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Comment by phmqk76 | Hacker News Reader

Awesome! Now I can drive an hour+ to Rancho Cucamonga, park, wait for the train, pay the equivalent of four plane tickets for my family, then take a 2 hour+ train ride, instead of driving for 4 hours from my house for the cost of half a tank of gas ($35). So cool!

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I just looked up air fare. Seems like you can get a $27 ticket from la to las vegas. Takes about an hour and a half. That's always the real competitor with trains, even in europe where trains supposedly rule.

Airline tickets from west coast cities to vegas regularly go for<$50 if you’re flying Spirit or something.

How is that even possible, that's the same price as a movie

There are a lot of indirect subsidies going into air travel. To me this has always seemed rather perverse, and the money should have been invested in proper rail infrastructure instead, from a climate standpoint as well as for convenience (a proper rail network deposits you in the middle of a city without the need for a car, you don't have endless security controls etc.).

What indirect subsidies go into air travel that don't also apply to rail?

the TSA?

That's not really a subsidy for air travel, in fact it's a cost. People here are talking about how they would prefer rail so that they don't need to go through security at the airport. That's bad for airlines.

But who pays the TSA agents salaries? Buys the equipment?

To be fair, rail is also heavily subsidized, just in different ways.

(In Europe.)

Aircraft fuel isn't taxed, but train 'fuel' (electric or diesel) is taxed.

Airlines can base their staff in a cheap country and pay lower wages, avoid unions etc.

Local governments subsidise airports to attract tourists/business. The railway already exists and doesn't get this subsidy.

Local governments don't subsidize rail stations?

In practise the flight is much slower due to security etc, and having to get to and from the airport.

For example, I wouldn't consider taking a flight from Copenhagen to Århus (40 minutes vs 2¼ hrs) as the saving is wasted on waiting, and flying is much less comfortable.

(That's an extreme example for the distance, as it crosses a sea.)

It's certainly a competitor, but definitely not the preferred option.

In practise the flight is much slower due to security etc

Only for very specific routes. If I want go to from here to the one of the maybe 4 closest large cities, I'm definitely taking the train. If I want to to go from here to just about any other major city in Europe flying is almost always much faster. A bunch of people from work where going to a conference in Amsterdam a few years ago and some of them wanted to take the train for environmental reasons, and the train was literally 20+ hours door to door from the midsized European city I live in. Directly flights are under 2 hours.

2 hours, plus time to check in, security, getting to and from the airport etc.

Two hours flight time from Amsterdam is Italy or beyond, that's quite different.

Trains don't rule Europe, we just have them and they work. Ryanair and other budget airlines actually rule Europe.

Trains don't rule Europe on cost, airline prices are usually lower if you're willing to fly Ryanair or similar.

But the train is much faster if you want to go from city center to city center for a distance that's a relatively short flight. Like London to Paris or Amsterdam to Frankfurt. If you want to go across Europe from one side to the other, the plane is much faster.

Price of four plane tickets for your family?

I don't know how much these rail tickets will cost, but I find the math on that to be unlikely.

4x plane tickets, assuming rock bottom minimum $60 a head to basically anywhere, $180-240...

Hmm

Amtrak from NYC to DC fluctuates in pricing but can be $35 each way, if booked booked far enough in advance. That’s about the same distance from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas. So I think it’s a similar ballpark to a plane ticket.

The real way to do this should be like Japan shinkansen, no floating pricing where you have to do some speculative game.

Flat pricing + make ticket good for something like 2 weeks to ride whenever.

If there was such predictability and flexibility, they'd immediately significantly increase their ridership.

There's a dead reply below that says "shinkansen are cheaper when bought in advance" --- I was led to believe otherwise, good to know as I ride it a few times a year.

Commercial rail operations will try to maximise revenue, doing airline style pricing. Very visible in the UK where last minute or peak time train tickets are crazy expensive. (All their train lines are commercial)

Compared to trains being run as a semi government provided utility, like the Netherlands, where pricing is flat based only on route. Makes the train a more relevant alternative, which helps with road congestion. But tax money is used to build railways and stations, the tickets only pay for operating the train itself.

"Flat pricing + make ticket good for something like 2 weeks to ride whenever."

This can only possibly work with low ridership numbers. Imagine getting to the railway station with your bags and all seats are spoken for.

There's reserved tickets as well.

How many MPG does your car get???

Yeah, if you already have a car-based life then cars will win out. The point of projects like this is to expand the number of people who don't need a car, and that's probably going to be single people or no-kids couples to start with. The good news is that getting those people out of cars will free up road space, so even if the train doesn't work for you personally you still benefit.

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