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Comment by jasonkester | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if we'll ever get back to "High Speed Air" in my lifetime.

Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your flight left, jump on with minimal hassle, and cruise along at 600mph to your destination. Now, you need to endure two hours of having your fingernail clippers confiscated so that you can fly at 500mph to save on fuel costs.

That seems to be the true advantage of rail travel. As it said on the loudspeaker in Berlin HBF last time I was there: "Please try to arrive on the platform at least five minutes before your train is scheduled to depart."

Sadly, I bet the way we'll end up equalizing this will be that somebody will eventually bomb a TGV and we'll have to start doing the two hour confiscate-your-kids'-apple-juice routine at the train station too.

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That still exists outside the US. Last year I took a flight from germany to a conference in poland and strolled through the airport after checking in. I left the security zone by accident - simply walking through a pair of sliding doors which only open from one side - 10 minutes before departure.

But it wasn't a big problem, I simply went through the metal detector/xrays for hand luggage and arrived at the gate with time to spare. Someone before me in the line even asked if they had to take their shoes off, the security guy said "haha, no, this isn't america".

That's strange, I flew from Toronto to Budapest through Munich, and Munich was by far the strictest security I encountered. They made my take off my shoes and sweatshirt.

So it's maybe not "outside the US" just "in some places."

It's probably a domestic vs. international thing (where "domestic," within Europe, probably includes actual-domestic as well as other destinations inside the Schengen area). To a large degree, US requirements have infected international travel around the world -- you can't fly into the US from a terminal that allowed people that weren't held to approximately the US's standards.

No, the DHS enforces the ICAO standards for flights entering the US. For example, the press release regarding the Venezuela issue: http://www.tsa.gov/press/releases/2008/09/08/tsa-issues-advi...

>Under Title 49 of the U.S. Code, Section 44907, the Department of Homeland Security is required to assess security at foreign airports with direct service to the United States to determine compliance with standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The amount of screening varies a lot by airport and is wildly inconsistent.

I fly out of London Gatwick and Oslo Airport a lot, and have been seething at security staff there who keeps insisting on extra screening for my now 6 year old son. Last time he was crying and screaming his head off because he didn't understand why the lady insisted on patting him down.

A few years ago, one of the screeners looked almost panicked when he noticed that my sons shoes did not have solid heels (they were the kind that light up when you walk) - you could see him looking around frantically for someone before one of the other screeners noticed and explained to him what it was.

(on the other hand, I've repeatedly by accident taken bottles of liquids through in my carry on after failing to realise his mom has "helpfully" put in water or juice for him to have on the way to the airport, and they've not noticed even once - the liquid "ban" is a total joke)

Other places they'll wave you through without paying attention at all.

I had to unpack my entire backpack, every pocket, and camera equipment at Frankfurt (on a trip to Rome) not all that long ago because I had a summer sausage in my backpack. They weren't rude about it, but it was tighter security than I've gone through in the states.

as someone who has taken a few hundred flights outside the US in the last years: people get to take their shoes off quite often, but mostly boots and worker's shoes, not sneakers.

Sometimes they also ask you to take off a hoodie or such clothing, of course your belt, put your laptop separately from the rest, get an occasional pat down, and the liquid restrictions ("don't take that mysterious bottle in here, but your totally oscure laptop battery and the liquor we sell inside is ok"). Also, check in usually closes 45 minutes before departure so you _can_ do online checkin with most companies, but if you have luggage you still need to e at the airport one hour early.

Still, the american process is heavier, but nowhere I've been in europe and asia there is a process as simple as getting on a train (get there, jump on, leave).

EDIT: possibly it's a function of the airport traffic?

I'd say in Japan it's still train-wise in smoothness for domestic flights. They still sell tickets up to 30 minutes before the flight, tell you to be at the airport and have your luggage checked in 15 minutes before, and at the gate 10 minutes before departure. With no luggage there is no check in as long as you have a mileage card or a phone where you can show the 2D barcode. You can even bring liquids.

They don't event ask for a piece of ID.

It's just a pity that Narita is almost two hours and 30$ far from most parts of Tokyo...

It baffles me that the country famous for high speed trains never bothered to build one between the city where 1/4 of its people live and the airport that handles most of its international flights (and used to handle all of them). Skyliner is pretty fast but it's not a Shinkansen, and Narita Express is basically just an ordinary train.

