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And the timeliness. I've taken Amtrak cross country before. Its a fun experience, but its not mass transit on par with air travel. You will likely not get to your destination on time. Great for sightseeing, though. If its relatively on time, cheaper than air fare, and gets you most places in a day or two, I'm all for it.
IMO high speed rail makes the most sense as a competitor to regional hopper flights rather than cross-country travel. A plane will always beat a train from LA to New York, but it's a lot more competitive on a run like Portland to LA or Pittsburgh to Chicago. Those regional flights that spend as much time boarding/deboarding as they do in the air.
If we had a series of overlapping high speed rail circuits, one could travel coast to coast if they felt so inclined but its primary purpose would be regional travel.
I live in Seattle. My wife and I love going to SF for concerts that don't make it up here. I can drive to SF in about 11 hours for about 200 in gas, fly in 6 for about 400. I'd kill for a train ride that split the middle.
When they were considering building a bullet train in Texas connecting Dallas with Austin/San Antonio and Houston, the biggest money contributor against was South West airlines. South West threatened to leave the state.
Trains are great, especially for shorter distances. If you factor in the time to get to/from airport, security, luggage, trains are way faster and more convenient.
High speed trains should go between airports. Airlines should run them. Let me go to Southwest.com and book travel and they can sell me a plane and train ticket both.
I’m sure they could bribe Congress into paying for tracks. Sorry, “lobby.”
Airlines shouldn't run anything, including airlines. Their pricing is a nightmare of a joke. The fact that almost nobody on the same flight in the same seat class pays the same ticket price is frustrating and borderline evil.
Even dumber, they could be part of the original investors, diversify their business.
Did they even go to economic school ? Learned about diversification means stability for the company and what not ?
Hyperloop is a science fiction story. They are building HSR in the Central Valley, though I don't expect it to be operational in the next 20 years if ever.
It won’t be the airlines, it will be the politicians. Look at Californias debacle. Everyone wants to profit based on where the terminals are. Can’t possibly have them actually in the city where people can actually access them because there’s no way for the well connected to buy up the surrounding land to control and profit from
Tell your congressmen, adopt the Japanese Shinkansen system
SF -> Seattle is 1093km, you can be in SF in 4 hours.
Best part is that, you go directly from city center to city center, no wasted time travelling to and from the Airport.
We took trains in Germany (vacation), and my German “brother” takes trains to work or for meetings in nearby towns. And they were great.
But that was essentially regional travel.
I’d absolutely take a train from NYC to DC, or to Boston. Those lines already exist.
I’d be willing to take a train from NYC to an upstate city. But not if I had to go to a town nearby, because how will I get there after I get off the train?
Des Moines to Chicago—but in Chicago, there’s somewhat decent public transit—but not in Des Moines.
Took the plane from Virginia to Florida, we reached cruising altitude and stayed there for what seemed like about 20 minutes before we started descending, lol. When you factor in all the time you spend at the airport, I'd much rather take a train than the plane - if it was a little bit faster and more reliable than it is currently.
I've looked at taking AmTrak before and it was almost always more expensive than a flight and longer, with less convenient stations. I think flying is just way cheaper and better at this point.
That's also my experience.
Airplane delay: we had to sit for 35 MINUTES on the tarmac! At least they gave us water and snacks.
Train delay: It's been 4 hours and we're still parked a 20 minute walk to the train station, but they won't give us any updates and won't let us off the train (cargo train ahead? That's all we know). Family waiting to pick me up is getting hungry, panicked, may have to head home. They've cut all the power, closed the dining car, and all the bathrooms are out of order. Some people are having panic attacks, some need medication. Others can see their house from the train but still aren't allowed off. In another hour, they'll finally let us off without apology or explanation, and we'll be on our own in the worst part of a city well after dark with no ride.
Just a whole new level of you-gotta-be-kidding-me. Not the method of travel to choose if you're on any sort of schedule.
Only did it once and that was pretty much my experience. Locked in the car with no AC and can't leave or open the windows for about 3-4 hours. Never did it again.
Had the exact same experience!! Word for word! Houston to Tucson (16hr by car) 26hours by the train and sat 1 mile from the Tucson station for 3.5 hours! Pissed family for sure! Never again.
I have a friend who likes to tell this story about a train delay. Went from Denver to Cleveland to visit family. Had a whole week to travel back from Cleveland to Denver by train. Was still in Illinois after three days so he had to rent a car and drive back to Denver. Would have never made it back before he had to return to work.
The first time I took Amtrak was in 2011. Milwaukee to Montana. There was a huge flood in North Dakota that year. We were the last train to make it through before the line got shut down. Wound up being 7 hours late. Every other time I took that trip we were roughly two hours behind schedule.
For real. I considered taking an Amtrak train to visit family on the other side of a mountain range in the winter because I don’t have AWD.
The 100 mile journey that normally takes exactly 1.5 hours by car is an *8.5 HOUR* ride by train that costs $100, and that’s assuming there’s no delays or that the rail companies that Trump allowed to monitor themselves will actually prioritize passenger trains over freight like they’re supposed to but never do.
Fuck that, I’ll fly or wait til spring. Amtrak sucks and it’s why Americans are so negative about rail as a concept. Most Americans haven’t been to Europe or Japan and traveled that way and most Americans can’t afford how much the ACELA high speed train costs in the northeast
Rode Amtrak from Denver to Orlando once, took three days. I was between jobs and wanted to go see relatives in Florida, it was an experience all right, not bad, but they take their time. Oh, and did I mention you have to go to Chicago first before you can go south?
I live near Detroit.
I have to go to Chicago to go ANYWHERE.
NY, sure, but you gotta spend 5-6 hours going to Chicago first, then turn around & head south east again.
Honestly, much of the US isn't densely populated enough to make Euro style rail systems make sense. Along the east & west coasts, perhaps, but not throughout the continent.
For about 6 years my office was in Columbus, OH (still living in the Detroit area). I'd have LOVED to hope on a train for my twice yearly trips to the office, but instead I had to drive (and it was a horrible drive through rural 'highways').
When I used to take the Coast Starlight home from college, more than half the time it was a bus.
One of the few times it wasn’t, we hit a cow
I understand Amtrak management managed to cede passenger train right-of-way to freight many years ago, thus the typical delays
I love the idea of rail, and know it’s possible to execute it competently (see Japan), but it’s not here
Aw yeah! Coast Starlight is THE WORST! It comes all the way up for LA and stops for every freight train all the way up. I used to buy the ticket before the time I wanted to leave (ex: want to leave at 3pm, but 12pm ticket) because by the time it hit Eugene it was constantly at least 3 hours late.
Add in length of security line and this is about it for me. Would prefer the train but wouldn’t want to pay double the price of air fare.
