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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

Can I be the one to make the obligatory train comment? Moving hundreds of people 500 miles in comfort, using only electricity, is also a VERY solved problem.

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Man, I’d love more trains but we can’t act like the infrastructure necessary to support them, if not present, is very challenging to develop.

Even ignoring land acquisition (which is a big thing to ignore in populated areas where a train would most benefit the population), there are simple things like road crossings, other infrastructure crossing, etc.

In this case an airplane may be simply a lower friction solution.

The biggest costs and sources of delays to building high speed rail in the UK are legal challenges from people who don’t want any construction to take place anywhere near them.

I’ll believe it. If someone were to try to achieve the same in my area (not even high speed rail), between two metropolitan areas, they’d have to contend with thousands of private land owners.

I lived in the UK for a few years, so I can appreciate and really enjoy a robust rail network, but it’s not an easy thing to achieve.

I don't disagree, and yet, despite all of that, new freeways can _always_ be built. And they require far more land and cost. It's totally possible for us to build things still. Just have to care.

I’d argue even new freeways are challenging, at least in my area. They’ve been trying to close a loop around this city for 30+yr now, with a 3mi gap remaining. The last 3mi extension toward closing the gap took nearly 15 years to get through environmental reviews and legal challenges. This final segment will likely take an equally long period.

Can I be the one to make the obligatory land acquisition and permitting comment? Navigating the acquisition of all the land and environmental and other rights via US courts is a VERY unsolved problem.

Trains are great, but they can only go where tracks go. Planes are faster, too, noting that boarding times can dilute that. Trains are perfect for freight and super frequent routes, though.

Commercial passenger planes can generally only lift off and on at dedicated facilities, though.

So both can coexist? what's the issue? Why does HN waste energy on pointless pissing contests?

Yep, both can coexist perfectly well, in fact rail + flight + water + cycling should be good enough to account for the vast majority of mobility requirements.

Those facilities can be much more modest and can scale up and down depending on location. Particularly for smaller short haul aircraft.

Maybe. But they can almost never be in places where people actually need to be; like central cities.

But possibly closer to where a lot of people live (towns and suburbs) and able to be more flexible to where they might want to go. Such as having direct flights to a coastal holiday destination rather than needing to connect through a city centre.

It's not about moving hundreds of people, it's about moving 30-100 people. Many places don't have the demand or physical possibility for a railway. If this wasn't the case there wouldn't be so many short distance flights.

> Many places don't have the demand or physical possibility for a railway.

This I don't get. I've seen rail stops in the smallest towns, where the train stops for 30 seconds to let a couple people on or off. Places where even the smallest airplane makes no sense at all. Not 30-100, 1-2.

Old lines which have some more riders on other stops I imagine. You only need to maintain the rail which has been laid 150+ years ago.

I work in rail, in the US. This is not true. The FRA mandated a massive upgrade to rail safety for passenger rail about a decade ago, pushed by Congress, and it's still filtering through (though mostly achieved).

That being said... federally supported rail is still far more economical than flight. It almost has to be: the train doesn't need to lift off the ground.

(Why is it in Star Wars' universe that every 2-bit peasant owns permanently levitating "cars", but can't afford adequate lighting in their hovel?)

How do you get a train from Vancouver to Victoria on the island?

But politically and financially it is very challenging to build new capacity in a lot of places.

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