Of course, it's also baffling that they built the airport so far away in the first place, but that's another story.

> Of course, it's also baffling that they built the airport so far away in the first place, but that's another story.

The Kanto plain suffers from a dearth of available flat land, even more so enough available flat land to build a major international airport (this being worsened by Japan's weak eminent domain and history of resistance to relocation, half a century later there are still families living on the site and farming in the middle of the runways: http://www.japansubculture.com/the-phantoms-of-narita-airpor...)

I think it's a function of the airport itself. I have been to Qatar and the security was as simple as sliding my bag in. I didn't have to remove my belt, watch, or phone.

Total time to pass security: 2 minutes.

Total time to pass immigration: 15 minutes. (depends on traffic).

I remember a friend who caught her flight just 10 minutes before gates closed. She made it.

Edit: HaHa. Forgot my local airport. I can get from the entry door, to the Airplane bus in 2 minutes (security + immigration + walking). It usually only have 1 or 2 flights per day and feels very friendly.

If you can get into the global traveler program, the us system can be very light and quick.

I've had to take my shoes off in many places in Europe and Asia. It's definitely not just a "US" thing.

That's a very unusual experience in Europe. Most large European airports are really no different than the US.

The security won't get blown out of proportion for trains like air, because while trains can do significant damage to themselves and surrounding buildings - you cant take one and crash it anywhere you like. 9/11 never would have happened with a train. A hijacked plane is a missile.

Trains still have an "end of the line." So, yes, you could if you were going fast enough.

Also aircraft security was too much even pre-9/11.

sure, but wasn't it in 1968 or something where there was basically 200 plane hijackings? I feel like there's good intentions at least

Even if you were going fast enough, you couldn't take one and crash it anywhere you like.

Into the platform at Grand Central, maybe. Into the WTC and Pentagon, not so much.

Some kind of automatically enforced speed limiter when the train detects that it's near the end of the line would probably not be hard to implement, or maybe has been already. IIRC many trains automatically slow for curvy areas of track.

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_train_control

You don't need anything that modern — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatische_treinbe%C3%AFnvlo... shows a 1950s electronic system which could reduce the speed to 40km/h. (Approaching a terminus stations counts as approaching a danger signal.)

> Trains still have an "end of the line." So, yes, you could if you were going fast enough.

You can overrun the buffer stop (happened last year at O'Hare, a blue line train overran its buffer stop and climbed up an elevator) but you're just going to go a bit past the buffer stop (relatively, most likely a fraction of the train length), at best you'll get just outside the station Montparnasse-style (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montparnasse_derailment). That's hardly a guided missile with complete freedom of movement in the same way a plane is.

You can't drive a train into the white house no matter how often you try, because there's no rail leading to it, or even ending in its general direction, which is anywhere near enough the white house for that to be a concern.

You can replace the buffer stop with an incline too steep to climb with the available traction at which point their best bet is derailment by going too fast around a turn. But again, with properly banked curves the trains simply can’t go fast enough for that to happen.

> You can replace the buffer stop with an incline too steep to climb

There generally isn't the room to plop down hills instead of buffer stops. Instead it's possible to use energy-absorbing buffer stops (rather than the traditional "hard" buffer stops), possibly with e.g. dowty retarders on the track beforehand to force specific speed ranges on incoming trains.

If a train hit the end of the line at London Paddington at full speed it would be absolute carnage, surely. Not a guided missile with freedom of movement, but it's already heading in the right direction.

Trains have automatic systems that engage the emergency brake if they ignore stops or go faster than allowed. They are not completely foolproof, but it's pretty hard to crash trains.

Not always:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela_rail_dis...

> Also aircraft security was too much even pre-9/11.

In 1998 I was able to walk onto a plane in Sydney and fly to Zurich and walk off while barely breaking stride (I only had carry-on luggage, and Swiss customs waved me through based on my passport being US).

Also it is easier to crash a train when you aren't on it. All you need is a sufficiently long prybar.

>Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your flight left

This still exists, for example Tegel airport in Berlin. Also, in the 70s there was waaaaaay less traffic in airports so it is simply not a fair comparison.

>Sadly, I bet the way we'll end up equalizing this will be that somebody will eventually bomb a TGV and we'll have to start doing the two hour confiscate-your-kids'-apple-juice routine at the train station too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Madrid_train_bombings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings

Internal flights in Japan are basically turn-up-and-go (and cheap too), and have only a little security.