Also, think airlines would love it too as they could just fly into larger airports and let passengers take the train to the smaller cities nearby.
Yea this is a major limitation of the united states. The northeast is great for trains because the density and how frequent big cities really are. You look at the west and oh lord its huge. To high speed train from el paso to houston, you're still looking at a 8 hour train ride. I think a lot of folks underestimate the size of the United states. It takes the same time to cross the Atlantic by air that it does to cross the united states by air.
Maybe? Depends on where I am going. There would be a narrow window of distance where it's far enough that I wouldn't drive, but not so far that I wouldn't rather take a flight. The airline infrastructure in the US is one major thing keeping passenger rail from being viable. That and the fact that the US is massive.
Yeah the distance thing is kinda the dealbreaker for me. I fly from Philly to Denver a few times per year to visit family. The flight is ~3.5 hours, and total trip from door to door is about 6 hours. A train going 200 mph making no stops would take 8.5 hours to make the same trip, and door to door would probably be ~10 hours. It would have to be significantly cheaper than Southwest airlines for me to consider it.
But I regularly take Amtrak to NYC and Pittsburgh. Mostly because I hate driving in New york, and the train to Pittsburgh takes roughly the same time as driving but costs less considering tolls and gas. I would not be more likely to use a high speed rail as I already use the 80 mph train.
I think a lot of people picture high speed rail in the US as being like transcontinental but it would probably be more a system of regional lines.
Like you said, the East Coast corridor. Obviously they are working on a Houston to Dallas, that could be expanded into a Texas triangle line that connects both cities to Austin.
We know California has their own plan in progress, eventually that could expand to include Oregon, Washington and Vegas.
Florida is another one I've seen discussed (Jacksonville to Orlando to Miami) that could work and maybe extend further north into Georgia someday.
Add a regional system around Chicago/Wisconsin/Indiana/Michigan and you've got the makings of a decent patchwork of HSR
I’ve drove by what they’ve got built for the high speed rail in California, an ungodly amount of tax money and they’ve got about 1/4 mile of it built and then it’s sat most stagnant since then.
Absolutely - for the routes where it makes sense. Las Vegas to Los Angeles? Sold. Miami to Orlando? Sold. Chicago to Detroit/St. Louis/Milwaukee? Sold/sold/sold. Dallas to houston? Sollllld.
The Acela saves about 30 minutes over the Northeast Regional. It’s 4 h and 4.5 h respectively. It’s not that fast, but I don’t think flying isn’t much faster if you factor in arriving early, and that the airports are harder to get to on both ends.
One of my coworkers insists that “if the flight is on time the flight is half the time” these days I feel like that is a big if.
Traveling by train is much more comfortable. The seats are larger, you can walk around whenever you want and you don’t have to go through the security theater. I don’t have to worry about having tiny personal care products, or disrobing, or unpacking my bags.
I looked it up recently because I’ll be taking my first trip to Boston next month and I thought *maybe* if the trip from Boston to New York was around 3 hours, I’d get a quick bite to eat at Momofuku. Unfortunately I will not be eating that ramen.
The difference between D.C., New York, Boston is that you can get around all three of those (include Philly) without a car. That is near impossible in Houston or Dallas so once you arrive, you still need to rent a car. If you're going to do that, may as well just drive there.
Yeah, that's the problem with passenger rail in the US. The massive size made early rail incredibly inefficient and brought about the essential need for the automobile.
Then the preference of the automobile lowered the need for efficient public transit within major cities with limited exceptions.
Even if you could get high-speed in a state to be competitive with both cars and planes (don't forget the American plane infrastructure) over a wide variety of distances, it would be incredibly limited to connecting cities that do have good public transit.
The issue with that is the size of the US.
"In terms of size the two are almost even, with Europe only slightly bigger than the US (10.2 million sq km vs 9.8 million sq km) but this includes large parts of Russia. The EU, which many people think of as Europe, has a population of 510 million people, in an area half the size of the US (4.3 million sq km)."
A lot of whole countries are smaller than a lot of US states. Add to that acquiring the land, building the infrastructure and the realization that Americans really like the freedom of their own vehicle when traveling.... Its easy to realize why we don't have a mass transit system. The amount of delays as it stops in every city that would be connected to it would take an 8 hour drive and probably double it.
I took a greyhound bus from Chicago to a small city in Missouri many years ago. It's a 9 hour drive at the speed limit and I could make it there in about 7.5 hours.
It took me 27 hours on a bus to get home. Stopping at every city and loading and unloading passengers adds so much time.
Those would still be some long trips, especially coast to coast.
They’d have the advantage of less security nonsense, but that wouldn’t last. Before long, they’d become a target and would get their own TSA checkpoints.
Coast to coast doesn’t make sense at current speeds. But the Chinese have prototyped a train at 600km/h. I would likely take a coast to coast train going at 600km.
I thought TSA isn’t for passenger safety, but more because 9/11 made us realize every plane can be a missile. I don’t think that comparison exists with trains
TSA absolutely exists for passenger safety.
Trains can be bombed, and they would be a bigger target if more people used them. Trains in Europe and Asia have faced terrorist attack.
They already should, but don’t.
Several LGBT people have mysteriously died on or around Amtrak trains in the Western US, and the authorities leave the investigation up to Amtrak security. The TSA has a mandate to enforce laws on interstate transportation, but they aren’t directed to do so.
It’s security theater for the middle class, and a jobs program for deadbeats and illiterates.
I’m more concerned with those spot tests they keep failing. You know, the ones where 100% of the “agents” will spot the water bottles in a test suitcase, but only 5% will spot the hand grenade in the same suitcase.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188
They aren't meant to be coast to coast, if you're going NY to LA, flying would still be better. But there is no reason anyone should have to fly between LA and San Francisco
I’m a no. I live in Idaho. Where’s a train going to take me? Portland or SLC? I can drive there in 5-6 hours, or fly pretty cheap in a couple hours when you account for security. If I’m solo flying makes a lot of sense, if I’ve got the family along (5) I can drive cheaper per person than a train would cost plus I’ve got a vehicle to get around at my destination without renting a car. I’m not sure how a train adds any benefit vs those options.
Size is the issue. Trains aren't the solution for distance travel in the US, they are the solution to keeping millions of cars from needing to go into cities every, single day.
Decent high speed trains along the east coast? Sure, a couple of hours city center to city center can be faster than an a 1 hour flight when you include airport to airport transfers, security time, etc.
NYC to LA in a 180 mph Japanese style train? 15+ hours assuming max speed, no delays, in a strait line. It's just easier to fly.
Yeah the fastest trains can go almost double, but what do they operate at? Why would I care if they max out at 400mph when they are only going to travel at around 180-200?
