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Comment by nineplay | Hacker News Reader

I'm not convinced. The train is not competing with driving to SF, the train is competing with flying to SF. LAX -> SFO is 1.25 hours. There's time to the airport, time to check in, time through security of course, but there's going to be similar issues at the train station so the customer has to be convinced that the train is a time savings.

Plus, of course, SWA has 4 direct flights to SFO, 6 to Oakland, 4 to San Jose. If you miss your flight you get on the next one. It is going to be really hard for a high speed train to complete with that.

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Sounds like you've never taken a train. Time through security? There's basically no security in American train stations (or French TGV stations). I've only experienced Chinese train stations with security but with wait times far less than American airports. Time to the airport? Well yes because the airports are inconveniently located. Train stations are right there in the downtown.

> Train stations are right there in the downtown.

A train station in downtown LA or SF would be inconveniently located for most people in these cities.

The SF one would apparently be near union square. Having been there, that seems easy enough to get to, insofar as anywhere is easy to get to in SF (it does not exactly have the greatest public transport in the world).

The train stations have connections to other transit - hard to see them as any less convenient than airports (LA's famously had no train connection until recently).

International HSTs with passport required border crossings (ie Schengen-UK) have passport control and security - I think the security checks are to minimise the risk of terror attacks in the channel tunnel though.

But yeah, for intra-Schengen you just go to the platform a few minutes before departure, find where your carriage will be, and step in once the train comes to a stop.

So much less faff than air travel, and I’ve noticed better pubs at major stations meaning waiting for your train isn’t as boring as it used to be…

Security theatre. What's the point of metal detecting you on eurostar? You going to hijack the train with your knife?

Cars and vans in the tunnel don't go through metal detecters, and you can smuggle a far larger bomb that you can in a suitcase.

But eurostar is the exception to the rule with security. I tend to aim to arrive at my mainline station about 5 minutes before the train leaves incase I get delayed on-route, but that's because I live in a small town which only has 1 train per hour. When I take a route with 3tph I don't bother looking at the times, just go when I'm ready and accept on average I have to wait for 10 minutes.

I agree. But I just looked at Le Shuttle’s pages on security and they claim to put 100% of trucks through millimeter wavelength scanners (presumably to detect unauthorised travellers) and x-ray systems that are supposed to detect arms and explosives.

Station location of course plays a role (i.e. if it gets stuffed somewhere out of town with crappy transport links its no good, and rail links into the middle of an existing city are expensive), but I don't know a major airport where people would routinely trust less than 45 mins for checkin and passing security. Whereas for a train station its 10 mins.

> If you miss your flight you get on the next one. It is going to be really hard for a high speed train to complete with that.

Why would you bother to build a fancy new HSR line and then not run trains every hour, or more if demand is there? Running trains is not that expensive once you've got the infrastructure.

Forget security; I used SFO last week and just going from long term parking to where security is took 20 min, and the reverse (around midnight) took 30+ min. A train starting in downtown SF could as well be past San Jose at that point.

To be fair long-term parking at a train station would also be inconvenient (although at least in this case you'd not share facilities with all the international travelers), and honestly didn't even register as an option to me, so I was assuming local train/shuttle bus/cab/uber dropping off in a convenient central location.

I think the differentiating factor is that a rail station is more likely to be in the city center, where you can get to by other means (bus, BART, whatever), while going to SFO is much less convenient.

If you miss your high speed train in Tokyo, you get on the next one five minutes later. Sometimes just 3.5 minutes later.

> LAX -> SFO is 1.25 hours.

After a potential 30 minute commute (even if you live downtown already) and some 2 hours of checking, yes. Only 1.25 hours.

>there's going to be similar issues at the train station I suppose it will vary on popularity, but train parking lots tend to be relatively empty compared to navigating LAX and the lag time of the worst case scenario of "buying a new train pass" was 10 minutes, after maybe a 5 minute walk from parking lot to station.

Airlines are simply too politically charged to ever be more efficient than a potential high speed rail. Even if it takes an extra hour, it's a time save taking the train.

> After a potential 30 minute commute (even if you live downtown already) and some 2 hours of checking, yes. Only 1.25 hours.

HSR stations are no different.

45-60 minute uber from Berkeley or Cupertino to the SF HSR station? Then another 45-90 minutes on the LA end?

You’d rather just fly SFO (or SJC, OAK) nonstop to Orange County or Ontario or Burbank or Palm Springs or Long Beach or …

Not to mention if you are an experienced flyer, it’s not unreasonable to arrive at the airport curbside 15-30 minutes before your flight boarding door closes and comfortably make the flight. Fuck the lounges.

I've been on multiple other kinds of subways and trains across the state, and I can't say there's ever been more than the 10 minute lag needed to purchase a tram pass (a one time act). I don't know how even the strictest HSR would compare to the TSA process and the sluggish seating process of a plane.

The commute may not be different in the long term, but as of now LAX's traffic is legendarily bad, even by LA traffic standards.

There's a San Jose stop.

> There's time to the airport, time to check in, time through security of course, but there's going to be similar issues at the train station

... Eh? You get to the station (generally well-located), you walk through a turnstile or similar, you get on the train. There's no check-in or security on most intercity trains. Or walking for miles in sprawling airports, for that matter. In a big intercity station, you go in the door, there are some shops, there are a row of platforms, you go to your platform, you get on your train. That is it. Also, you probably get there on public transport which goes either into the station itself, outside the door, or to the local station beside the intercity station, depending on local taste (this really does seem to be a very regional thing).

I can't help feeling that a lot of the people who object to this concept have never actually been on an intercity train at all. Or, er, seen a film or TV show where someone goes on a train. It's kind of bizarre, really.

> seen a film or TV show

I've run through Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal a few times; does that count?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code

... similar issues at the train station?

With Amtrak, you just show up at the train station a few minutes before departure time.

I took Amtrak from Richmond VA (well, Ashland, VA) to NYC once precisely to avoid the song and dance with getting around NYC airports. I showed up a few minutes before departure at the Ashland station (saving a drive to Richmond), relaxed on the train for 5 hours, arrived in Penn Station, and then took a short walk to the Roosevelt Hotel where my business meeting was.

High-speed rail can have multiple trains per day. If you miss one, you get on the next one.

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