So that's fascinating. Having no expertise whatsoever on the topic of domestic Japanese transportation my immediate response is "Strong competition from fast rail means that air travel is a superior experience"

It breaks my heart we don't have fast rail in the US. Even if it was just the North Eastern corridor (extended maybe to Chicago and Atlanta) it would have a huge impact on air travel. Of course the cost and final date to roll this out means it's probably not worth buying into.

Texas has a project of a high speed train between Houston and Dallas, it would link the 2 cities in 90mn (instead of 3:30h of driving, or 70mn of plane. So if you spend more 20mn more at the airport than at the rail station , the train would be faster. http://texascentral.com/the-facts/

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/T...

It's a privately own project, supposedly ready in 2021.

you can even bring your own bottled drinks/liquid on Japan domestic flights. they have a machine specifically for "scanning" drink/liquid. put your bottle on it, green light, then off you go. not sure how it works

There's a UK company in talks with the DoD on rolling these out for military use, and I'm sure they will expand to civilian airports eventually. I'm not sure if this is the same company, but they're doing the same thing: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/02/scanner-anal...

Something like:

    num_checks += 1                                                                                                                                                                                         
    if num_checks % 200000 == 0:                                                                                                                                                                            
        red_light()                                                                                                                                                                                         
    else:                                                                                                                                                                                                   
        green_light()

Almost certainly a spectral analyzer. Shine a light through it, see what the chemical signature is.

That certainly won't work for my aluminum water bottle. Granted, neither do X-rays, and yet I've never had it even questioned going through security.

I think we're assuming here that this machine isn't merely security theatre.

Yes, I was assuming a typical disposable transparent plastic or glass bottle. I have not seen the machine in question, so I am guessing, but it would be very easy to implement and cover the majority of cases.

I wasn't even asked to show my ID the last time I flew domestically in Japan.

Tegel is fairly unique because each gate has its own security checkpoint. It's definitely a bit less stressful.

Amsterdam Schiphol is like this, too, and yeah, it's great. I think for them it's because they're going for this combination airport/mall/mini-city vibe, and there are enough amenities that they want it to be attractive as a destination, even for people not flying, so they want to keep as much of the airport outside of security as possible.

I found it more stressful. The biggest place where delays are caused at an airport is at security, so when I arrive at an airport, this is the first thing I want to take care of, and cannot relax until I've passed through it.

To be told I cannot go through security until a few moments before the flight departs (because it is not even open, or the gate not even assigned) means that anything that does go wrong will cause me to miss my flight.

Not to mention the expense of having screening apparatus at every gate seems a little inefficient. It means everyone on the flight tries to cram through the one line at the same time, whereas if it were in advance, it could be spread out in time and over more lines.

We need to learn to live without frequent air travel just because it's energy inefficient. What we need to do is get better at going places while asleep (and trains are great for that). Telepresence means getting places in a hurry will be increasingly unimportant for most people.

Driverless cars will be an interesting phenomenon (and possibly a net increase in our energy use). People will start living in them, doing ridiculously long commutes, etc.

Back in the 70's air travel cost triple what it costs today, and there were many fewer people who could afford the ticket.

Thankfully, train do not have checked luggage and no practical technological way to introduce it (i.e. something that does not require to rebuild all the stations, most of them deep in the cities) - so there is a huge commercial imperative to tone down the security theater .

I hope at least, I don't want to be proven wrong on that one. Boarding the Eurostar for example, is definitively not a 5 min job, more like 1 hour the bad days, but at least you can still carry most of your stuff and considering you do not have 1 hour transit to the airport, it still beats the plane by a good 2 hours.

Eurostar is quite exceptional. They recommend 30 minutes.

There's a passport check, and a 30km undersea tunnel, which is probably considered a terrorist target. Knives, alcohol etc are permitted, but not compressed gas or liquid fuel. (I tried this once, on a camping trip.)

You can take an almost identical train from King's Cross to Glasgow, arriving 5 minutes before departure (or less, 2 is the minimum recommended time).

Just flew out of Boston this morning and was through security in under 5 minutes including the TSA pat-down due to opting out of the scanner. Watched a woman who I was with on the way to the airport make it through even faster as she got to security < 15 mins before departure.

In fact, the last several times I've flown security has generally been under 10 mins. SFO is typically the slowest and most highly variable for me, but at its worst I don't think has taken more than 20 mins. Some of the airports this is based on: RDU, MIA, LGA.