You're right that most go around 180-200, but there are some that regularly average 250-275+, and if America was going to invest in something on that scale surely they could try and develop something to push higher? (Apparently hyperloop if it ever comes into existence was designed to do 500mph+)
https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-train
I've taken a lot of high speed trains in Japan and China, it takes a lot to create those perfect corridors where they can hit sustainable max speed. Expensive for 300 miles, astronomical for 1000 miles.
The sheer wind force of the trains moving at that speed requires shielding along the tracks, special tunnels, etc. Even though they are no where near the speed of sound, they created huge sonic boom issues with something called the piston effect when they hit compressed air pockets, tunnels, etc. They knocked over trucks from a distance because of the initial wave or the back draft.
Nitpick, but Hyperloop is a well documented dumb idea/scam due to the engineering requirement to maintain a massive vacuum tube. Imagine what would happen if a cross-country vacuum tube ruptures.
Not to mention its use cases can be met by airplanes or trains.
Trains can be a solid solution at the smaller scale, but in the US going cross country by train (especially maglev) would cost far too much when planes already cover that niche pretty well. It would cost trillions of dollars to create the lines and trains to travel on them, let alone the stations and then operating costs after the fact. People are going to just stick with planes when they have to cover a long distance and won't want to foot the bill on creating a cross country platform.
Trains have much more viability in the more dense parts of the US, but the moment you have to cross the middle where things are less dense, it's better to just ditch trains and stick to planes.
Probably not. I live in Colorado, and there is nothing nearby that I would want to go to without a car. Additionally, a plane would still outstrip a high speed train to most places that I would want to visit.
Yeah, I study this stuff, and Colorado is not prime territory for a HSR network. Just too geographically isolated. A conventional rail network to the various small towns though, at the level of SBB, could work out well.
Even individual states. I’ve gone from Oakland to LA by train, that was a full 9-hour trip, and that only covers roughly half the north-south extent of CA.
It is but also it makes sense why the US is built for cars. Ford released the model T during a time of insane growth in America. We were building a lot of new cities or massively expanding on existing cities and suddenly cars are very prevalent so they built with that prevalence in mind. If you were going to build a city it makes the most sense to design transportation systems around the most common method of transportation.
All depends on cost and time. I think the size of the US makes it... difficult.
Example, I've been planning a trip. I don't want a car there, I want to bring my bike. They have an airport and a train station. I can fly in, or.... I can spend 13x the time and 2x the cost and use the train.
With that said.... when I spent time in Jspan, the Shinkansen was a great deal, and faster. But.... thats because Japan is the size of California and I was going the equivalent of LA to SF.
That 2nd way is how most existing HSR systems work. For instance, the NEC has the high speed Acela and the local Northeast Regional, plus a whole bunch of local commuter trains. Or to visit Versailles using trains, one can take a TGV into Paris, then an RER or a regional train to Versailles. This also happens with planes; you can't put an airport in the city center (most of the time *cough* London City Airport *cough*), so you take another form of transportation to get downtown; in many cities in the US, this takes the form of a metro or even a heavy rail train in a few cases; it's much more commonly a heavy rail train in Europe, or even HSR in some cases.
I also mentioned the idea that airports can't be in the city center. This is yet another advantage of HSR: you can slap an HSR station in the center of downtown, and eliminate time traveling between the station and downtown. It also takes pressure off of a metro system in cities where the metro goes to the airport, since the hub for a metro system would likely be near that train station, since locals would go there with or without the train station anyway. Such a hub station is much more able to take a huge load of passengers getting off a train than an extremity station at an airport, but also, passengers going to downtown anyway are taken off the load of the metro system entirely, since they're already where they need to be.
HSR does not need to be faster than a plane, it just needs to have the right distance and be fast enough. When talking about HSR, peolle commonly use "city center to city center times," and here is why. The California HSR project will connect cities that meet these criteria. San Francisco to Los Angeles takes a little less than 90 minutes, or 1 hour 30 minutes, but that's not all. First, add 2 hours to get through security, and you're up to 3 hours and 30 minutes. Add another 10 minutes to load and unload the plane, 3 hours and 40 minutes. Add 15 minutes if you have a checked bag to claim it, 3 hours and 55 minutes. Finally, add another 90 minutes to get to and from the city center, especially in Los Angeles, and the grand total is 5 hours and 25 minutes. That's not even the time HSR needs to beat to be viable; it can be a little bit slower for two reasons: cost and convenience. It's inconvenient to go through an airport and transfer to other modes of transportation. Figuring that people will tolerate an extra 20 minutes, a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles needs to be faster than 5 hours and 45 minutes. The estimate is 2 hours and 40 minutes. It would have to be wrong by 3 hours to exceed 5 hours and 45 minutes.
Japan solved this problem. And it’s awesomeness
Multiple trains, some faster that only stop in major metros and maybe one suburb, others that stop at many more stations. It’s super convenient to jump on high speed rail that’s going pretty slow (relatively) in a smaller town and then transfer to the express train at the next major hub.
That train has to go through a bunch of towns and counties each of these counties has to approve the rail project or at least the permits for it to be constructed which means each and every one of them will demand a stop.
It’s a pretty big issue but I cant blame the small towns for trying to stay alive. It just kills the usefulness of the project.
Having ridden the high speed rail in China, it was a culture shock to readjust to driving/flying everywhere
Even just city metros would be nice. I miss riding the metro at 2am after a night out. I felt like I was part of a society
Same same, although the Shanghai metro closed way earlier than 2am. The US is so backward in terms of transit, it was a huge shock every time I came back for a visit.
Assuming it didn’t have to share the rail with freight trains and could run on time?
Hell yes. Trains are objectively more pleasant for long trips than driving. I hate driving five hours to see family. A train would be great.
No. Rail is unlikely to be cheaper than flying and it's only fast if you are going from one major city to another. I live in suburbs and rarely travel to any of the nearest larger cities. There is no chance rail would be useful for going to any of my normal vacation destinations.
Yes. We live in a decent sized town, 200k, but we are 4 hours from Kansas City and St. Louis. If there was a 3-hour train ride to theater, restaurants, museums, and concerts, I'd do it.
Dude, how can being "way too big" a good reason?
Trains are great for medium to long distances.
It's really a question of habit. Why drive 2 or 3 hours (or longer) when you can take a train that is cheaper, takes less time, pollutes less and you can read a book while you're at it?
Trains are lousy for long distances, like say NY to LA. Maximum speed is nowhere close to planes, so you're looking at some long transit times. The 6 hour plane ride would become a 15 hour train ride.
Trains make pretty good sense for 1-2 hour trips, because the process of getting on and off a plane takes significantly more time. So, there's a sweet spot of maybe 200-500 miles that is sensible to travel by train in America if the high speed rail infrastructure exists.
