructure, urbanism, government spending or organisation, etc.; anyone with such a misunderstanding simply does not know enough to be a useful participant in a discussion.

> which requires constant capital.

So you're saying passenger rail can never provide enough value to people to justify the constant influx of capital? Cool, thanks for making my point.

> providing a valuable service doesn't mean that it can be directly financially profitable

No, it literally means exactly that.

> Like literally any public infrastructure ever?

You literally said that Japanese high speed rail is profitable. Why change tracks (pun unintended) when I point out the inaccuracy?

> That's literally one of the major points of a government, to build infrastructure everyone needs and will use.

No, but let's not diverge from the fact that rail is the worst, most inefficient mode of transport in history.

> Roads, bridges, airports, railroads are capital intensive and rarely if ever profitable on their own in the first decades of their use.

Yes, and out of those only railroads are the one which are never profitable, even after 10 decades of constant technological advancement.

> Unless you're advocating for personal teleportation devices for everyone

I'm not advocating for anything except not wasting taxpayer money on inefficient, unsustainable transportation.

> anyone with such a misunderstanding simply does not know enough to be a useful participant in a discussion.

Classic cope when you can't attack the argument, just resort to insults.

> So you're saying passenger rail can never provide enough value to people to justify the constant influx of capital? Cool, thanks for making my point.

Can not, or more likely should not receive enough money from consumers to make for the constant influx of capital needed for it to remain as useful as possible. The main goal is to be as useful and practical as possible, not to make the most money possible - a fully business class with a spa and golden jacuzzi train might be profitable (like the Orient Express was as a luxury thing) but again, the goal of passenger rail is to be accessible and practical to most people. If your only way of measuring productivity is financial profit, yeah, I see you can't understand that.

> You literally said that Japanese high speed rail is profitable. Why change tracks (pun unintended) when I point out the inaccuracy?

Because you elaborated on your definition of profitability (can't have received any money at all from a government, ever), which no infrastructure project from the past few decades really meets. In my view the Japanese rail system is profitable after some initial well needed help; and again, if you apply your own (bad) measurement stick to any infrastructure, you'll find that nothing is really profitable. As for your argument that rail is the least profitable, I'm fairly sure if you do the math you'll see that Japanese rail has been less unprofitable (has needed less subsidies and bailouts) than Japanese airlines over the same time.

> Yes, and out of those only railroads are the one which are never profitable, even after 10 decades of constant technological advancement.

Airlines literally need bailouts on a what, decade schedule? But sure, railroads are "never profitable" because they get subsidies and need continued improvement to get better.

> I'm not advocating for anything except not wasting taxpayer money on inefficient, unsustainable transportation.

How is rail not sustainable? It's the cleanest and environment friendly method of transportation by far, which is very sustainable.

> Classic cope when you can't attack the argument, just resort to insults.

I am attacking your argument, but that doesn't mean I can't dismiss your entire position as one of ignorance (which, again, doesn't mean I'm not trying to explain to you why you're wrong). I cannot take libertarians seriously, only someone profoundly privileged or ignorant can have such views on the world.

>No, the only reason Shinkansen exists is because of government subsidies, both direct and via interest-free "loans" without any repayment terms.

Can't you say that for many "successful" car companies too? They're only around because of government bailouts and because of indirect government subsidies like road construction.

You don't need police service, right? Or charge $$$ for excessive speed?

This is crazy talk.

It may be satire.

It's libertarian trolling.

HN guidelines:

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

> Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread.

It's just standard libertarian cope.

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