Flying out of Boston was nice the one time I did it. Security was fast and polite. I think I showed up with 35 minutes to spare and I just made it to my flight.

In the US we really don't have any rail alternative to flying. I'd love to know how European travellers thinks and weigh up rail (which seems relatively fast and efficient) vs flying. Do you think the two are interchangeable services? Is there a magical breaking point (more than 500km's distance etc) ?

I'll take the Eurostar from London to Paris even if it's slightly slower because it's just a nicer experience. But much further and I'll probably fly unless I'm making a point of taking a train for fun. The only other case would be if I'm taking a lot of luggage as that's much easier to do on a train. Back when I only had a big bulky laptop I might prefer a train to work on but these days my ultrabook is usable on a plane.

It just depends on the distance. Fro Zurich and Basel we take the train to Paris, Milan, Frankfurt, even Lille, but to go to Berlin, Hamburg, San Sebastián, we fly.

So 3 to 6 hours we take the train. More than that we tend to fly.

I can get a lot more work done on the train than flying.

> So 3 to 6 hours we take the train. More than that we tend to fly.

Yep. I could tolerate the longer travel times, but long distance train travel gets really expensive really quickly. For the price of a round-trip train ticket across Germany (Berlin to Cologne, around €100), I could also fly to London, Paris, Amsterdam, etc.

The budget airlines provide such a customer hostile experience that many people prefer trains. These are (England) sometimes awful, but mostly okay and can be nice.

Commuting tends to be worse than the occaisional train journey. The baffling fare structure drastically needs reform -- the same journey can either cost £27 or £72 -- these will be the same class on the same day, just different times. It's frustrating. I like the Virgin trains - I've only ever had an unfun experience on one when the aircon broke. I really hate GWS and I will try to avoid using them where possible, even using a coach would be better. (Virgin trains have power sockets; GWS don't; even a National Express coach has power sockets and free wifi)

> the same journey can either cost £27 or £72 -- these will be the same class on the same day, just different times.

Or just bought at different times. I recently saw a return train ticket for £50, the next day it was £90, the next back to £50. I bought it then so not sure what happened after that. Admittedly that example was travelling over easter but it's a consistent annoyance.

In France there's the issue of train lines basically starting and ending in Paris mean that flights are pretty quick cutting across the country (Lyon-Nantes for example).

But I think most people see domestic flights as a bother more than anything. The love for trains shows in the stats (second biggest per capita usage of trains after Japan), train stations are usually in the dead-center of town, and you don't have to deal with luggage limits.

> Is there a magical breaking point (more than 500km's distance etc) ?

For modern non-maglev high-speed train (>300km/h top speed), 1500~2000km is the limit assuming "severe" airport security. HST is very competitive up to ~1000km, then it tapers off as the faster plane speed compensates for the security measures and lack of comfort.

Of course price is also a big factor, and barebones budget airlines can provide stupid low prices.

When I used to fly from London to San Francisco regularly, I had everything down to a routine including the exact amount I could manage to squeeze into carry-on only so I could walk straight out at the destination. Despite that, it took me 16 hours door-to-door for an 11 hour flight. So even with a plane trip that long, about 1/3 of the total travel time was on the ground.

Of course that depends on your distance to the airport, but there train stations very often have a solid advantage. E.g. going from where I live in London to anywhere I'd like to actually go to in Paris via the Eurostar is faster because the train terminals on both ends are more conveniently located.

So the answer is "it depends" but unless you live much closer to the airport than the relevant train terminal it generally takes a quite long flight before air travel is faster. Even then, I will often prefer train if it is "only" a bit slower, because of perceived convenience and comfort (e.g. I'd easily pick one hour more on a train vs. 30 minutes shorter journey if the latter involves additional legs, such as getting off a plane and lugging my bags to a train or bus station to get in to town).

Rails is faster for a rail trip duration of up to 4 hours (no security, no lines, no checkin, plus you arrive right in the city centre). Which, depending on the route, comes to somewhere between 200 and 450 miles of distance.

As for me personally, I prefer to go by train even if it takes a little longer. Flying means most of the time spent is lost in queues and transit, whereas a train trip means a single long stretch of uninterrupted time, which is much more relaxing and/or productive.

In terms of price, it's usually pretty much the same. If you book ahead and get a good deal, a flight might actually be cheaper. On the other hand, if you need to travel a popular route on short notice, a flight will be outrageously expensive, whereas a train ticket costs the same even if booked 5 minutes before departure.