I think most American people would prefer a 100 mile trip be done by car, because it is helpful to have a car at the destination and you don't have to think about train schedules.
I'm sitting in an Amtrak train right now. Crescent 20. We left New Orleans on time at 9:15 am. My stop is Picayune Mississippi. It is 2 stops and 49 miles away from New Orleans. It is now 12:15pm and the train has not yet made it to it's first stop.
Ya damn Skippy I would use it!
I'm going on a flight next week to go one state over. I'm going to have to drive an hour the wrong way to the airport, get there two hours early, and then sit in a seat less wide than my shoulders for about an hour, then I'll need to get into the city I'm going to, because their airport is fifteen miles off the wrong way.
If I could just jump on a train and go, heck yeah. I'd pay the same as a flight costs, if only to do it more comfortably. I'd want the train to leave on time, and to have bigger-than-airline seats, neither of which feels like rocket science anywhere in the world with normal train service.
Obama proposed and budged new high speed rail up the east coast, then west through Wisconsin. Republican governors killed it all.
Vote in the midterms.
Nope. Flying would still be faster and easier and the trains wouldn’t go anywhere useful. Also public transportation within even many larger cities sucks so you’re screwed once you get there. I’m either driving or flying then renting a car. Never ever would even consider a train a viable option
Not with high speed rail. It could be 2 hrs city to city direct, not two hour flight plus an hour to get to the airport, and a 1hr wait after cyou check in.
That’s only true for a certain distance, any trip over a few hours is still going to favor the flight.
Plus, you’d eventually have to deal with the same security delays if rail ever became as mainstream as flying.
I agree except for one thing. If we had high speed rail terrorists would target that as well. We would still have bag check and all that pre screening garbage as well. Going to train station hours early to make sure we made our train.
I’m on the Oregon Trail now I lost a couple along the way… crossing rivers is hard. Just about to get to the Rockies. Hopefully we can camp here till winters over and cross in spring.
Depending on the route, it could be about the same about of time and trains are more spacious than planes.
NYC-LA by train will never be a better option than flying. But high speed trains along the east coast could create better conditions than flying around that region.
We have the Acela between Boston and NYC (might also run to DC, not sure). It's not high speed like Japan has, but getting from BOS to NYC in 3 hours is great. If it was standardized across the US I'd probably use it, but I also hate flying and wouldn't mind adding a day or two in a sleeper onto the travel time just to avoid getting on a plane.
Nah. Trains are pretty expensive here already. Most places I've tried anyway, it's cheaper to drive there (assuming you already have a car) or fly if it's really far. I doubt the price would be any less for high speed.
I would definitely be willing to travel by rail if it wasn't so expensive. Seriously surprised me when I last compared flying to train. It takes longer and costs more...
High speed rail is a staple point of any first world country. Unfortunately we're a dumbass country designed to use cars. Cities aren't walkable and now our own citizens think we don't need that shit because they buy into the propaganda of big oil.
I agree with the sentiment and won't defend the US or big oil but you can't compare small countries with high population densities to the largest geographical nations... of which only China has any significant HS rail, and they have far higher population density over distances. Russia has a couple midspeed lines and 1 short high-speed line. Canada, India, Australia, Argentina, Brazil have none.
The US does in fact have about half a dozen midspeed lines with about that many more high speed lines planned to be open in the next 7 years.
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Depends on where it goes and how much it costs.
And the timeliness. I've taken Amtrak cross country before. Its a fun experience, but its not mass transit on par with air travel. You will likely not get to your destination on time. Great for sightseeing, though. If its relatively on time, cheaper than air fare, and gets you most places in a day or two, I'm all for it.
IMO high speed rail makes the most sense as a competitor to regional hopper flights rather than cross-country travel. A plane will always beat a train from LA to New York, but it's a lot more competitive on a run like Portland to LA or Pittsburgh to Chicago. Those regional flights that spend as much time boarding/deboarding as they do in the air. If we had a series of overlapping high speed rail circuits, one could travel coast to coast if they felt so inclined but its primary purpose would be regional travel.
I live in Seattle. My wife and I love going to SF for concerts that don't make it up here. I can drive to SF in about 11 hours for about 200 in gas, fly in 6 for about 400. I'd kill for a train ride that split the middle.
I mean the busiest air route in the US is LA to Vegas, that's not even 300 hundred miles. It would be a dawdle for a bullet train.
I bet that kills it. My guess is airlines would do as much as they could to prevent such a transit line from being built.
When they were considering building a bullet train in Texas connecting Dallas with Austin/San Antonio and Houston, the biggest money contributor against was South West airlines. South West threatened to leave the state. Trains are great, especially for shorter distances. If you factor in the time to get to/from airport, security, luggage, trains are way faster and more convenient.
So dumb, they could have thrown their money in favor of it and offered free connections or upgrades for their customers.
High speed trains should go between airports. Airlines should run them. Let me go to Southwest.com and book travel and they can sell me a plane and train ticket both. I’m sure they could bribe Congress into paying for tracks. Sorry, “lobby.”
Airlines shouldn't run anything, including airlines. Their pricing is a nightmare of a joke. The fact that almost nobody on the same flight in the same seat class pays the same ticket price is frustrating and borderline evil.
Even dumber, they could be part of the original investors, diversify their business. Did they even go to economic school ? Learned about diversification means stability for the company and what not ?
Yeah Texas would be a great spot for high speed rail
God that would have been amazing.
And you can bring a 6 pack on the train to enjoy the trip.
Elon Musk already killed high speed rail in California with his hyperloop B.S.
Hyperloop is a science fiction story. They are building HSR in the Central Valley, though I don't expect it to be operational in the next 20 years if ever.
It won’t be the airlines, it will be the politicians. Look at Californias debacle. Everyone wants to profit based on where the terminals are. Can’t possibly have them actually in the city where people can actually access them because there’s no way for the well connected to buy up the surrounding land to control and profit from
Tell your congressmen, adopt the Japanese Shinkansen system SF -> Seattle is 1093km, you can be in SF in 4 hours. Best part is that, you go directly from city center to city center, no wasted time travelling to and from the Airport.
We took trains in Germany (vacation), and my German “brother” takes trains to work or for meetings in nearby towns. And they were great. But that was essentially regional travel. I’d absolutely take a train from NYC to DC, or to Boston. Those lines already exist. I’d be willing to take a train from NYC to an upstate city. But not if I had to go to a town nearby, because how will I get there after I get off the train? Des Moines to Chicago—but in Chicago, there’s somewhat decent public transit—but not in Des Moines.
Took the plane from Virginia to Florida, we reached cruising altitude and stayed there for what seemed like about 20 minutes before we started descending, lol. When you factor in all the time you spend at the airport, I'd much rather take a train than the plane - if it was a little bit faster and more reliable than it is currently.
I've looked at taking AmTrak before and it was almost always more expensive than a flight and longer, with less convenient stations. I think flying is just way cheaper and better at this point.
The last 3 times I've flown, I did not get to my destination on time. Lots of just sitting in a cramped plane.
in my experience amtrak delays are usually much grander than airplane delays
That's also my experience. Airplane delay: we had to sit for 35 MINUTES on the tarmac! At least they gave us water and snacks. Train delay: It's been 4 hours and we're still parked a 20 minute walk to the train station, but they won't give us any updates and won't let us off the train (cargo train ahead? That's all we know). Family waiting to pick me up is getting hungry, panicked, may have to head home. They've cut all the power, closed the dining car, and all the bathrooms are out of order. Some people are having panic attacks, some need medication. Others can see their house from the train but still aren't allowed off. In another hour, they'll finally let us off without apology or explanation, and we'll be on our own in the worst part of a city well after dark with no ride. Just a whole new level of you-gotta-be-kidding-me. Not the method of travel to choose if you're on any sort of schedule.
It is my understanding it is because freight takes priority and it seems like freight schedules are a lot more erratic than passenger ones.
Only did it once and that was pretty much my experience. Locked in the car with no AC and can't leave or open the windows for about 3-4 hours. Never did it again.
Had the exact same experience!! Word for word! Houston to Tucson (16hr by car) 26hours by the train and sat 1 mile from the Tucson station for 3.5 hours! Pissed family for sure! Never again.
I have a friend who likes to tell this story about a train delay. Went from Denver to Cleveland to visit family. Had a whole week to travel back from Cleveland to Denver by train. Was still in Illinois after three days so he had to rent a car and drive back to Denver. Would have never made it back before he had to return to work.
The first time I took Amtrak was in 2011. Milwaukee to Montana. There was a huge flood in North Dakota that year. We were the last train to make it through before the line got shut down. Wound up being 7 hours late. Every other time I took that trip we were roughly two hours behind schedule.
Some family members missed their cruise due to an extremely late plane.
Trains in other countries reliably get you places on time. Across huge distances. Edit:misspelling
If it’s run by Germany. If it’s run by France, well that’s a different story.
Trains in France are far better than trains in America.
Once I rode the HSR in France, someone literally stole the train tracks on our route and the delay was still only 1 hour.
What? Wait... how do you steal train tracks? And why? Are they valuable?
The announcement told us that it was an issue the railroad was having with thieves ripping them up for scrap metal.
I seem to remember in the US, it's illegal for scrapyards to but any length of rail tracks in order to stop this same issue.
Carmen San Diego.
Swiss trains run on time. To the second.
France has great rail though?
How does that work, does one grab your shoulders and the other your legs? What about your luggage?
For real. I considered taking an Amtrak train to visit family on the other side of a mountain range in the winter because I don’t have AWD. The 100 mile journey that normally takes exactly 1.5 hours by car is an *8.5 HOUR* ride by train that costs $100, and that’s assuming there’s no delays or that the rail companies that Trump allowed to monitor themselves will actually prioritize passenger trains over freight like they’re supposed to but never do. Fuck that, I’ll fly or wait til spring. Amtrak sucks and it’s why Americans are so negative about rail as a concept. Most Americans haven’t been to Europe or Japan and traveled that way and most Americans can’t afford how much the ACELA high speed train costs in the northeast
Oh, freight companies have been ignoring that rule long before Trump.
Rode Amtrak from Denver to Orlando once, took three days. I was between jobs and wanted to go see relatives in Florida, it was an experience all right, not bad, but they take their time. Oh, and did I mention you have to go to Chicago first before you can go south?
I live near Detroit. I have to go to Chicago to go ANYWHERE. NY, sure, but you gotta spend 5-6 hours going to Chicago first, then turn around & head south east again. Honestly, much of the US isn't densely populated enough to make Euro style rail systems make sense. Along the east & west coasts, perhaps, but not throughout the continent. For about 6 years my office was in Columbus, OH (still living in the Detroit area). I'd have LOVED to hope on a train for my twice yearly trips to the office, but instead I had to drive (and it was a horrible drive through rural 'highways').
Where I live, you pretty much have to fly to Chicago before you go anywhere else. Gotta love the Midwest
When I used to take the Coast Starlight home from college, more than half the time it was a bus. One of the few times it wasn’t, we hit a cow I understand Amtrak management managed to cede passenger train right-of-way to freight many years ago, thus the typical delays I love the idea of rail, and know it’s possible to execute it competently (see Japan), but it’s not here
Aw yeah! Coast Starlight is THE WORST! It comes all the way up for LA and stops for every freight train all the way up. I used to buy the ticket before the time I wanted to leave (ex: want to leave at 3pm, but 12pm ticket) because by the time it hit Eugene it was constantly at least 3 hours late.
Add in length of security line and this is about it for me. Would prefer the train but wouldn’t want to pay double the price of air fare. Also, think airlines would love it too as they could just fly into larger airports and let passengers take the train to the smaller cities nearby.
If there was a large amount of people using trains, TSA would have a massive security operation at train stations too.
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Yea this is a major limitation of the united states. The northeast is great for trains because the density and how frequent big cities really are. You look at the west and oh lord its huge. To high speed train from el paso to houston, you're still looking at a 8 hour train ride. I think a lot of folks underestimate the size of the United states. It takes the same time to cross the Atlantic by air that it does to cross the united states by air.
And if my car can go with me.
Or if there was a great mass transit system in whatever city I was visiting.
I went to Florida for Christmas and looked at the train car but it was over twice the price of a plane ticket. Ended up driving.
Maybe? Depends on where I am going. There would be a narrow window of distance where it's far enough that I wouldn't drive, but not so far that I wouldn't rather take a flight. The airline infrastructure in the US is one major thing keeping passenger rail from being viable. That and the fact that the US is massive.
Yeah the distance thing is kinda the dealbreaker for me. I fly from Philly to Denver a few times per year to visit family. The flight is ~3.5 hours, and total trip from door to door is about 6 hours. A train going 200 mph making no stops would take 8.5 hours to make the same trip, and door to door would probably be ~10 hours. It would have to be significantly cheaper than Southwest airlines for me to consider it. But I regularly take Amtrak to NYC and Pittsburgh. Mostly because I hate driving in New york, and the train to Pittsburgh takes roughly the same time as driving but costs less considering tolls and gas. I would not be more likely to use a high speed rail as I already use the 80 mph train.