> Sadly, I bet the way we'll end up equalizing this will be that somebody will eventually bomb a TGV and we'll have to start doing the two hour confiscate-your-kids'-apple-juice routine at the train station too.

It would be easier to economically restructure passenger rail cars so that you had independent bomb resistant compartments. Trains have the disadvantage, in contrast with planes, that you can bomb the rails to wreck a train. However, they have the advantage of adding mass more economically. I suspect that we can eventually come up with good (though imperfect) countermeasures to rail sabotage as well. In any case, safeguarding the rails wouldn't impact boarding passengers as much.

Another thing to note is that it's just a lot harder to cause as much damage to a train. The deadliest Amtrak accidents involved collapsed bridges over water. Derailments or even head-on collisions almost always involve a dozen or less, often zero, fatalities.

Much of this is a function of potential and kinetic energy. High speed trains are going to have more kinetic energy, and therefore more potential for fatality.

Agreed, London City Airport has been the only saving grace - it's possible to breeze through there in 20 minutes IIRC.

Internal flights in Africa and Asia are pretty good in terms of time too . Some actually feel like train stations.

In Malaysia and Egypt it was just so swift. They didn't even care about my bottle of coke.

If you ever fly within New Zealand, you'll know how air travel should be. No security at all. (Self)Check in and go have a seat in the lounge area with nice couches that anyone has access to.

> Sadly, I bet the way we'll end up equalizing this will be that somebody will eventually bomb a TGV

Already happened, back in '82 Carlos the Jackal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_the_Jackal) bombed a TGV killing 5 and injuring 50.

Nothing since, it's not really worth it, you can bomb fixed locations and get more bang for your terror bucks.

SNCF actually prints on their tickets "try to arrive 2 minutes before the trains departs"

Pretty sure it's marketing though, the TGV can be veeery long sometimes, so it takes a while to walk to your assigned car.

EDIT: source: http://tgv.lu.voyages-sncf.com/fr/avant-depart

> Pretty sure it's marketing though, the TGV can be veeery long sometimes, so it takes a while to walk to your assigned car.

Each trainset is a single unit though, so you can just step in at the first car and walk through the train to your seat. The only "danger" is paired trainsets (16 cars), if you're in the further one you have to walk a whole trainset to reach your own train (and even then it's only 200m/660ft), if you're cutting it really close you can probably forego your assigned seat and use the first trainset (you may not get a seat at all though).

Yup, exactly, it's not comfortable, but still a possibility.

Not marketing, I've seen people being allowed to get on trains while the controllers where whistling for the train's departure.

I would like to see High Speed Rail replace most air traffic. I just read an article explaining how incredibly expensive air travel is for the climate, not to mention the cost to the passengers.

Air traffic increases greenhouse effect. Scientists measured noticeable temp drop over sky of US during the days after 9/11 attack with all jets grounded.

If you don't have bags and are checked in online, you can totally show up 20 minutes before a flight (just know the geometry of the place cause it might take a lot of walking/trams). I show up usually around 65 minutes before departure at SFO (international flight with checked bags); never had a problem.

> you can totally show up 20 minutes before a flight

I'm assuming you're talking about the scheduled boarding time, not departure time? Most airlines' contracts of carriage say that if you're not at the gate 15 minutes before departure, you'll be denied boarding.

EDIT: I guess it's not clear whether you meant "show up [at the airport]" or "show up [at the gate]".

>Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your flight left, jump on with minimal hassle, and cruise along at 600mph to your destination.

I basically did this from Tampa FL. I think I arrived at security for a domestic flight like 30 minutes prior to takeoff.

You can do that at Spokane Int'l (GEG). Flying is still an enormous hassle but at least GEG doesn't add much to the stress. Given a choice I'd take the ICE every time if we had such a thing here. Few hassles, comfortable seats, nice scenery out the windows. A little expensive but worth it to me.

> That seems to be the true advantage of rail travel

.... till some nut does something stupid, and then the whole security theater moves to railway stations.

I am on Hauptbahnhof at least 4 days a month, waiting, and have never heard this announcement. Neither in English nor in German.

Was it on top or bottom level?

Actually, come to think of it, out the bottom level then hail a cab to Berlin Zoo. And make sure it's ten years ago or they might have changed the recorded message :)

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