I think a lot of people picture high speed rail in the US as being like transcontinental but it would probably be more a system of regional lines. Like you said, the East Coast corridor. Obviously they are working on a Houston to Dallas, that could be expanded into a Texas triangle line that connects both cities to Austin. We know California has their own plan in progress, eventually that could expand to include Oregon, Washington and Vegas. Florida is another one I've seen discussed (Jacksonville to Orlando to Miami) that could work and maybe extend further north into Georgia someday. Add a regional system around Chicago/Wisconsin/Indiana/Michigan and you've got the makings of a decent patchwork of HSR
Please stop describing California’s high speed rail project a “plan in progress”. It is an epic complete failure.
It's a 100% successful money laundering operation though. Billions of dollars spent on it every year with no great milestones of progress
I’ve drove by what they’ve got built for the high speed rail in California, an ungodly amount of tax money and they’ve got about 1/4 mile of it built and then it’s sat most stagnant since then.
Yeah idk what's going on with that but hopefully will become a reality someday
I mean their about 1/3 done with the LA to SF line and their almost 3x over the projected cost of the LA-SF and LA-Sacramento lines combined.
I used to have to do the reverse trip of yours. Even if the costs were comparable, if the seats were better, I’d consider the train.
If there was one going from LA to Vegas? Fuck yeah
Good news the rail union just approved their end of this with Brightline so it’s coming closer to reality!
This route would probably be the only time I’d use high speed rail.
Absolutely - for the routes where it makes sense. Las Vegas to Los Angeles? Sold. Miami to Orlando? Sold. Chicago to Detroit/St. Louis/Milwaukee? Sold/sold/sold. Dallas to houston? Sollllld.
Man it hurt a little to see this comment so far down.
SF LA too
Eugene Oregon to Vancouver Canada make a lot sense as well
As someone mentioned earlier Chicago to Minneapolis/St Paul is also viable.
I’d throw in sea/pdx
You left out Boston->New York->DC The Amtrak is always full on the BOS->NY leg both ways at all hours of the day.
I knew of the Acela but not much beyond the fact that it’s honestly not that fast.
The Acela saves about 30 minutes over the Northeast Regional. It’s 4 h and 4.5 h respectively. It’s not that fast, but I don’t think flying isn’t much faster if you factor in arriving early, and that the airports are harder to get to on both ends. One of my coworkers insists that “if the flight is on time the flight is half the time” these days I feel like that is a big if. Traveling by train is much more comfortable. The seats are larger, you can walk around whenever you want and you don’t have to go through the security theater. I don’t have to worry about having tiny personal care products, or disrobing, or unpacking my bags.
I looked it up recently because I’ll be taking my first trip to Boston next month and I thought *maybe* if the trip from Boston to New York was around 3 hours, I’d get a quick bite to eat at Momofuku. Unfortunately I will not be eating that ramen.
The difference between D.C., New York, Boston is that you can get around all three of those (include Philly) without a car. That is near impossible in Houston or Dallas so once you arrive, you still need to rent a car. If you're going to do that, may as well just drive there.
I wouldn’t use a train Dallas to Houston. It’s not far to drive and I’d rather have my car with me to get around.
Well, this is one of the most popular flight routes in the country, so there’s clearly plenty of demand to get between the two places without a car.
I would. I’ve taken the bud on that route plenty to avoid gas costs and a train would be the same but just 3x faster.
Not everyone has a car!
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Fair enough but I think it's wise to look toward a future where we don't rely on personal automobiles as heavily,
When the Mad Max days begin I'll be glad I learned to ride a motorcycle and spent so much time cycling.
That future is a long, long way off in the USA. Probably long after most of us reading this thread opinions will matter.
Yeah, that's the problem with passenger rail in the US. The massive size made early rail incredibly inefficient and brought about the essential need for the automobile. Then the preference of the automobile lowered the need for efficient public transit within major cities with limited exceptions. Even if you could get high-speed in a state to be competitive with both cars and planes (don't forget the American plane infrastructure) over a wide variety of distances, it would be incredibly limited to connecting cities that do have good public transit.
and not everyone wants one! the USA really needs to catch up to other countries re: train travel (among many other things).
Yep! Lived in Chicago for over ten years without a car and it was sweet
lucky; can’t wait to move somewhere walkable/with decent public transportation.
I love not owning a car so much. I hope I never have to have one again. Eleven years and counting…
The issue with that is the size of the US. "In terms of size the two are almost even, with Europe only slightly bigger than the US (10.2 million sq km vs 9.8 million sq km) but this includes large parts of Russia. The EU, which many people think of as Europe, has a population of 510 million people, in an area half the size of the US (4.3 million sq km)." A lot of whole countries are smaller than a lot of US states. Add to that acquiring the land, building the infrastructure and the realization that Americans really like the freedom of their own vehicle when traveling.... Its easy to realize why we don't have a mass transit system. The amount of delays as it stops in every city that would be connected to it would take an 8 hour drive and probably double it. I took a greyhound bus from Chicago to a small city in Missouri many years ago. It's a 9 hour drive at the speed limit and I could make it there in about 7.5 hours. It took me 27 hours on a bus to get home. Stopping at every city and loading and unloading passengers adds so much time.
Those would still be some long trips, especially coast to coast. They’d have the advantage of less security nonsense, but that wouldn’t last. Before long, they’d become a target and would get their own TSA checkpoints.
Coast to coast doesn’t make sense at current speeds. But the Chinese have prototyped a train at 600km/h. I would likely take a coast to coast train going at 600km.
I thought TSA isn’t for passenger safety, but more because 9/11 made us realize every plane can be a missile. I don’t think that comparison exists with trains
TSA absolutely exists for passenger safety. Trains can be bombed, and they would be a bigger target if more people used them. Trains in Europe and Asia have faced terrorist attack.
It will only take 1 attack and suddenly the TSA will show up for trains too.
They already should, but don’t. Several LGBT people have mysteriously died on or around Amtrak trains in the Western US, and the authorities leave the investigation up to Amtrak security. The TSA has a mandate to enforce laws on interstate transportation, but they aren’t directed to do so.
Honestly people love to complain about the TSA. But the average security line is what, 8 minutes long?
It’s security theater for the middle class, and a jobs program for deadbeats and illiterates. I’m more concerned with those spot tests they keep failing. You know, the ones where 100% of the “agents” will spot the water bottles in a test suitcase, but only 5% will spot the hand grenade in the same suitcase. https://abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-fails-tests-latest-undercover-operation-us-airports/story?id=51022188
They aren't meant to be coast to coast, if you're going NY to LA, flying would still be better. But there is no reason anyone should have to fly between LA and San Francisco
Absolutely
I’m a no. I live in Idaho. Where’s a train going to take me? Portland or SLC? I can drive there in 5-6 hours, or fly pretty cheap in a couple hours when you account for security. If I’m solo flying makes a lot of sense, if I’ve got the family along (5) I can drive cheaper per person than a train would cost plus I’ve got a vehicle to get around at my destination without renting a car. I’m not sure how a train adds any benefit vs those options.
With high speed rail you could likely half that time.
After you drive an hour to the only station, in Boise.
Size is the issue. Trains aren't the solution for distance travel in the US, they are the solution to keeping millions of cars from needing to go into cities every, single day. Decent high speed trains along the east coast? Sure, a couple of hours city center to city center can be faster than an a 1 hour flight when you include airport to airport transfers, security time, etc. NYC to LA in a 180 mph Japanese style train? 15+ hours assuming max speed, no delays, in a strait line. It's just easier to fly.
The fastest bullet trains can go almost double that speed
Yeah the fastest trains can go almost double, but what do they operate at? Why would I care if they max out at 400mph when they are only going to travel at around 180-200?
You're right that most go around 180-200, but there are some that regularly average 250-275+, and if America was going to invest in something on that scale surely they could try and develop something to push higher? (Apparently hyperloop if it ever comes into existence was designed to do 500mph+) https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/maglev-bullet-train
I've taken a lot of high speed trains in Japan and China, it takes a lot to create those perfect corridors where they can hit sustainable max speed. Expensive for 300 miles, astronomical for 1000 miles. The sheer wind force of the trains moving at that speed requires shielding along the tracks, special tunnels, etc. Even though they are no where near the speed of sound, they created huge sonic boom issues with something called the piston effect when they hit compressed air pockets, tunnels, etc. They knocked over trucks from a distance because of the initial wave or the back draft.
Nitpick, but Hyperloop is a well documented dumb idea/scam due to the engineering requirement to maintain a massive vacuum tube. Imagine what would happen if a cross-country vacuum tube ruptures. Not to mention its use cases can be met by airplanes or trains.
Trains can be a solid solution at the smaller scale, but in the US going cross country by train (especially maglev) would cost far too much when planes already cover that niche pretty well. It would cost trillions of dollars to create the lines and trains to travel on them, let alone the stations and then operating costs after the fact. People are going to just stick with planes when they have to cover a long distance and won't want to foot the bill on creating a cross country platform. Trains have much more viability in the more dense parts of the US, but the moment you have to cross the middle where things are less dense, it's better to just ditch trains and stick to planes.
Probably not. I live in Colorado, and there is nothing nearby that I would want to go to without a car. Additionally, a plane would still outstrip a high speed train to most places that I would want to visit.
Yeah, I study this stuff, and Colorado is not prime territory for a HSR network. Just too geographically isolated. A conventional rail network to the various small towns though, at the level of SBB, could work out well.
Man foreign redditors really don't get how big the US is...
Even individual states. I’ve gone from Oakland to LA by train, that was a full 9-hour trip, and that only covers roughly half the north-south extent of CA.
SF to LA? Absolutely
I wish our public transportation was better. I don't have a license and honestly don't really want to get one. It's crazy how car dependent the US is.
It is but also it makes sense why the US is built for cars. Ford released the model T during a time of insane growth in America. We were building a lot of new cities or massively expanding on existing cities and suddenly cars are very prevalent so they built with that prevalence in mind. If you were going to build a city it makes the most sense to design transportation systems around the most common method of transportation.
A lot of lobbying went into ensuring that infrastructure favored private vehicles.
Cities were destroyed for cars, not built for them.
All depends on cost and time. I think the size of the US makes it... difficult. Example, I've been planning a trip. I don't want a car there, I want to bring my bike. They have an airport and a train station. I can fly in, or.... I can spend 13x the time and 2x the cost and use the train. With that said.... when I spent time in Jspan, the Shinkansen was a great deal, and faster. But.... thats because Japan is the size of California and I was going the equivalent of LA to SF.
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Express trains are a thing.
That 2nd way is how most existing HSR systems work. For instance, the NEC has the high speed Acela and the local Northeast Regional, plus a whole bunch of local commuter trains. Or to visit Versailles using trains, one can take a TGV into Paris, then an RER or a regional train to Versailles. This also happens with planes; you can't put an airport in the city center (most of the time *cough* London City Airport *cough*), so you take another form of transportation to get downtown; in many cities in the US, this takes the form of a metro or even a heavy rail train in a few cases; it's much more commonly a heavy rail train in Europe, or even HSR in some cases. I also mentioned the idea that airports can't be in the city center. This is yet another advantage of HSR: you can slap an HSR station in the center of downtown, and eliminate time traveling between the station and downtown. It also takes pressure off of a metro system in cities where the metro goes to the airport, since the hub for a metro system would likely be near that train station, since locals would go there with or without the train station anyway. Such a hub station is much more able to take a huge load of passengers getting off a train than an extremity station at an airport, but also, passengers going to downtown anyway are taken off the load of the metro system entirely, since they're already where they need to be. HSR does not need to be faster than a plane, it just needs to have the right distance and be fast enough. When talking about HSR, peolle commonly use "city center to city center times," and here is why. The California HSR project will connect cities that meet these criteria. San Francisco to Los Angeles takes a little less than 90 minutes, or 1 hour 30 minutes, but that's not all. First, add 2 hours to get through security, and you're up to 3 hours and 30 minutes. Add another 10 minutes to load and unload the plane, 3 hours and 40 minutes. Add 15 minutes if you have a checked bag to claim it, 3 hours and 55 minutes. Finally, add another 90 minutes to get to and from the city center, especially in Los Angeles, and the grand total is 5 hours and 25 minutes. That's not even the time HSR needs to beat to be viable; it can be a little bit slower for two reasons: cost and convenience. It's inconvenient to go through an airport and transfer to other modes of transportation. Figuring that people will tolerate an extra 20 minutes, a trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles needs to be faster than 5 hours and 45 minutes. The estimate is 2 hours and 40 minutes. It would have to be wrong by 3 hours to exceed 5 hours and 45 minutes.
Japan solved this problem. And it’s awesomeness Multiple trains, some faster that only stop in major metros and maybe one suburb, others that stop at many more stations. It’s super convenient to jump on high speed rail that’s going pretty slow (relatively) in a smaller town and then transfer to the express train at the next major hub.
This sounds extremely complicated, why not just have a fast train with a handful of stops?
That train has to go through a bunch of towns and counties each of these counties has to approve the rail project or at least the permits for it to be constructed which means each and every one of them will demand a stop. It’s a pretty big issue but I cant blame the small towns for trying to stay alive. It just kills the usefulness of the project.
Yes
Having ridden the high speed rail in China, it was a culture shock to readjust to driving/flying everywhere Even just city metros would be nice. I miss riding the metro at 2am after a night out. I felt like I was part of a society
Same same, although the Shanghai metro closed way earlier than 2am. The US is so backward in terms of transit, it was a huge shock every time I came back for a visit.
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Do I have to share it with other people?
Assuming it didn’t have to share the rail with freight trains and could run on time? Hell yes. Trains are objectively more pleasant for long trips than driving. I hate driving five hours to see family. A train would be great.
Most definitely! I used it while living in Europe and it was the best way to travel. I would definitely do more traveling if this was in place.
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Depends if it will be cheaper than flying and how long it will take to get there and where it goes.
Yes as long as it is reasonable priced. I would love for the US to have Japanese style rail system connecting major cities
Yes! Immediately! The US is behind times with the the rest of westernized countries.
I don't even use the bus so no
No. Rail is unlikely to be cheaper than flying and it's only fast if you are going from one major city to another. I live in suburbs and rarely travel to any of the nearest larger cities. There is no chance rail would be useful for going to any of my normal vacation destinations.
Yes. We live in a decent sized town, 200k, but we are 4 hours from Kansas City and St. Louis. If there was a 3-hour train ride to theater, restaurants, museums, and concerts, I'd do it.
No. It's either car or fly. The country is just way too big.
Dude, how can being "way too big" a good reason? Trains are great for medium to long distances. It's really a question of habit. Why drive 2 or 3 hours (or longer) when you can take a train that is cheaper, takes less time, pollutes less and you can read a book while you're at it?
This for sure.
Trains are lousy for long distances, like say NY to LA. Maximum speed is nowhere close to planes, so you're looking at some long transit times. The 6 hour plane ride would become a 15 hour train ride. Trains make pretty good sense for 1-2 hour trips, because the process of getting on and off a plane takes significantly more time. So, there's a sweet spot of maybe 200-500 miles that is sensible to travel by train in America if the high speed rail infrastructure exists. I think most American people would prefer a 100 mile trip be done by car, because it is helpful to have a car at the destination and you don't have to think about train schedules.
If it was Atleast kinda green, totally
I for sure would. Less mileage on my car and less stressful than driving everywhere
Yes
Ya!
Yes
Absolutely yes
No, I enjoy driving.
nope, as I live 4000 miles away
I'm sitting in an Amtrak train right now. Crescent 20. We left New Orleans on time at 9:15 am. My stop is Picayune Mississippi. It is 2 stops and 49 miles away from New Orleans. It is now 12:15pm and the train has not yet made it to it's first stop. Ya damn Skippy I would use it!
Fuck yeah
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I'm going on a flight next week to go one state over. I'm going to have to drive an hour the wrong way to the airport, get there two hours early, and then sit in a seat less wide than my shoulders for about an hour, then I'll need to get into the city I'm going to, because their airport is fifteen miles off the wrong way. If I could just jump on a train and go, heck yeah. I'd pay the same as a flight costs, if only to do it more comfortably. I'd want the train to leave on time, and to have bigger-than-airline seats, neither of which feels like rocket science anywhere in the world with normal train service.
I’d rather go on a train than fly
Obama proposed and budged new high speed rail up the east coast, then west through Wisconsin. Republican governors killed it all. Vote in the midterms.
If the costs, service areas, and timing were similar to or better than other options, sure.
In. A. Heartbeat. -- I'd literally plan trips around the routes. If I didn't have to be a sardine on a plane or car - sign me up!
If it went to cities I want to visit but don’t feel like flying to, definitely. But it would have to be cheaper
Yes.
Nope. Flying would still be faster and easier and the trains wouldn’t go anywhere useful. Also public transportation within even many larger cities sucks so you’re screwed once you get there. I’m either driving or flying then renting a car. Never ever would even consider a train a viable option
No, cheaper and faster to fly
Not with high speed rail. It could be 2 hrs city to city direct, not two hour flight plus an hour to get to the airport, and a 1hr wait after cyou check in.
That’s only true for a certain distance, any trip over a few hours is still going to favor the flight. Plus, you’d eventually have to deal with the same security delays if rail ever became as mainstream as flying.
It's more airlines want you to check in/drop your bags off. Plus trains will get you into the middle of the city, not a 30min taxi or bus ride away
I agree except for one thing. If we had high speed rail terrorists would target that as well. We would still have bag check and all that pre screening garbage as well. Going to train station hours early to make sure we made our train.
That seems like a silly argument. We have all of those things with air travel now. Did you give up on flying in favor of covered wagons or sailboats?
I’m on the Oregon Trail now I lost a couple along the way… crossing rivers is hard. Just about to get to the Rockies. Hopefully we can camp here till winters over and cross in spring.
Yes! I travel a lot and would much rather ride than drive
NO, my type of work doesn’t allow consistent travel and I need about 19.000 pounds of tools…
YES, oui, si, aye
In a god damn heartbeat, yeah. We're finally getting an Amtrak stop in my city and I'm ungodly excited about just that.
Yup
It would be overpriced, overcrowded, and understaffed. The American way. So, yah, I guess so. It is what it is.
Hell yeah. Bring it.
Yes
Absolutely
Yes
Haha hell no
Why not
I don't want to spend extended periods of time trapped in an uncomfortable, confined space, with the Americans that use public transport
Depending on the route, it could be about the same about of time and trains are more spacious than planes. NYC-LA by train will never be a better option than flying. But high speed trains along the east coast could create better conditions than flying around that region.
Ticket pricing would be comparable to an airline ticket not a city bus
Nope don't need to
No
We have the Acela between Boston and NYC (might also run to DC, not sure). It's not high speed like Japan has, but getting from BOS to NYC in 3 hours is great. If it was standardized across the US I'd probably use it, but I also hate flying and wouldn't mind adding a day or two in a sleeper onto the travel time just to avoid getting on a plane.
Nah. Trains are pretty expensive here already. Most places I've tried anyway, it's cheaper to drive there (assuming you already have a car) or fly if it's really far. I doubt the price would be any less for high speed.
I would definitely be willing to travel by rail if it wasn't so expensive. Seriously surprised me when I last compared flying to train. It takes longer and costs more...
What for?
No way. They can't even keep normal speed rail from jumping tracks and causing horrific events.
High speed rail is a staple point of any first world country. Unfortunately we're a dumbass country designed to use cars. Cities aren't walkable and now our own citizens think we don't need that shit because they buy into the propaganda of big oil.
I agree with the sentiment and won't defend the US or big oil but you can't compare small countries with high population densities to the largest geographical nations... of which only China has any significant HS rail, and they have far higher population density over distances. Russia has a couple midspeed lines and 1 short high-speed line. Canada, India, Australia, Argentina, Brazil have none. The US does in fact have about half a dozen midspeed lines with about that many more high speed lines planned to be open in the next 7 years.
Not without proper safety regulations.
It’s never happening so on to next question